Lulletje Rozewater
05-02-2009, 10:22 AM
This article was written in 1991 and appeared in the Readers Digest
How is the situation NOW?????
THE NATION THAT TRIED TO BUY
Sweden's failed welfare socialism should serve as an eye-opener for all
by david moller
The last time the Olssons of aothenburg, Sweden, lived together as a family was 11 years ago. In August 1980, a posse of policemen and social workers intercepted Stefan, nine, and four-year-old Helena on their way home from a friend's house. Thomas, 22 months, was wrenched from the arms of his uncle by police.
For almost five months, parents Stig and Gun Olsson didn't even know where their two younger children had been taken.
Eventually, they found them living with two separate foster families, 960 kilometres away.
Why had they been taken? Be*cause a year earlier, Gun Olsson, concerned about Stefan's mental re*tardation, had asked child-welfare authorities to suggest some organ*ized leisure activities for her son.
This woman can't cope, officials decided.
So they ordered a "home therapist" into the Olsson household, to reorganize their lives.
Her intru*sive behaviour ended with the Ols*sons finally locking the door on her.
Clearly, the welfare apparatus concluded, firmer action was needed.
Soon all three children were taken into care.
The resulting legal battle ended up at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Deciding the Olssons' rights had been violated, the court awarded them R153000.
While Stefan is now home, the Olssons still don't have their two younger children back.
After they had been gone seven years, the local Social Council de*cided that their return to their natural parents would be confusing and disturbing, and gave temporary custody to the foster parents. The Olssons are appealing through the courts.
They are allowed to visit Helena and Thomas for just two hours three times a year. "The authorities have stolen our children," says 50-year-old Stig, a retired factory worker.
"They have destroyed our lives."
When Swedes go to the polls this month to vote in parliamentary elec*tions, they will face many issues.
One is a giant social-welfare system that has run amok.
Another is an econo*my in steep decline.
To finance the country's vast welfare programmes, Swedes—despite some recent relief — are still paying the heaviest sales and income taxes in the industrial*ized world, with tax rates that run as high as 51 per cent.
Spending in the public sector accounts for nearly two-thirds of the country's gross domestic product, and 31 per cent of workers are on the public payroll — about twice the average for the de*veloped world.
As a result, Sweden now has western Europe's highest inflation and lowest growth rate.
Yet, for years, theorists have cel*ebrated the "Swedish Model," in which a highly interventionist gov*ernment fostered prosperity while seeming to avoid the pitfalls of both communism and capitalism.
Approxi*mately a tenth larger in size than the Orange Free State, Natal and Trans*vaal combined, with a population of just over 8,5 million, Sweden has been blessed with huge reserves of iron ore, timber and water power -— and nurtured these resources by keeping out of both this century's world wars.
Even today, to the casual visitor, the country can seem a wonder*land of pine-fringed rivers and lakes, superbly landscaped housing devel*opments and smooth efficiency.
The streets are clean; the telephone sys*tem is a dream. The trains run on time.
Yet, despite government claims, it's clear socialism hasn't worked in Sweden any more than it has worked anywhere else in the world.
The myth of Sweden as the social*ist paradise is the creation of the ruling Social Democrats who, apart from 1976 to 1982, have been in power since 1932. By then, from its dirt-poor start in 1870, Sweden was on its way to becoming one of the world's richest nations.
However, the incoming Social Democrats had far broader plans than simply maintaining prosperity.
They had blueprints for socially engi*neered equality and a welfare system covering all the citizens' needs -and money was no object. Ingvar Carlsson, who became prime minis*ter after the 1986 assassination of Olof Palme, once boasted in the 1960s, "Social Democrats are never afraid to raise taxes."
Sweden's child-care scandals are simply one example of how, when you give a government too much money, you give it too much power.
Directed to "promote a favourable development of the young," some social workers have slapped custody orders on children who simply seem withdrawn at school, or whose par*ents have untidy kitchens.
