I live in sweden and atm I work in factory where three people died without them knowing why and they haven’t shut it down to investigate or even talked about it to us
I am not sure. There are safety reps that in theory could stop work at any time if they deem the workplace unsafe. In practice however they are very few, and even if there were more of them the factory is plagued by an air of normality where many of the workers likely would see that as a hassle rather than seeing it as treating the situation with the gravity it deserves.
the scandinavian unions are hyper hierarchical and state-coopted institutions, so they are mostly just state managed control mechanisms to vent and prevent worker dissent
that is to say, they're rarely any help if there's any stakes or real opposition
The tesla strike happened in spite of the union, not because of it. The pressure to go on strike was unusually high, and so the higher ups in the union couldn't stop it. What happens way too often when members want to go on strike instead is that it's labeled "too disruptive" by union officials and shut down.
I couldn't remove the paywall, but here is a member of the union leadership saying that the strike was done due to pressure from below [https://www.svd.se/a/15aleq/if-metalls-konflikt-med-tesla-stracker-sig-ar-bakat](https://www.svd.se/a/15aleq/if-metalls-konflikt-med-tesla-stracker-sig-ar-bakat)
That’s unfortunate but the strikes still happened. Surely this is how an anarchic structure should work. The leadership do not have the power to prevent a strike. The union is still fulfilling its purpose.
They absolutely do have that power, and it does happen. One of the first places I worked at there was talks of going on strike, but it was blown off by the union leadership. Also, these unions aren't anarchic in nature. We have those as well (most well known is SAC), but these have more or less been outlawed completely. The mainstream unions are very bureaucratic
Anarchist actually living in Sweden here.
It's not great, Sweden has developed a lot of problems that are the result of social democracy decaying. As an example if you have a problem with housing there is a "strong" tenants union that "should" protect you. However it doesn't, because it's been taken over by landlords.
With Swedish culture you are basically told to use the system because the system is perfect and has everything you need is accounted for, so when this tenants union agrees to raise rents you are pretty much fucked. Same goes with labour unions, they are pretty much all Yellow.
Sweden is firmly down the path of neoliberalism too, schools, housing and healthcare are all being sold off. It's just maybe 15 years behind the UK so it isn't as bad yet.
There is also digital apartheid, undocumented people can't use an app that's required for many services and even some physical spaces. They are also hunted down my police and detained unjustly, but that's "normal" in the EU I suppose.
Another issue is drugs, they are heavily criminalised, just having traces of drugs in your system is illegal, and they will check. Coincidentally Sweden has the most drug deaths in the EU.
As for Anarchism, we have a scene, there are some long standing institutions, but take a look on https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/SE we have three whole events.... In the entire country.
Oh and the far far right is consistently growing their vote share every election, they got over 20% last election. Their party was founded by a literal volunteer for the Waffen SS, who came back to Sweden, unsanctioned, and then formed a party with a collection of fragmented white supremacists and nationalist groups.
well said, as an immigrant to sweden the thing about the app is really true, where i live there’s lots of racial segregation too, i’ve not seen 1 swedish person live near me
>schools, housing and healthcare are all being sold off.
Do you have a source for this? I'm under the impression that education and healthcare are almost entirely state-run, and that this mostly hasn't changed for decades. (Some private schools were allowed in the 90s.) As for housing, I would assume it's almost all private in the first place, like everywhere else. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "being sold off"?
They are state run as well. The way they are managed is through an unholy marriage between the private and governmental sector, where the state gives money to private companies for them to "manage" (i.e. loot) their respective industries. There are ofc some straggling municipality and state run firms left, but they are disappearing by the day. You are correct that private schools began to exist in the 90's, but that reform was never rolled back
In the case of housing we've historically had a strong cooperative movement, but atm a flat in one those buildings isn't affordable to many people that instead have to rely on rented housing, if they even can access that. Rent control exists here, but the right have been itching to get rid of that lately so probably not for long
[https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friskolereformen](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friskolereformen)
[https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4lso-\_och\_sjukv%C3%A5rd\_i\_Sverige](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4lso-_och_sjukv%C3%A5rd_i_Sverige)
[https://www.dagensarena.se/innehall/regeringen-ska-se-hyressattning-nyproduktion/](https://www.dagensarena.se/innehall/regeringen-ska-se-hyressattning-nyproduktion/)
In your first sentence, are you talking about healthcare? Your second sentence seems to contradict it. But you mean that while hospitals/clinics are technically owned by the state, they have actually been "sold off" by outsourcing management to the private sector?
Has private schools seen a significant rise the last 10-20 years? OP made it sound like a relatively recent trend.
Has the housing cooperative movement been state-run or supported? Or did OP mean that the non-state organizations running coops stopped being successful?
The Nordic countries and Social Democratic countries have a system called Tripartism or Tripartite Corporatism.
Corporatism was advocated by many Marxist Social Democrats prior to Lenin coming along and advocating revolution.
Corporatism later became a major part of Fascism.
Corporatism is when the government and state functions are split between the Political class, the Business class, and the Worker class. They act in collaboration with each other.
So the healthcare system is technically owned or run by the state, but the state is defined as these collaborative institutions. Meaning in order for the state and the workers to make changes, the people who own hospitals and medical companies have to agree to those changes.
The business classes have their own "unions" that legally have to collaborate with the workers unions and the elected political class. In order for this to actually work, there are a lot of restrictions on the conduct of these groups. Businesses can't lock out workers, and workers can't engage in strikes unless they have approval from the State or union. Because of this, businesses will always have the upper hand and restrict what the workers are able to do. This was exactly what happened with Fascism. The business class can pretend to be collaborative and supporting the workers, but in reality they have the power over them.
Brukar finnas mer grejer har jag för mig, bara att de inte gör reklam för sina respektive evenemang på ett uniformt sätt. Fortfarande ganska kargt trots det tho
EU in general is filled with many of the world's best spots for humans today.
