> [Chris] > Hello Krimel. It's depressing, but you are right. This kind of no-arguing, > I > imagine it makes me understand Lenin somewhat better.
> [Krimel] > Do you even have this kind of right wing wackos in Sweden? I always > thought > Scandinavians were saner than folks in most other places. [Chris] Oh, we have our few extremists here too, every country have I think, but in the real political debate, even the right wing parties and the Christian-democrats would be considered too far to the left were they to promote their agendas in America. The political climate or culture in a country has many different sources and roots, but the main theme in Scandinavian politics has been that of the development of a stable welfare state, in both Sweden, Denmark and Norway based on a broad cooperation between social democrats and agricultural-parties. Simply put, the development of the democratic system has for different reasons been one where the broad masses of the people have been a very active part in the formation of the state - especially during the 50's and 60's, and this has produced a tradition where the state is seen not as a unreachable, hostile entity, but a part of peoples lives that is natural. This I think, and many would agree, has to do with the democratic tradition. When the democratic tradition is a natural thing that reaches down through all of society to work at all levels people feel that they can affect the social patterns around them, and so this democratic tradition is quite probably the most important thing to explain the emergence of the Nordic Model. In the case of Sweden this tradition have suffered somewhat over the last 20 years or so, young people have lost interest, and don't feel connected or don't have faith in the system. Most probably this has an intimate connection with the unemployment rate, something that in turn is in direct relation to international business cycles , oil crisis etc. Thus people feel alienated and left out, and within the political Establishment argues over how to handle this; by regulating the market in the old fashioned way or by allowing more privatisation and liberal free market ways. Everybody is quite agreed about the need for moderation and balance though - you will find it very hard to find a real political party who wants to have a completely free market without welfare policies. Also I am inclined to agree with those analysis's who say that the youth today, having grown up within this system and not knowing it's historical development take it far too much for granted, and only when the current right wing government starts to change things around to much does people wake up and see all the things that has actually been built up during the years. That is just a personal parenthesis from my side though. - You have to forgive me if I bore you to death, the thing is that I have just been reading a lot about all of this, and I find it all quite interesting, and also useful to line things out like this. Regards Chris Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