At last count, the country had nearly 16 000 children in care — almost 5 000 of whom were "taken into custody by force." Lawyer Siv Westerberg, who has contested many such cases, claims the distinction between the two cat*egories is almost meaningless, be*cause many parents who surrendered children "voluntarily" did so only under direst threat. "Sweden," she says, "has become a social-welfare prison state."
On their path to Utopia, the Social Democrats have done their best to belittle the roles of mother and home-maker. In a seminal declaration, Gunnar and Alva Myrdal, longtime party theoreticians, sneered, "It is still possible for weak, stupid, lazy, unambitious and otherwise lesser individuals to remain and m.iki (heir way within domestic work, both as housewives and as servants."
Today taxes are so high that few Swedish families can survive on one income. While most mothers with preschool-age children would rather be home tending their children, both parents must now work in order to pay the taxes to support state-subsidized day-care centres.
The effect on the family has been cataclysmic. Along with France, Swe*den now has the lowest marriage rate in the industrialized world, while Swe*den's rate of non marital cohabita*tion may well be the highest. Half of all Swedish babies are born out of wedlock.
Because of rigid controls, other areas of Swedish life are suffering the same way. Just over six per cent of Swedes are on housing waiting lists, and the nation's housing crisis wors*ens, despite enormous subsidies.
Sweden also has one of the world's most expensive school systems, yet academic standards are plummeting.
In most schools, until pupils are 14 or 15, there is no testing, no pressure, no weekend homework.
As Prime Min*ister Olof Palme once said, summing up the socialist approach to educa*tion, "You don't go to school to achieve anything personally, but to learn how to function as members of a group."
Perhaps the worst disaster area of all is health care. In Gothenburg, 64-year-old Bengt Lindgren told me how, in April 1990, he reported to the city's Sahlgrenska Hospital with a 70 serious heart condition.
He learnt it would be 14 months before he could have a vital angiogram to pinpoint the trouble, and another seven-month wait if surgery was called for.
In panic, Lindgren hastened to nearby Norway, where x-rays re*vealed he had less than two months to live unless he underwent bypass surgery.
Back in Sweden, he found a rare, private clinic and had the sur*gery. In Stockholm alone, there are now some 28 000 people awaiting surgery. Five years ago, there were virtually none.
Politicians continue to dream of a Utopia in which only state services would survive. Meanwhile, Swedish manufacturers have seen their prod*uctivity steadily decline since 1970. Labour demands have resulted in a 28 per cent increase in wages over the past three years, while productiv*ity grew only two per cent.
Given prohibitive tax rates, em*ployers find it almost impossible to get employees to work overtime.
Daily absenteeism has soared in some sectors to 25 per cent of the work force. Volvo in Gothenburg has an average of 13 per cent of its work force absent every day; in the same area, bus and tram drivers averaged 73 sick days last year.
To add to the problem, working women now re*ceive 15months'paid maternity leave.
When the Berlin Wall was torn down in November 1989, newly elected officials in eastern Europe came to look at what more than 50 years of "Middle Way" socialism had achieved.
Sweden's sluggish productivity and raging wage infla*tion left few impressed.
As Polish Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz pointed out, "First and foremost we must create wealth.
Only then can we worry about how we spend it."
Is there any hope for Sweden? Of course — because Sweden is a de*mocracy. Many believe this month's elections may bring the beginnings of economic change. Fed-up voters are abandoning Prime Minister Carlsson's party in droves, and the ruling Social Democrats are expected to lose. The New Democracy party, committed to reducing taxes and trimming the welfare state, seems to be attracting voters to the right.
"No-one, however, should under*estimate the severity of Sweden's problems," warns Vice Admiral Per Rudberg, former commander-in-chief of the Royal Swedish Navy and now on the council of his country's Civil Rights Group, an organization set up in 1973 to improve laws gov*erning civil rights. "Our troubles are by no means simply economic.
We have tended to neglect the delicate plant of democracy.