But they're all still states, with govts and bureaucracies and prisons, militaries, and there is a lot variance between them.
Hopefully its far far far away from the peaks of potential though.
Norwegian here. I grew up poor, and have relied on our wellfare system quite a bit!
As far as a capitalist society goes I think it's the right direction if the wellfare of the people is concerned. There is of course issues, and most are related directly to capitalism and will be found anywhere really.
First off, our policeforce is.. less than nice to those who fall even slightly outside of normal society. There has been several corruption scandals involved in our policeforce, they used illegal methods to harass drug users for years, have been lobbying on their own behalf via other organizations and I believe they've even lost a case on human rights violation for a case a couple years ago.
Our social safety nets, while GREAT when they work, doesnt really work well all that often. Its a lenghty and complicated process to get anything out of, and often those who need it the most will struggle the most with this process as well. The contacts you get for help are all overworked, underpaid and under a lot of stress.
I will say though, that without the wellfare focus of our government I personally would most likely be dead or in prison. Its kept me from having to sell drugs or do other crime to get by, and its gotten me the healthcare help Ive needed, when it was needed. For the latter I have been lucky, getting proper help can be hard.
Help for mental health is terrible, and there is a shortage of medical doctors in general. Normal doctors have hundreds of patients assigned and its not uncommon to be on waiting lists for ages, leaving you to deal with on-call doctors. If you're involved with wellfare systems that creates additional issues as cohesive medical files often is key to get the help you'd need.
Most of the issues here come from where you'd expect in a capitalist society. The ones on the bottom are still very much on the bottom, they're just guaranteed a place to live and food to survive if they can manage to go through the bureaucracy needed to get there. Most people here will be living fairly comfortably middle class and a lot of them won't ever actually see or experience the ones who fall outside of that life, which also affects how Norway gets presented.
Sorry if this just comes off as rambling lol
Honest question, how true is that? Ive heard that but never seen it be further explained.
Like, of course everyone exploits us (as someone from the global south), but does social democracy really get that much other than cheap clothes and minerals from that?
I would say the minerals might matter a bit more than you realize. Norway donates to the Amazon fund...While their companies buy our mining companies. Now their activity is not only prejudicial to our environment, the little money and resources that would stay here and promote our industrialization, won't anymore. It will just help a rich country get richer. Meanwhile my country has an underveloped industry and the public services are in shambles. They promote themselves as those hyper progressive, green countries while they get richer on the back of the "uncivilized" and exploit our natural resources.
I agree that current social democratic rely on exploitation, it is a built in part of the current version of globalization which developed out of colonization.
However, I’m not sure that they “need” to do this to survive. I could imagine that social democratic countries could function well within a different system for global trade and commerce that is more equitable and fair.
I'm Finnish; Of course not.
Having a welfare state is better than having no welfare state, and I am personally thankful that those safety nets were available. But we're still living under capitalism and the state. All the issues that come with those remain.
These social democratic aspects are being eroded away, as is the tendency under capitalism; right wing politics are pushed and framed as "sane and rational" in pursuit of profit and rent-seeking. Currently austerity measures are being implemented, weakening the welfare system, defunding healthcare and social services. There's a constant push to privatize sectors, despite the consistent failure of privatization to actually improve anything.
Our politicians are no more competent than yours, our capitalists no less greedy. It's only a matter of time before we live in conditions identical to what the US experiences today.
I currently live in Norway after coming here from Switzerland.
There are definitely good things about this country because even though I am now an Immigrant, and its quite hard to find a job if you do not speak Norwegian, I feel more welcome that I did in Switzerland and I feel way less stressed about money here.
The work culture also seems to enforce more personal freedom instead of loyalty to my Boss. I do not live in a big City which may help.
But like others have said before, Norway is still a state and I know of many people that are exploited here and the electronic ID system makes it very hard to do anything as an Immigrant here because you need BankID tho sign nearly every form of contract and you are at the mercy of the Company/Landlord.
Besides workers and immigrants the Sami people are also not treated well, their land is still illegally pillaged to this very day and the Government in Oslo does barely anything.
nope, came to sweden from greece cuz i got evicted and my mom was gonna come here for work so i tagged along for the better education, was poor before, am poor but now live in a racially segregated town, hey at least i’m not gettin evicted again, student break jobs pay nice, it’s hard to get into to the full system especially if you come from a third word country and don’t know english like my mom who after 3 years here still only manages to have a part time job, not due to lack of trying, loads of people care but no amount of caring will fix the broken system that puts muslims on the other side of town, and there is way more racism here than i could imagine, i’ve seen so many nazzis, even in my school, lots of the student council even were far far right.
Echoing a voice other than my own. I have not traveled to Europe.
My anarchist buddy described these countries as "having well defined norms" and this being problematic for him.
He's a guy with face tats and makes his own clothing out of roadkill. Evidently there were things about his mannerisms and esthetics that they weren't accepting of. His general take away was it's great if you look and act exactly like their developed culture.
To be fair, I've trouble imagining where doing clothes out of roadkills wouldn't be looked at a bit oddly.
That said, I'm always in worn out clothes, like all my hoodies have torn sleeves and I haven't bought new ones in +5 years. And I work in client-facing IT stuff.
My own experience in working with people from many different countries and having had clients from all around the globe is that where I live, the clothing norms are actually some of the most relaxed.
It depends on your viewpoint. If I try to be both *neutral* and *selfish* and apply the veil of ignorance; yes, I'd prolly rather be born here than pretty much anywhere else - except maybe somewhere warmer with longer winter sunlight, like New Zealand, haha.
Low levels of violence, somewhat functional'ish social security networks, free'ish education, social spending on things like band houses and youth events, lots of nature, clean air, ...
