How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’
indypendent.org
indypendent.org
Yeah, but we replaced them with a new 1%. Until recently, Sweden basically had an aristocratic caste consisting of the inner party of the Social Democrats, the labor leaders, the head editors of the major newspapers, etc. Basically a clique of people doing deals behind closed doors and having their own shared mythology/worldview as well as exclusive channels to the populace.
In the last 6 years, Sweden has been going through a transition phase where the assumptions of the last 70 years are being challenged. For instance, many social democrats considered the elections of 2006 and 2010 to be something of a coup d'etat (because they broke 70 years of near total domination by their party). Another big change is the increasing fragmentation of the media - the "gammelmedia" (old media) no longer holds a monopoly on information.
I am not dissing the social democrats - they were a clear improvement on the previous feudal system - but they've become stale and out of touch IMHO. As an example there is still no insight into how they pick their party leaders. A new one was just announced today, and no one really knows how that decision was reached. It's not like in the US, where people can actually have some choice of candidates for Presidency.
This appears to be what Stieg Larsson touched on in his "Dragon" (U.S. title) / "The Girl..." books. For example, his partner (in various senses), Erika, is described as 'upper class' and coming from a privileged background.
Is Larsson's descriptive language the same sort of thing you're describing?
One reason I enjoyed those books: Some feeling for the contemporary setting and society.
The author writes: "I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing." I'm curious as to which city that was, and what route was taken. The concrete suburbs created by the Miljonprogrammet (eg, Angered in Gothenburg) are, perhaps not substandard, but definitely low status, with many immigrants, high unemployment and crime, and the buildings look ugly.
As the article doesn't mention these, the author comes across as using rose-colored glasses to interpret Swedish history. I point as well to the lasting effects of the strong labor and pro-99%'er movement in the US in the early 1900s, leading to everything from the 40-hour work weeks to woman's voting rights to the FDA to the FDIC. This is similar to what was going in Sweden at the same time. Using the same pair of glasses I would say it lead to the rise of the middle class in the US later in that century.