Re: Sweden -- Some Local Color Please

[larson@xxxxxx (S R Larsson)]

>        Poverty, hunger, disease, drug addiction, crime,
>        union-busting, and business corruption, are major
>        conditions in the USA and can be read about in
>        any daily mainstream paper owned by rich elites.
>        It can be viewed by a visit to the nearest slum
>        or city school.  What about Sweden?

1. About 40% of the Swedish households live on $15,000 per annum net tax or
less. The median household in America lives on nearly $40,000. That's
pre-tax, but you don't pay Swedish taxes...
2. There are about 500 000 people in Sweden who, officially, have nothing
to live on. No welfare, no income, no transfers from the public sector. A
considerable number of them get regular meals from charity organiztions.
Many people living on welfare get so little they can't give their kids
three meals per day (this is a FACT).
3. People living on welfare are to an increasing extent being denied dental
care. Instead dentists simply pull the teeth out unless the patient is able
to pay for more expensive treatment. There are many known cases of medical
malpractice at hospitals due directly or indirectly to budget cutbacks. It
was recently estimated that hundreds of elderly people under public health
care simply starve to death every year because there is not staff enough to
help them eat. My wife works at an elderly care center and she can bear
daily witness about this phenomenon.
4. Drug abuse has exploded over the past few years. Teenagers smoke
heroine, take LSD and other heavy drugs to an extent never seen before.
5. The crime rate in Sweden has surged. Although some statistical bugs
makes it hard to compare directly, there was a study last year that placed
the number of crime victims in Sweden third among OECD countries, behind
England and the US. Teenage gangs drift around in downtowns, rob and steal
and behave like anti-social animals. In Gothenburg alone (a city of 450 000
plus suburbs) there are 500 robbery assaults on individuals per year in the
downtown area only.  Add to that what goes on in the gang-ruled housing
project suburbs...
6. There is not unino busting in Sweden. They don't need to bust unions.
They are proud of having contributed to low wages, "responsible" fiscal
policies (=heavy budget shlashing) and other features of modern Swedish
social and economic development.
7. I suppose it could be called business corruption when one family owns
all (yes, ALL) major export companies, pays for virtually all externally
financed research in economics and is eligible to frequent "secret"
meetings with the government.

>
>        If the DEGREE of human pain and social
>        pathology are substantially less in Sweden than
>        in the USA or UK, which is what all my friends
>        believe, then a neoliberal approach to global
>        competition is less to be condemned in Sweden
>        than otherwise.

Based on my brief sum-up above of the state of affairs in Sweden I think it
is obvious that the degree of human pain and social pathology is at least
as high in Sweden as in America. Higher, in fact: not only does the average
Swede enjoy a lower standard of living (somewhere about half of that in the
US) but he also sees less of a hope for change. Unemployment is still about
14% in Sweden - in America it is 5%.

>
>        Sven Robert sees a threat to Sweden's "team"
>        in the coming competition to produce the best
>        and enjoy a standard of living earned in a global
>        market.  Can Sven and Per paint us a picture,
>        not of the contest between left and right, but
>        of the outcomes to date in terms of life among
>        the lowest quintile in, say, Sweden, the USA,
>        the UK, and Germany.  This on the basis of
>        whatever visits they've made and the stuff they
>        read and believe -- real research is not asked
>        for at the moment.

I don't have the time for this at the moment, but it's an interesting idea.
I'll get back to it.


/srl

-----
Sven Robert Larsson
Address:        Roskilde University
                      Department of Social Sciences, Bldg 22.1
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