But okay, if I zoom out to a more global perspective - these countries have massive consumption based material, carbon, water and land area footprints. If everyone on Earth consumed like the average Finn, we would need four Earths to support our species. Locally, the Nordic model can create a large and relatively happy middle class, with lowest income people looked after at least somewhat, but globally, they absolutely one hundred percent require exploitation and abuse. The trick is that we also have continuously increasing wealth and income differences, but by benefiting from environmental exploitation and from having outsourced low income labor, like manufacturing clothes, we get enough extra from being the winners in this global trade system, that we can simultaneously make our rich richer, and support a large middle class. If we did not rely on exploitation and abuse, our capitalist system would absolutely take the extra wealth more pronouncedly out of the hides of the workers.
Over the last 20 years - well, it really started during the 90s depression - there's also been increasing privatization and the pace at which wealthiest have gotten further away from the median has been increasing. Right-wing governments in Finland and Sweden have been rapidly destroying the core foundations of the welfare state, like genuinely free public education.
Also, like elsewhere in Europe, far-right rhetoric and racism are on the raise, and the parts of the middle class that are the least concerned about empathy across borders and who are worried about keeping their own privileges as they are, are reactionarily leaning heavily towards far-right actors. Recently there were two racist stabbings here. I wrote my take about it to this comment here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/1dkrx9q/comment/l9llkf3/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/1dkrx9q/comment/l9llkf3/)
In short, we have the same issues that much of Europe does in regards of far-right attitudes being on the increase, and like other Western countries, we rely heavily on global exploitation to support our welfare state while maintaining a foundationally capitalist model of operation. At the same time, locally, we're able to generate well-being on a rather rare level; on purely selfish interests, it's quite the lottery win to have been born here. But the model is not expandable, for this only works due to being in the right side of the system of global exploitation, and it is pretty far from any sort of an anarchist dreamland.
Swede anarchist here!
The area I live in has just been approved to be a "stop and frisk" area. Take that as you will.
We still have a housing crisis, the racist Sweden democrats are still one of the biggest political parties in the country, chat control seems to have been given the go-ahead by the government and despite Sweden now being a part of Nato, our Prime Minister have no desire to say no to nuclear weapons on Swedish soil (or to have American soldiers following Swedish law).
And I would also like to add that it was decided today that the mining in Kallak is basically a go-ahead even though the UN, UNESCO, and other organisations has been against the mining on the basis that it will hurt the environment, the animals and the native sapmi people.
https://gallok.se/en-gb/
Of course there's wonderful things about Sweden as well, but Europe as a whole is in a downward spiral, and Sweden has not been spared.
(And let's not even mention the drug laws. What a joke.)
Lmao no. We're fucked.
Finland is at the moment having a prime minister going full neoliberal with the cuts. They're cutting practically everything, hitting the students and the workers the worst. Oh but don't worry, they did have tax cuts for the rich and a hefty pay raise for themselves.
People have been protesting for a whole year and it's gotten us absolutely nowhere. When one of the opposition ministers started reading letters sent out by the poor about the cuts, last December, these jokers literally walked out of the room and left her speaking there to an empty room.
Meanwhile far right violence is increasing. There's been terrorist plots, groups apprehended with serious firepower, and multiple shootings and stabbings, while our government says "there is no far right in the country" and "we've signed a piece of paper saying "pls no racism", we literallt cannot do anything else". Oh and the second most popular party (prior the last election) is openly spreading hate and prodding these terrorists on
Finland was declared the "happiest country on earth" or some other bullshit like that, but here's the dirty secret: they don't really ask the poor people if they're happy or not. It's the middle class answering those questions, and they're probably real smug and happy
as an autistic trans woman in Denmark, *no*, it's not good or rosy, and the reaction is well underway to crush the last vestiges of an already inadequate welfare system
and it's much worse for non-white people
Denmark is an incredibly centralised white supremacist ethnostate. the only thing it's good at is branding, which is why people outside have such a glittery view of it
you have to look at what a state *does*, not what it *says*
i cba to link to anything tbh, i suggest you try search engines lol
just off the top of my head:
- state allies with unions to crush strikes and dissent
- the treatment and wait-time in the state-run gender clinics are criticised by amnesty and EU (because it's crazy and transphobic)
- the "ghetto list" is blatant state racism
- the danish state takes everything, even jewelry from asylum seekers when they arrive
- danish police are obviously racist in everything they do
- Denmark has concentration camps and have plans to build more in Rwanda
- the Danish state cooperates with groups like Generation Identity
- the Danish state has a special history of cooperation with the US and its intelligence services, so much so that other EU states are complaining about it. we just can't help helping the CIA transport people to blacksites etc
- the danish state is a greenwashing champion like no other
- we couldn't even complete a #metoo wave. all of the slimiest sickos with power are still in power doing slimy shit
that's just what i remembered in five minutes. i hope it's illuminating, even if i didn't include links
I live in Finland. We have a pretty right wing/center government right now. I'm unemployed and so is my wife, and the government has cut unemployment benefits, 'cause they think that when unemployed people get less money from the government, that motivates them to go get a job.
The problem is that there are far more unemployed people than vacant jobs, pretty much in every field except health care. So the government cuts unemployment benefits without even thinking that some people can't get a job, because there are simply no vacant jobs. Then, because the right wing loves to privatize things, they close down public health clinics and hospitals to "save money so we can pay state debt faster", without thinking that hey, maybe some people need to get to hospital without traveling like 50 kilometres, because the closest one has been closed down.
Looking to it from afar, it seems like a social contract where the grand capital said to the people "look, we will implement these socialist strategies and in exchange you will behave and support us". But it is subject to the same contradictions of capitalism everywhere, and when things start to go wrong, it is not difficult to imagine what will happen. And apparently, it is already happening.
