Michael Roberts: Sweden election today – no longer a ‘social democracy’

Today, Sunday, Sweden is holding a general election, but like most of Europe this once liberal nation has moved very far to the right

Michael Roberts is an Economist in the City of London and a prolific blogger .

Cross-posted from Michael Roberts’ blog

Photo: Screengrab

Sweden goes to the polls today in an extremely close general election that could see the far right enter government for the first time if the country’s rightwing parties can form a majority. However, opinion polls show the centre-left opposition alliance ahead, with Magdalena ⁠Andersson of the Social Democrats the favourite to become prime minister again after four years in opposition. But her bloc’s lead has narrowed considerably in the final days of the campaign.

In 2022, the current prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the centre-right Moderates, broke a longstanding taboo to make a deal with the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats (SD) , so that his minority coalition could form a government. That agreement gave the SD outsized influence over government policy, especially on crime and immigration, and Kristersson has now gone further, promising ministerial posts for the SD if he is returned to power. In an attempt to win back voters, Andersson’s Social Democrats have also moved to the right on crime, immigration and integration, meaning that a win for the left was unlikely to mean a reform of current hardline policies. In effect, as in Denmark, the Social Democrats have adopted the immigration policies of the right.

And they have supported the ending of Sweden’s longstanding ‘neutral’ policy in foreign affairs and have enthusiatically supported Sweden’s membership of NATO, becoming one of the most belligerent in supporting the continuation of the war in Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Indeed, the perceived ‘Russia threat’ of invading Europe is a theme of nearly all the Swedish political parties. Andersson told the FT that her top priorities in government were Ukraine and “intensifying co-operation” with European countries – apparently not the cost of living or economic issues.

It was an always illusion anyway about Sweden being the ‘third way’ between untrammelled free market capitalism and command economy autocratic Communism. The great gains of the Swedish labour movement in the early 20th century have steadily been reversed. Just as in other capitalist economies, the polices of neoliberalism – a reversion to free markets, low taxation for the rich and corporations, cuts in the welfare state and in real wages, rising inequality etc – have been operating in Sweden since the mid-1990s.

Sweden may still have a more ‘equal’ income distribution than the US and the UK, but it is still very unequal – and inequality has been rising the fastest since the 1990s of all advanced capitalist economies. The top 10% of Swedish income earners take home (after tax), 33% of all personal income while the bottom 50% share just 20%.

Wealth inequality is even worse. In 1980, the top 1% of personal wealth owners took 17.7% of all personal wealth; now they have 22.5%. The top 10% had 54.4% in 1980; now they have 68.2%. The bottom 50% of Swedes had just 13.4% of total personal wealth in 1980; now they have more debt than wealth at -10.9%!, such has been the rise in borrowing (mortgages etc)! – WID figures. In Sweden, like in most other Nordic countries, tax reforms over the 1990s have decreased the tax burden for wealthier households, e.g. by decreasing capital taxation and lowering or abandoning wealth taxation. At the same time, there have been cuts in welfare benefits for the poor.

Sweden is no longer an epitome of state provision. The country is one of the world leaders in having public services supplied by the private sector, paid for by the government. About one-third of all Swedish secondary schools are so-called ‘free schools’, with the majority of them run by for-profit companies, while about 40% of primary healthcare providers are privately owned. Their shares are even sold on the stock market. Public provision has been outsourced to the detriment of quality. Sweden’s schools have slipped from being one of the world’s best in international ratings to “one of the most mediocre”. The Social Democrats have long been against independent schools being able to make a profit and pay out dividends. But they have never been able to muster a majority to end this.

And then there is immigration. Over 600,000 immigrants from the Middle East have entered the country since the Syrian/Iraq disaster. Many immigrants are young single men and they have helped capitalist enterprises and the state sector overcome an acute labour shortage for low skilled work. But the amount of immigrants per head of population is way more than in any other European economy and it has increased pressure on those public services, already suffering from neo-liberal measures. The small towns in Sweden have experienced low wages, poorer services and then were faced with an influx of new immigrants. This was the breeding ground for the Democrats’ racist and nationalist message of ‘Sweden for Swedes’.

The rise of the Swedish Democrats follows t he pattern of so-called populism that we have seen in Germany, France, Italy, Denmark and other EU countries, as well as with Brexit in the UK and Trump in the US. It is the product of the failure of capitalism to deliver after the end of the Golden Age in the mid-1960s, but particularly after the global financial crash, the Great Recession and the ensuing Long Depression. Swedish capitalism, somewhat like Germany (only as a much smaller economy), has experienced a slowdown in economic growth in the last few decades and particularly since 2008.

Whichever political bloc – left or right – wins a majority in a new parliament, it will change little.

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