- World World World
- Sweden Sweden Sweden
As Sweden prepares for its parliamentary elections on September 13, the expert in social democracy discusses the societal changes that have shaped Sweden since the 1990s.
Lire en françaisSubscribers only
Jenny Andersson is a professor of the history of ideas and sciences at Uppsala University in Sweden. Since 2020, she has led a program titled "Neoliberalism in the Nordics," which brings together researchers from eight universities in the region. She holds a doctorate in economic history, is a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research, and is affiliated with the Center for European Studies at Sciences Po in Paris.
A few days before Sweden's parliamentary elections on September 13, she discussed the main issues affecting Swedish society, from social inequalities to questions around migration.
Abroad, both on the right and the left, the Swedish political model has long been held up as an example. How do you explain this enthusiasm?
People have been talking about a model that has not existed for 20 years. It is a fantasy: People project on Sweden some kind of ideal based on pragmatism, supposedly able to reconcile innovative, advanced capitalism with a social model that promotes equality and inclusion. Yet this image does not reflect reality. Sweden is a country where inequality is growing, where very wealthy individuals avoid taxes, while part of the population lives in precarious conditions.
How did Sweden get to this point?
We need to go back to the 1990s and the severe crisis that hit Sweden. Some see it as the last major crisis of structural industrial capitalism, while others consider it one of the first contemporary financial crises. In any case, it triggered a profound shift in the Nordics, particularly in Sweden. Financial markets then became the new driving force of capitalism. Public companies were privatized, the welfare state was restructured, and public investment plummeted. Market logic was introduced into administrations and public services, including schools. The level of indexation for social transfers was revised downward, while many taxes were reduced or even scrapped.
Compared to other countries, Sweden took this neoliberal experiment much further. These reforms led to the current social situation. For a long time, the inequalities they created were overshadowed by a dramatic improvement in middle-class quality of life, fueled by bank loans. That is no longer the case.
You have 76.77% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