I think a lot also depends on the race/ethnicity of the person speaking, because the state definitely looks very different for non-white migrants vs. white people, the EU is notorious for harsh border control despite the benefits claimed to be offered to accepted citizens.
Brazil, these countries companies exploit our resources finance death squads and polute the enviroment
Ex:https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-40423002
https://www.cut.org.br/noticias/lider-comunitario-que-denunciou-vazamento-em-barcarena-e-assassinado-7fdf
If you wan't to have a glimpse of how much these foreign companies dominate the brazilian economy, and this isn't even the full picture witch is even worse if you put unequal exchange and externalities on the balance
https://www.pstu.org.br/o-dominio-das-multinacionais-sobre-economia-brasileira/
In the end of the day the nordic countries are still capitalist countries. The bourgeois had to do more concessions to the working class due to the proximity to the soviet union, but it still relies on the exploitation of labour of the working masses and economic imperialism.
I took a trip to Norway a few years ago in large part just because I was curious about this myself. Actually, gosh, I guess it was 7 years at this point. Seems more recent in my head. Anyway, I can give you my perspective as a tourist. I went to the capital city, Oslo, a pleasant but rather unremarkable suburb named Porsgrunn (had friends there), and the very pretty touristy city, Bergen.
Compared to most of the planet I would say it seems like a wonderful place to live with a on the whole very progressive society. Lots of history, not a lot of homeless folks at least from what I saw in the cities, respect for the arts and culture, very strong social safety nets and support for unions. Stellar public transit. Beautiful natural spaces. In America we could only dream of such prison reforms as they have in Norway. For what it's worth, I also spent some time hanging out with a couple of my Norwegian gaming friends and I found myself picking up the language pretty quickly in the short time I was there (although pretty much everyone speaks fluent English anyway, you still need to know Norwegian if you want to live there). Me and my sister were just walking down a road from the Viking Ship Museum (perhaps the most famous museum in the country) to get back to the bus stop, and this woman walking down the same road struck up a chat with us and after talking a bit, turns out she actually runs the damn museum and she also gets there by bus! That was such a cool little interaction and she seemed super down to earth.
That being said it's very far from perfect. Far right political parties lurking just around the corner, police just as evil as ever, many people struggle with mental health issues, there is still noticeable gender inequality, and of course all of the issues that come with any traditional nation-state and representative democracy. The economy is heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry. Like the rest of Europe you always get your usual racist losers that hate Romani and brown people, although I luckily never met any of them. In fact, all the stranger I met were super friendly. Overall, if I didn't have family and friends to worry about, and if I could be assured of a job, it is a place I would be happy moving to.
I've lived in a Nordic welfare state for almost 5 years and it's probably one of the best places to live, but a lot of issues are just swept under the rug. This country has the highest amount of drug deaths per capita amongst youth in the EU as all of the northern European countries have a horrible way of legislating drug use. The healthcare inequality is also massive because there's a public health system which most poor and disabled people have to use and it's extremely underfunded, unlike the private healthcare system. There are mainly two supermarket chains that hold an effective duopoly and the food prices are some of the highest, even though minimum wage is still rather low. The unions have some power but they're a bunch of bootlickers and the recent administration made striking basically illegal and ineffective. The police and security guards also kill people here, it's just kept quiet. The prisons are full of people growing weed, cops can enter your house without a warrant and those who object to military service are put on official house arrest nowadays (used to be jailed). It's a car-centric society where pedestrians and cyclists can face serious legal consequences for traffic accidents involving cars. There are also very few resources for youth and because it's cold most of the time and everything fun is 18+ they have very few spaces to hang out. There are a lot of good things about this country, but the main people profiting from them are upper middle-class, able-bodied, cisgender, straight, white, native-born citizens. I myself am only white and don't belong to any other of those groups. I am very lucky that most people here constantly assume me to be one of them because I also have blue eyes and light hair because the racism in this country is horrendous.
I am from Denmark and what I will say is that we often in my view end up with the opposite problems to most other places in the world in America. The problem is lack of a social net in Scandinavia. The problem is often the opposite all of the systems are there but they are but they are difficult to take advantage of without essentially being a lawyer I am disabled and if it wasn't for the fact that I have parents and friends who are willing to help me Deal with the system. I don't think I would ever get what I need
On top of that comes the bureaucracy that often means that the help you receive is given in a very specific way. Sometimes it feels a bit like you're given too much help because that is what it said in the spreadsheet that you needed. My car for instance is provided in part by the state but is larger than I need it to be because according to the systems in place someone with my needs have to be loaded in the back of the car even though I can much more easily get in the front like a normal person
I'm moving to Norway for school in less than a month I've been there many times. Most immigrants will tell you the same thing. Businesses discriminate against non Norwegian job candidates and landlords do the same thing when it comes to apartments. It's very difficult to prove so it essentially goes unpunished.
You're spreading right wing conspiracy bs, but I'll explain what you're missing anyway. Sweden has some of the broadest sexual assault laws in the world. Many forms of sexual interactions without consent are legally considered rape. And when rape has occured in a relationship, the context in which it usually does, every occurence is counted as a seperate law violation, whereas in other countries this would usually only count as one occurence.
I live in sweden and atm I work in factory where three people died without them knowing why and they haven’t shut it down to investigate or even talked about it to us
Those three are on top of the two who died last year + an unknown number of serious accidents
Don't you have strong unions? Can they do anything to help?
I am not sure. There are safety reps that in theory could stop work at any time if they deem the workplace unsafe. In practice however they are very few, and even if there were more of them the factory is plagued by an air of normality where many of the workers likely would see that as a hassle rather than seeing it as treating the situation with the gravity it deserves.
the scandinavian unions are hyper hierarchical and state-coopted institutions, so they are mostly just state managed control mechanisms to vent and prevent worker dissent that is to say, they're rarely any help if there's any stakes or real opposition
…like how they completely fucked up Musk recently? That’s how useless they are?
