O mito do “modelo sueco”

“Sweden’s Quiet Revolution” de Duncan Currie (National Review Online)

During the first half of the 20th century, Sweden benefited enormously from its non-participation in the two world wars, which devastated Europe’s major industrial powers. Blessed with abundant natural resources, it was a staunch defender of property rights and a robust advocate of free trade. Cultural homogeneity, a strong legal framework, and a lack of corruption promoted famously high levels of trust and social cohesion. Sweden had a welfare state, but it also had an open, free-market economy. “As late as 1950,” Norberg observed, “the total tax burden was no more than 21 percent of GDP, lower than in the United States and Western Europe.”

In other words, Sweden became a fantastically rich country before it started greatly boosting taxes, spending, and regulation during the 1970s. Cleveland Fed economist Emre Ergungor has noted that “the marginal income tax rate on full-time workers earning the average hourly wage increased from 35 percent in the second half of the 1960s to 65 percent in 1976.” Soaring taxes funded a dramatic expansion of government: The public sector accounted for 20 percent of total Swedish employment in 1965 and 38 percent in 1985.

Acerca do crescimento da extrema-direita na Europa

Editorial do Daily Telegraph

The rise of extremist sentiment has been fuelled by immigration and has been exacerbated by the economic crisis; when unemployment rises, so does anti-immigrant sentiment. Underlying it is an increasingly ugly strand of Islamophobia. What is most worrying, however, is the inability or unwillingness of mainstream political parties across Europe to confront these issues. As we have seen in this country, the refusal of the political establishment over many years to conduct a mature debate on immigration has played into the hands of the British National Party. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy is taking pre-emptive action against a resurgent National Front, which performed strongly in March’s regional elections, with his expulsion of illegal Roma immigrants. However, Europe’s leaders need to develop a more sophisticated approach to the many challenges posed by economic migration if the extremists are not to continue to prosper.

Ainda as eleições suecas

Johan Norbeg analisa o resultado da eleição de ontem:

First of all: This was a historical election in a good sense. Sweden has suffered its worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and has been reformed quite substantially, and yet the center-right (“Alliance”) government was re-elected with a bigger margin. (…) the Alliance increased its share of the votes from 48.2 to 49.3%, and the red-green opposition was reduced from 46 to 43.7%. The biggest loser is the Social Democrats. They used to be a 45%-party, but in 2006, they got 34.9% of the votes. This was considered a disaster, and the leader had to resign. Yesterday, they got 30.9% of the votes – their worst result ever.

E sobre o Sverigedemokraterna

But yesterday was also a sad day. The Alliance did not get a majority in parliament, they are two MPs short. A new anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, entered parliament with 5.7% of the votes. These are not normal right-wing populists with roots in an anti-tax, anti-establishment message, like Norway´s Fremskrittspartiet, for example. This is a party that was started in 1988, by people from different Swedish neo-nazi groups. As late as 1996 you could see prominent members dressing up in nazi uniforms and burning books by jewish authors.

This is an ugly, racist party that has done everything it can to hide its roots in the last few years and behave like a normal party, but it is still a rejection of everything that is different that motivates them, often in a nasty, aggressive way. And even according to their own description they are like Social Democrats when it comes to the welfare state, conservatives in social issues and nationalists when it comes to globalisation and immigration. As such, they are the opposite of everything classical liberals stand for, and it is a sad day indeed, that we have racists in parliament. Their presence will deepen conflicts and brutalise the debate.

Their result is also living proof that our integration policies have failed. The politicians who refuse to reform the labour market regulations that keep immigrants out of work have a responsibility for these consequences.

O avanço da extrema-direita sueca

O excelente resultado do Sverigedemokraterna (Democratas Suecos) nas eleições de ontem deve constituir um sério aviso para os partidos tradicionais. Ignorar os problemas do peso crescente da imigração muçulmana e dos problemas de assimilação destas comunidades apenas vai potenciar o crescimento deste tipo movimentos. Depois não se queixem…

(já agora, lendo a plataforma eleitoral do SD não me parece que este partido seja particularmente extremista – mas faço notar que pouco mais sei sobre ele)

A decadência da social-democracia

Suécia. Centro-direita reforça e assina vitória eleitoral histórica