What follows is an anti-capitalist critique of sections of the 2006 Swedish Social Democratic Party election platform that deals with migration control and social policy issues:
[The Social Democratic Party led government was ousted from power during the September 17th, 2006 general election in a neoliberal-conservative landslide that saw gains by racist far right parties in local areas and medium size towns. The Left and Green parties lost half their seats in the parliament. The new regime promises to institute massive cuts in social services in its first 100 days in government, possibly Sweden will join NATO.]
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Platform: ‘’General Election day, September 17th, is when Sweden’s future is to be decided … should we further improve our welfare system, or should we downgrade it by taking one out of every five tax krona out of the public coffers? Should we continue developing the Swedish Welfare model or should we abandon it? ‘’
It is clear that the subtext for this statement is the politics of the ‘’lesser evil’’. Implicit is the attempt to identify ‘’Social Democratic Party’’ with ‘’Welfare Model’’; while in reality the Social Democrats have long ago abandoned their original commitment to the ‘’Peoples Home’’ democratic socialism they preached in the 1970’s. It was the Social Democratic Party that dismantled the core Welfare State policies in the 1980’s and 1990’s under the rubric of ‘modernisation’. The attempt to appeal to the myth of a largely non-existent ‘’Swedish Welfare Model’’ is an effort at election time deception by praying on the fears of working class voters who know perfectly well that the level of wages has been stagnant for the past ten years (despite increases in worker productivity), and that provision social benefits and services (both in relation to actual need and inflation), have been in drastically cut.
Platform: ‘’We Social Democrats want a Sweden built on diversity. The community must be founded on mutual respect for differences within the framework of accepted basic democratic values…Swedes of foreign origin still encounter prejudice and discrimination. People of foreign extraction are more likely to be unemployed. We cannot tolerate injustices of this sort.’’
If the Social Democratic Party were truly interested in Social Cohesion it would abandon the neo-liberal policies it has pursued for the last ten years. The unregulated market is premised on economic un-democracy; while the draconian and repressive migration control policies of the current Social Democratic Party government work to legitimise and embolden xenophobic and racist attitudes in the society.
Platform: ‘’ In Sweden we keep our ambitions high to ensure that everyone who receives a residence permit will quickly be able to learn Swedish and find a job. We strive above all to facilitate integration by paving the way for more jobs and developing public welfare…’’
FAT CHANCE ! The craven hypocrisy and deceitfulness of this statement flies in the face of facts. Only 22% of those who apply for a residence permit receive one (among the lowest approval rates in Europe), that means that MOST immigrants are subjected to the indignities of the abusive and repressive migration control system and the ‘fast track’ deportation policy.
The funding for Swedish as a second language programs as well as for housing and healthcare services for immigrants was drastically cut in 2004; and there are no quality well paying jobs for ANYONE, lest of all immigrants. The only ‘’jobs’’ on offer (aside from ‘casual’ and temporary work in the private sector), are slave labour ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ schemes where one works for roughly the equivalent of a welfare check with no benefits or legal protections. There is no link between wages from these schemes and cost of living inflation. It is hard to receive placement in the workfare schemes because the waiting list is years. I have already mentioned how Social Democratic Party governments acted to dismantle the core of the Social Welfare State during the 1990’s.
Platform: ‘’Social attitudes must change, and legislation is needed to combat all forms of discrimination…’’
The actual legislation on migration control is biased against immigrants and the official policies of the Social Democratic Party in power promote anti-immigrant sentiment by capitulating to it. Less than 20% of those who appeal migration board rulings get to stay legally and there is a punitive four-year limit on access to social services imposed on EU immigrants from Eastern Europe who have a LEGAL RIGHT to migrate to Sweden if they choose according to European laws. These policies are clearly contradictory to the stated intent of the Social Democratic Party and openly discriminatory.
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In the measure that the Social Democratic Party adapts to neo-liberal and to market-oriented ideology it denotes an implicit tendency towards abandoning the (now mythical) ‘’Swedish Welfare Model’’. Reliance on the unregulated market undermines the possibility for long-term employment and for social security and cohesion. ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ slave labour schemes are NOT real work, and insofar as they undermine gains in matter of wages, conditions and benefits won by organised labour in context of collective bargaining they have anti-social effects. ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ policies denote tokenism: the social politics of minimalism and pointillism. The solution to unemployment is a public works program that guarantees wages indexed to productivity premised on the expansion of the public sector.
The Social Democratic Party advocates the contraction and privatisation of the public domain. Their proposals to ‘’combat economic crime and benefit fraud’’ and to ‘’halve absenteeism from work due to illness by 2008’’ point to their intention to implement repressive policies that would target the working class, poor immigrants and pensioners. The politics of neo-liberalism with a ‘’social’’ face that the Social Democratic Party implements undermine social security and social cohesion at the expense of workers who are forced to accept wage freezes and benefit cuts in order to maintain private sector profitability and competitiveness.
Workers wages remain stagnant despite yearly increases in productivity per worker and per industry in the period between 1995 and 2005. Wages must be indexed to productivity.
The fiscal policy of the Social Democratic Party is openly pro-business and pro-war. They are calling for 2.3 billion krona in subsidies for Swedish pharmaceutical, aerospace and defence concerns. The Swedish weapons manufacturing industry exports its wares to Zionist Israel and to the United States. Clearly the proposal to subsidise the weapons manufacturing industry amounts to a call for utilising taxpayer’s money to directly support the use of Swedish made weaponry against the Palestinians and the Iraqis.
The Social Democratic Party is calling for a 900 billion krona across the board tax cut for business; they have already abolished inheritance taxes and want to implement additional targeted (‘’special’’) tax cuts to benefit private sector initiatives to cost tax payers one billion krona; not to mention 2 billion krona for ‘’capital risk security’’ (i.e. a subsidy for the stock market to enable more speculation). In contrast the amount earmarked for social services, education, healthcare, and housing COMBINED is to stay frozen. The only increase (30%) will be for the ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ slave labour schemes and for police so that they can implement initiatives against ‘’benefit fraud’’. In view of this it should be clear that the Social Democratic Party is actively engaged in the deception of working class, immigrant and pensioner voters. A vote for the Social Democratic Party would be a vote for neo-liberalism.