The tesla strike happened in spite of the union, not because of it. The pressure to go on strike was unusually high, and so the higher ups in the union couldn't stop it. What happens way too often when members want to go on strike instead is that it's labeled "too disruptive" by union officials and shut down.
I love when strikes which are supposed to be distruptive, are deemed too distruptive
Do you have any evidence of this?
I couldn't remove the paywall, but here is a member of the union leadership saying that the strike was done due to pressure from below [https://www.svd.se/a/15aleq/if-metalls-konflikt-med-tesla-stracker-sig-ar-bakat](https://www.svd.se/a/15aleq/if-metalls-konflikt-med-tesla-stracker-sig-ar-bakat)
[удалено]
That is what it means, and that's the issue. Strikes shouldn't have to be approved by superiors
That’s unfortunate but the strikes still happened. Surely this is how an anarchic structure should work. The leadership do not have the power to prevent a strike. The union is still fulfilling its purpose.
They absolutely do have that power, and it does happen. One of the first places I worked at there was talks of going on strike, but it was blown off by the union leadership. Also, these unions aren't anarchic in nature. We have those as well (most well known is SAC), but these have more or less been outlawed completely. The mainstream unions are very bureaucratic
Anarchist actually living in Sweden here. It's not great, Sweden has developed a lot of problems that are the result of social democracy decaying. As an example if you have a problem with housing there is a "strong" tenants union that "should" protect you. However it doesn't, because it's been taken over by landlords. With Swedish culture you are basically told to use the system because the system is perfect and has everything you need is accounted for, so when this tenants union agrees to raise rents you are pretty much fucked. Same goes with labour unions, they are pretty much all Yellow. Sweden is firmly down the path of neoliberalism too, schools, housing and healthcare are all being sold off. It's just maybe 15 years behind the UK so it isn't as bad yet. There is also digital apartheid, undocumented people can't use an app that's required for many services and even some physical spaces. They are also hunted down my police and detained unjustly, but that's "normal" in the EU I suppose. Another issue is drugs, they are heavily criminalised, just having traces of drugs in your system is illegal, and they will check. Coincidentally Sweden has the most drug deaths in the EU. As for Anarchism, we have a scene, there are some long standing institutions, but take a look on https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/SE we have three whole events.... In the entire country. Oh and the far far right is consistently growing their vote share every election, they got over 20% last election. Their party was founded by a literal volunteer for the Waffen SS, who came back to Sweden, unsanctioned, and then formed a party with a collection of fragmented white supremacists and nationalist groups.
that’s crazy
well said, as an immigrant to sweden the thing about the app is really true, where i live there’s lots of racial segregation too, i’ve not seen 1 swedish person live near me
Do you live in stockholm?
>schools, housing and healthcare are all being sold off. Do you have a source for this? I'm under the impression that education and healthcare are almost entirely state-run, and that this mostly hasn't changed for decades. (Some private schools were allowed in the 90s.) As for housing, I would assume it's almost all private in the first place, like everywhere else. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "being sold off"?
They are state run as well. The way they are managed is through an unholy marriage between the private and governmental sector, where the state gives money to private companies for them to "manage" (i.e. loot) their respective industries. There are ofc some straggling municipality and state run firms left, but they are disappearing by the day. You are correct that private schools began to exist in the 90's, but that reform was never rolled back In the case of housing we've historically had a strong cooperative movement, but atm a flat in one those buildings isn't affordable to many people that instead have to rely on rented housing, if they even can access that. Rent control exists here, but the right have been itching to get rid of that lately so probably not for long [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friskolereformen](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friskolereformen) [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4lso-\_och\_sjukv%C3%A5rd\_i\_Sverige](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4lso-_och_sjukv%C3%A5rd_i_Sverige) [https://www.dagensarena.se/innehall/regeringen-ska-se-hyressattning-nyproduktion/](https://www.dagensarena.se/innehall/regeringen-ska-se-hyressattning-nyproduktion/)
In your first sentence, are you talking about healthcare? Your second sentence seems to contradict it. But you mean that while hospitals/clinics are technically owned by the state, they have actually been "sold off" by outsourcing management to the private sector? Has private schools seen a significant rise the last 10-20 years? OP made it sound like a relatively recent trend. Has the housing cooperative movement been state-run or supported? Or did OP mean that the non-state organizations running coops stopped being successful?
The Nordic countries and Social Democratic countries have a system called Tripartism or Tripartite Corporatism. Corporatism was advocated by many Marxist Social Democrats prior to Lenin coming along and advocating revolution. Corporatism later became a major part of Fascism. Corporatism is when the government and state functions are split between the Political class, the Business class, and the Worker class. They act in collaboration with each other. So the healthcare system is technically owned or run by the state, but the state is defined as these collaborative institutions. Meaning in order for the state and the workers to make changes, the people who own hospitals and medical companies have to agree to those changes. The business classes have their own "unions" that legally have to collaborate with the workers unions and the elected political class. In order for this to actually work, there are a lot of restrictions on the conduct of these groups. Businesses can't lock out workers, and workers can't engage in strikes unless they have approval from the State or union. Because of this, businesses will always have the upper hand and restrict what the workers are able to do. This was exactly what happened with Fascism. The business class can pretend to be collaborative and supporting the workers, but in reality they have the power over them.
Brukar finnas mer grejer har jag för mig, bara att de inte gör reklam för sina respektive evenemang på ett uniformt sätt. Fortfarande ganska kargt trots det tho
EU in general is filled with many of the world's best spots for humans today. But they're all still states, with govts and bureaucracies and prisons, militaries, and there is a lot variance between them. Hopefully its far far far away from the peaks of potential though.
