I seem to be unable to stop posting about the books attempting to understand where the left has gone wrong. For the moment let me mention three which caught my attention – with the first (and shorter) being my favourite
20th Century Socialism David Bowie (2022) Appealed by virtue of it being short (88 Pages) and a brief summary of 47 key
texts of the 20th century and 2 of the 21st. These range from Ramsay MacDonald
and Philip Snowden in the early 1900s through Tawney, Cripps, Strachey and Jay in the 1930s; Durbin and Laski in the 1940s; Perry Anderson in the 60s; Stuart Holland and Tony Benn in the 1970s to Hirst and Wainwright in the 1990s It’s OK to be Angry about Capitalism Bernie Sanders (2023) A little too US focused for me
The Age of Social Democracy – Norway and Sweden in the 20th Century Francis Sejersted (2011)
Sheri Berman has made a comparative analysis of the Social Democratic
movements in five European countries (Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and
Sweden) up to World War II. According to her, “social democracy emerged
out of a revision of orthodox Marxism.” The fact that this is the case in
these five countries is one of her reasons for choosing them. Among these
countries Sweden is the exception, as it was only in Sweden that Socialists
“were able to outmaneuver the radical right and cement a stable majority
coalition, escaping the collapse of the left and democracy that occurred
elsewhere in Europe.” Berman continues, “The key to understanding the
Swedish SAP’s [the Swedish Social Democratic Labor Party’s] remarkable
success in the interwar years lies in the triumph of democratic revisionism
several decades earlier.”
Berman identifies Sweden with Scandinavia. If she had considered Norway, she would have had to modify her conclusions, as we shall see. Norwegian Social Democrats clung to their Marxism for a long time but were nevertheless almost as successful as the Swedes.
Berman is certainly right in maintaining that Sweden became a model for
Western Europe after World War II, as the Western European countries were
developing the democratic mixed-economy welfare state as we know it.
Criticizing the common view that the mixed economies that emerged after
World War II were a modified version of liberalism, Berman writes that
“what spread like wildfire after the war was really something quite different: social democracy.”9 She argues convincingly that Social Democracy must be regarded as a separate order in its own right. But whether this view applies to all of Western Europe is another question. Tony Judt has a different take: the post–World War II history of Europe includes more than one “thematic shape,” and it was not until “the crab-like institutional extension of the European Community” that we can discern something like a “European model”—a model born “of an eclectic mix of Social Democratic and Christian Democratic legislation.”
The chapters are thus -
Introduction
The Many Faces of Modernization
The Scandinavian Solution
Three Phases
PART I 1905–1940: Growth and Social Integration
1 Dreaming the Land of the Future
Norsk Hydro
Science and Modernization
Industrialization, a Natural Process for Sweden
Norway Follows Hesitantly
Emigration and Industrialization
War and Structural Problems
2 National Integration and Democracy
The Question of Political Democracy in the Period around 1905
Mobilizing the Public
Training for Democracy
Toward an Integrated School System in Norway
Contrasting the Two Countries
Currents of Antiparliamentarianism
Farmers on the Offensive: Norway and Sweden
Women and Civil and Political Rights
3 Assistance for Self-Help
Health Insurance
National Pension Plans
Unemployment Insurance
Population Crisis?
The Politics of Sterilization
4 Revolution or Reform
Marxist Rhetoric and Reformist Practice
The Labor Movement and the Land Question
The Big Strike of 1909
The Level of Conflict Escalates
The Solidarity Game Is Established
Revolution or Reform
5 Distance and Proximity
World War I
An Expanded Home Market?
A Nordic Defense Alliance?
Part II 1940–1970: The Golden Age of Social Democracy
6 Cooperation in a Menacing World
The Cold War—Still Not the Same War?
A New Drive for a Nordic Customs Union
SAS: A Success Story
Cooperation in a Menacing World
7 “The Most Dynamic Force for Social Development”
Class Society in Transformation
The Vision of the Atomic Age
The Wallenberg System
Swedish and Norwegian Labor Market Policy
8 The Crowning Glory
Technocracy and the Welfare State
The Radicalism of the Myrdals
The Struggle over the Compulsory General Supplementary Pension (ATP)
Swedish Health Policy
Good Family Housing
9 What Kind of People Do We Need?
A Break with the Past?
What Kind of Equality?
Swedish and Norwegian University Reform
Church and Morals
10 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
The Struggle over the Planned Economy in the 2 countries
Corporatism and Economic Democracy
How Democratic?
Taxation Socialism
PART III 1970–2000: A Richer Reality
11 A Difficult Modernity
A Decade of Conflict
The Nordic Energy Market
Norway Becomes an Oil Nation
Sweden Loses Its Leading Position
12 What Happened to Economic Democracy?
Corporatism under Pressure
Self-determination
Wage Earner Funds—a Radical Move
State Ownership
13 From Equality to Freedom
The Welfare State under Pressure
From an Emigration Society to an Immigration Society
Toward the Two-Income Family
Gender Equality Lite
Toward the Dissolution of the Comprehensive School
14 The Return of Politics
A Weakened Party System
New Forms of Participation
The Media-Biased Society
The Decay of the General Public?
15 The Last “Soviet States”?
The Volvo Agreement: Another Unsuccessful Campaign
Toward a Nordic Economic Region?
Europe
Why Did Sweden Reverse Its Policy on Europe?
AFTER SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: Toward New Social Structures?
A Success—but Not Exclusively So
Social Democracy’s Liberal Inheritance
The Institutional Structures under Pressure
The Freedom and Rights Revolution
What Kind of Freedom?
No comments:
Post a Comment