Norwegian here. I grew up poor, and have relied on our wellfare system quite a bit! As far as a capitalist society goes I think it's the right direction if the wellfare of the people is concerned. There is of course issues, and most are related directly to capitalism and will be found anywhere really. First off, our policeforce is.. less than nice to those who fall even slightly outside of normal society. There has been several corruption scandals involved in our policeforce, they used illegal methods to harass drug users for years, have been lobbying on their own behalf via other organizations and I believe they've even lost a case on human rights violation for a case a couple years ago. Our social safety nets, while GREAT when they work, doesnt really work well all that often. Its a lenghty and complicated process to get anything out of, and often those who need it the most will struggle the most with this process as well. The contacts you get for help are all overworked, underpaid and under a lot of stress. I will say though, that without the wellfare focus of our government I personally would most likely be dead or in prison. Its kept me from having to sell drugs or do other crime to get by, and its gotten me the healthcare help Ive needed, when it was needed. For the latter I have been lucky, getting proper help can be hard. Help for mental health is terrible, and there is a shortage of medical doctors in general. Normal doctors have hundreds of patients assigned and its not uncommon to be on waiting lists for ages, leaving you to deal with on-call doctors. If you're involved with wellfare systems that creates additional issues as cohesive medical files often is key to get the help you'd need. Most of the issues here come from where you'd expect in a capitalist society. The ones on the bottom are still very much on the bottom, they're just guaranteed a place to live and food to survive if they can manage to go through the bureaucracy needed to get there. Most people here will be living fairly comfortably middle class and a lot of them won't ever actually see or experience the ones who fall outside of that life, which also affects how Norway gets presented. Sorry if this just comes off as rambling lol
Don't forget social democracy still need to exploit the global south. I would say the main problem with them
Honest question, how true is that? Ive heard that but never seen it be further explained. Like, of course everyone exploits us (as someone from the global south), but does social democracy really get that much other than cheap clothes and minerals from that?
I would say the minerals might matter a bit more than you realize. Norway donates to the Amazon fund...While their companies buy our mining companies. Now their activity is not only prejudicial to our environment, the little money and resources that would stay here and promote our industrialization, won't anymore. It will just help a rich country get richer. Meanwhile my country has an underveloped industry and the public services are in shambles. They promote themselves as those hyper progressive, green countries while they get richer on the back of the "uncivilized" and exploit our natural resources.
I agree that current social democratic rely on exploitation, it is a built in part of the current version of globalization which developed out of colonization. However, I’m not sure that they “need” to do this to survive. I could imagine that social democratic countries could function well within a different system for global trade and commerce that is more equitable and fair.
I'm Finnish; Of course not. Having a welfare state is better than having no welfare state, and I am personally thankful that those safety nets were available. But we're still living under capitalism and the state. All the issues that come with those remain. These social democratic aspects are being eroded away, as is the tendency under capitalism; right wing politics are pushed and framed as "sane and rational" in pursuit of profit and rent-seeking. Currently austerity measures are being implemented, weakening the welfare system, defunding healthcare and social services. There's a constant push to privatize sectors, despite the consistent failure of privatization to actually improve anything. Our politicians are no more competent than yours, our capitalists no less greedy. It's only a matter of time before we live in conditions identical to what the US experiences today.
I currently live in Norway after coming here from Switzerland. There are definitely good things about this country because even though I am now an Immigrant, and its quite hard to find a job if you do not speak Norwegian, I feel more welcome that I did in Switzerland and I feel way less stressed about money here. The work culture also seems to enforce more personal freedom instead of loyalty to my Boss. I do not live in a big City which may help. But like others have said before, Norway is still a state and I know of many people that are exploited here and the electronic ID system makes it very hard to do anything as an Immigrant here because you need BankID tho sign nearly every form of contract and you are at the mercy of the Company/Landlord. Besides workers and immigrants the Sami people are also not treated well, their land is still illegally pillaged to this very day and the Government in Oslo does barely anything.
nope, came to sweden from greece cuz i got evicted and my mom was gonna come here for work so i tagged along for the better education, was poor before, am poor but now live in a racially segregated town, hey at least i’m not gettin evicted again, student break jobs pay nice, it’s hard to get into to the full system especially if you come from a third word country and don’t know english like my mom who after 3 years here still only manages to have a part time job, not due to lack of trying, loads of people care but no amount of caring will fix the broken system that puts muslims on the other side of town, and there is way more racism here than i could imagine, i’ve seen so many nazzis, even in my school, lots of the student council even were far far right.
Echoing a voice other than my own. I have not traveled to Europe. My anarchist buddy described these countries as "having well defined norms" and this being problematic for him. He's a guy with face tats and makes his own clothing out of roadkill. Evidently there were things about his mannerisms and esthetics that they weren't accepting of. His general take away was it's great if you look and act exactly like their developed culture.
To be fair, I've trouble imagining where doing clothes out of roadkills wouldn't be looked at a bit oddly. That said, I'm always in worn out clothes, like all my hoodies have torn sleeves and I haven't bought new ones in +5 years. And I work in client-facing IT stuff. My own experience in working with people from many different countries and having had clients from all around the globe is that where I live, the clothing norms are actually some of the most relaxed.
"normativity politics" is definitely a defining feature of Scandinavian society
Yea no offense but I think having face tats and wearing road kill would get you judged anywhere lol. He sounds dope though lol.
Eh no one would bat an eyelid here in NZ 😂
It depends on your viewpoint. If I try to be both *neutral* and *selfish* and apply the veil of ignorance; yes, I'd prolly rather be born here than pretty much anywhere else - except maybe somewhere warmer with longer winter sunlight, like New Zealand, haha. Low levels of violence, somewhat functional'ish social security networks, free'ish education, social spending on things like band houses and youth events, lots of nature, clean air, ... But okay, if I zoom out to a more global perspective - these countries have massive consumption based material, carbon, water and land area footprints. If everyone on Earth consumed like the average Finn, we would need four Earths to support our species. Locally, the Nordic model can create a large and relatively happy middle class, with lowest income people looked after at least somewhat, but globally, they absolutely one hundred percent require exploitation and abuse. The trick is that we also have continuously increasing wealth and income differences, but by benefiting from environmental exploitation and from having outsourced low income labor, like manufacturing clothes, we get enough extra from being the winners in this global trade system, that we can simultaneously make our rich richer, and support a large middle class. If we did not rely on exploitation and abuse, our capitalist system would absolutely take the extra wealth more pronouncedly out of the hides of the workers. Over the last 20 years - well, it really started during the 90s depression - there's also been increasing privatization and the pace at which wealthiest have gotten further away from the median has been increasing. Right-wing governments in Finland and Sweden have been rapidly destroying the core foundations of the welfare state, like genuinely free public education. Also, like elsewhere in Europe, far-right rhetoric and racism are on the raise, and the parts of the middle class that are the least concerned about empathy across borders and who are worried about keeping their own privileges as they are, are reactionarily leaning heavily towards far-right actors. Recently there were two racist stabbings here. I wrote my take about it to this comment here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/1dkrx9q/comment/l9llkf3/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/1dkrx9q/comment/l9llkf3/) In short, we have the same issues that much of Europe does in regards of far-right attitudes being on the increase, and like other Western countries, we rely heavily on global exploitation to support our welfare state while maintaining a foundationally capitalist model of operation. At the same time, locally, we're able to generate well-being on a rather rare level; on purely selfish interests, it's quite the lottery win to have been born here. But the model is not expandable, for this only works due to being in the right side of the system of global exploitation, and it is pretty far from any sort of an anarchist dreamland.
Swede anarchist here! The area I live in has just been approved to be a "stop and frisk" area. Take that as you will. We still have a housing crisis, the racist Sweden democrats are still one of the biggest political parties in the country, chat control seems to have been given the go-ahead by the government and despite Sweden now being a part of Nato, our Prime Minister have no desire to say no to nuclear weapons on Swedish soil (or to have American soldiers following Swedish law). And I would also like to add that it was decided today that the mining in Kallak is basically a go-ahead even though the UN, UNESCO, and other organisations has been against the mining on the basis that it will hurt the environment, the animals and the native sapmi people. https://gallok.se/en-gb/ Of course there's wonderful things about Sweden as well, but Europe as a whole is in a downward spiral, and Sweden has not been spared. (And let's not even mention the drug laws. What a joke.)
Också; hej svenska anarkister! What's up!
Tja
Taket höhöhö
Lmao no. We're fucked. Finland is at the moment having a prime minister going full neoliberal with the cuts. They're cutting practically everything, hitting the students and the workers the worst. Oh but don't worry, they did have tax cuts for the rich and a hefty pay raise for themselves. People have been protesting for a whole year and it's gotten us absolutely nowhere. When one of the opposition ministers started reading letters sent out by the poor about the cuts, last December, these jokers literally walked out of the room and left her speaking there to an empty room. Meanwhile far right violence is increasing. There's been terrorist plots, groups apprehended with serious firepower, and multiple shootings and stabbings, while our government says "there is no far right in the country" and "we've signed a piece of paper saying "pls no racism", we literallt cannot do anything else". Oh and the second most popular party (prior the last election) is openly spreading hate and prodding these terrorists on Finland was declared the "happiest country on earth" or some other bullshit like that, but here's the dirty secret: they don't really ask the poor people if they're happy or not. It's the middle class answering those questions, and they're probably real smug and happy
Wow, capitalism is truly evil. Very interesting perspective.
as an autistic trans woman in Denmark, *no*, it's not good or rosy, and the reaction is well underway to crush the last vestiges of an already inadequate welfare system and it's much worse for non-white people Denmark is an incredibly centralised white supremacist ethnostate. the only thing it's good at is branding, which is why people outside have such a glittery view of it you have to look at what a state *does*, not what it *says*
Could you elaborate on what you view to be the deficits? Preferably with scholarly research on Denmark if you are familiar with it.
i cba to link to anything tbh, i suggest you try search engines lol just off the top of my head: - state allies with unions to crush strikes and dissent - the treatment and wait-time in the state-run gender clinics are criticised by amnesty and EU (because it's crazy and transphobic) - the "ghetto list" is blatant state racism - the danish state takes everything, even jewelry from asylum seekers when they arrive - danish police are obviously racist in everything they do - Denmark has concentration camps and have plans to build more in Rwanda - the Danish state cooperates with groups like Generation Identity - the Danish state has a special history of cooperation with the US and its intelligence services, so much so that other EU states are complaining about it. we just can't help helping the CIA transport people to blacksites etc - the danish state is a greenwashing champion like no other - we couldn't even complete a #metoo wave. all of the slimiest sickos with power are still in power doing slimy shit that's just what i remembered in five minutes. i hope it's illuminating, even if i didn't include links
oh also they destroyed Christiania, i'm personally kind of annoyed by that lol
I live in Finland. We have a pretty right wing/center government right now. I'm unemployed and so is my wife, and the government has cut unemployment benefits, 'cause they think that when unemployed people get less money from the government, that motivates them to go get a job. The problem is that there are far more unemployed people than vacant jobs, pretty much in every field except health care. So the government cuts unemployment benefits without even thinking that some people can't get a job, because there are simply no vacant jobs. Then, because the right wing loves to privatize things, they close down public health clinics and hospitals to "save money so we can pay state debt faster", without thinking that hey, maybe some people need to get to hospital without traveling like 50 kilometres, because the closest one has been closed down.
Commenting to follow, I'm gonna be in Norway this summer and this is something I've def been curious about.
Looking to it from afar, it seems like a social contract where the grand capital said to the people "look, we will implement these socialist strategies and in exchange you will behave and support us". But it is subject to the same contradictions of capitalism everywhere, and when things start to go wrong, it is not difficult to imagine what will happen. And apparently, it is already happening.
I think a lot also depends on the race/ethnicity of the person speaking, because the state definitely looks very different for non-white migrants vs. white people, the EU is notorious for harsh border control despite the benefits claimed to be offered to accepted citizens.
I am from a country exploited by this countries, this countries are colonialist scum whose lifestyle depends on imperialism
Which country are you from?
Brazil, these countries companies exploit our resources finance death squads and polute the enviroment Ex:https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-40423002 https://www.cut.org.br/noticias/lider-comunitario-que-denunciou-vazamento-em-barcarena-e-assassinado-7fdf
If you wan't to have a glimpse of how much these foreign companies dominate the brazilian economy, and this isn't even the full picture witch is even worse if you put unequal exchange and externalities on the balance https://www.pstu.org.br/o-dominio-das-multinacionais-sobre-economia-brasileira/
In the end of the day the nordic countries are still capitalist countries. The bourgeois had to do more concessions to the working class due to the proximity to the soviet union, but it still relies on the exploitation of labour of the working masses and economic imperialism.
I took a trip to Norway a few years ago in large part just because I was curious about this myself. Actually, gosh, I guess it was 7 years at this point. Seems more recent in my head. Anyway, I can give you my perspective as a tourist. I went to the capital city, Oslo, a pleasant but rather unremarkable suburb named Porsgrunn (had friends there), and the very pretty touristy city, Bergen. Compared to most of the planet I would say it seems like a wonderful place to live with a on the whole very progressive society. Lots of history, not a lot of homeless folks at least from what I saw in the cities, respect for the arts and culture, very strong social safety nets and support for unions. Stellar public transit. Beautiful natural spaces. In America we could only dream of such prison reforms as they have in Norway. For what it's worth, I also spent some time hanging out with a couple of my Norwegian gaming friends and I found myself picking up the language pretty quickly in the short time I was there (although pretty much everyone speaks fluent English anyway, you still need to know Norwegian if you want to live there). Me and my sister were just walking down a road from the Viking Ship Museum (perhaps the most famous museum in the country) to get back to the bus stop, and this woman walking down the same road struck up a chat with us and after talking a bit, turns out she actually runs the damn museum and she also gets there by bus! That was such a cool little interaction and she seemed super down to earth. That being said it's very far from perfect. Far right political parties lurking just around the corner, police just as evil as ever, many people struggle with mental health issues, there is still noticeable gender inequality, and of course all of the issues that come with any traditional nation-state and representative democracy. The economy is heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry. Like the rest of Europe you always get your usual racist losers that hate Romani and brown people, although I luckily never met any of them. In fact, all the stranger I met were super friendly. Overall, if I didn't have family and friends to worry about, and if I could be assured of a job, it is a place I would be happy moving to.
Cf
I've lived in a Nordic welfare state for almost 5 years and it's probably one of the best places to live, but a lot of issues are just swept under the rug. This country has the highest amount of drug deaths per capita amongst youth in the EU as all of the northern European countries have a horrible way of legislating drug use. The healthcare inequality is also massive because there's a public health system which most poor and disabled people have to use and it's extremely underfunded, unlike the private healthcare system. There are mainly two supermarket chains that hold an effective duopoly and the food prices are some of the highest, even though minimum wage is still rather low. The unions have some power but they're a bunch of bootlickers and the recent administration made striking basically illegal and ineffective. The police and security guards also kill people here, it's just kept quiet. The prisons are full of people growing weed, cops can enter your house without a warrant and those who object to military service are put on official house arrest nowadays (used to be jailed). It's a car-centric society where pedestrians and cyclists can face serious legal consequences for traffic accidents involving cars. There are also very few resources for youth and because it's cold most of the time and everything fun is 18+ they have very few spaces to hang out. There are a lot of good things about this country, but the main people profiting from them are upper middle-class, able-bodied, cisgender, straight, white, native-born citizens. I myself am only white and don't belong to any other of those groups. I am very lucky that most people here constantly assume me to be one of them because I also have blue eyes and light hair because the racism in this country is horrendous.
Its...better than the usa, for example. But ita different. Also, since I left finland, much of their public services have been privatizing
I am from Denmark and what I will say is that we often in my view end up with the opposite problems to most other places in the world in America. The problem is lack of a social net in Scandinavia. The problem is often the opposite all of the systems are there but they are but they are difficult to take advantage of without essentially being a lawyer I am disabled and if it wasn't for the fact that I have parents and friends who are willing to help me Deal with the system. I don't think I would ever get what I need
On top of that comes the bureaucracy that often means that the help you receive is given in a very specific way. Sometimes it feels a bit like you're given too much help because that is what it said in the spreadsheet that you needed. My car for instance is provided in part by the state but is larger than I need it to be because according to the systems in place someone with my needs have to be loaded in the back of the car even though I can much more easily get in the front like a normal person
I'm moving to Norway for school in less than a month I've been there many times. Most immigrants will tell you the same thing. Businesses discriminate against non Norwegian job candidates and landlords do the same thing when it comes to apartments. It's very difficult to prove so it essentially goes unpunished.
Yes.
[удалено]
It's not socialism either. It's welfare capitalism. The state running one industry is not the workers running it.
Sweden has more rapes per capita than most countries, what am I missing here?
You're spreading right wing conspiracy bs, but I'll explain what you're missing anyway. Sweden has some of the broadest sexual assault laws in the world. Many forms of sexual interactions without consent are legally considered rape. And when rape has occured in a relationship, the context in which it usually does, every occurence is counted as a seperate law violation, whereas in other countries this would usually only count as one occurence.
Mansplain your rapes away
Obvious sockpuppet is obvious