We have learnt to ignore injustice."
It will not be easy for any politi*cian attempting to dismantle Sweden's welfare behemoth.
Social*ism breeds a fearful dependency. Among Swedes going to the polls, 55 per cent will be dependent on the public sector as employees, pension*ers or welfare recipients.
Says Professor Eric Brodin, Swedish-born director of the Foun*dation for International Studies at Buies Creek, North Carolina, "It is sad to see the glitter flaking from the nation that gave me birth.
But so*cialism, whether of the Marxist, de-mocraticor nationalist kind, is bound to fail. It is, in its various forms, a system of institutionalized envy. If the failure of the Swedish experi*ment in cradle-to-grave welfarism serves as an eye-opener to those who would imitate it, then it will have served an important purpose."
How is the situation NOW?????
THE NATION THAT TRIED TO BUY
Sweden's failed welfare socialism should serve as an eye-opener for all
by david moller
The last time the Olssons of aothenburg, Sweden, lived together as a family was 11 years ago. In August 1980, a posse of policemen and social workers intercepted Stefan, nine, and four-year-old Helena on their way home from a friend's house. Thomas, 22 months, was wrenched from the arms of his uncle by police.
For almost five months, parents Stig and Gun Olsson didn't even know where their two younger children had been taken.
Eventually, they found them living with two separate foster families, 960 kilometres away.
Why had they been taken? Be*cause a year earlier, Gun Olsson, concerned about Stefan's mental re*tardation, had asked child-welfare authorities to suggest some organ*ized leisure activities for her son.
This woman can't cope, officials decided.
So they ordered a "home therapist" into the Olsson household, to reorganize their lives.
Her intru*sive behaviour ended with the Ols*sons finally locking the door on her.
Clearly, the welfare apparatus concluded, firmer action was needed.
Soon all three children were taken into care.
The resulting legal battle ended up at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Deciding the Olssons' rights had been violated, the court awarded them R153000.
While Stefan is now home, the Olssons still don't have their two younger children back.
After they had been gone seven years, the local Social Council de*cided that their return to their natural parents would be confusing and disturbing, and gave temporary custody to the foster parents. The Olssons are appealing through the courts.
They are allowed to visit Helena and Thomas for just two hours three times a year. "The authorities have stolen our children," says 50-year-old Stig, a retired factory worker.
"They have destroyed our lives."
When Swedes go to the polls this month to vote in parliamentary elec*tions, they will face many issues.
One is a giant social-welfare system that has run amok.
Another is an econo*my in steep decline.
To finance the country's vast welfare programmes, Swedes—despite some recent relief — are still paying the heaviest sales and income taxes in the industrial*ized world, with tax rates that run as high as 51 per cent.
Spending in the public sector accounts for nearly two-thirds of the country's gross domestic product, and 31 per cent of workers are on the public payroll — about twice the average for the de*veloped world.
As a result, Sweden now has western Europe's highest inflation and lowest growth rate.
Yet, for years, theorists have cel*ebrated the "Swedish Model," in which a highly interventionist gov*ernment fostered prosperity while seeming to avoid the pitfalls of both communism and capitalism.
Approxi*mately a tenth larger in size than the Orange Free State, Natal and Trans*vaal combined, with a population of just over 8,5 million, Sweden has been blessed with huge reserves of iron ore, timber and water power -— and nurtured these resources by keeping out of both this century's world wars.
Even today, to the casual visitor, the country can seem a wonder*land of pine-fringed rivers and lakes, superbly landscaped housing devel*opments and smooth efficiency.
The streets are clean; the telephone sys*tem is a dream. The trains run on time.
Yet, despite government claims, it's clear socialism hasn't worked in Sweden any more than it has worked anywhere else in the world.
The myth of Sweden as the social*ist paradise is the creation of the ruling Social Democrats who, apart from 1976 to 1982, have been in power since 1932. By then, from its dirt-poor start in 1870, Sweden was on its way to becoming one of the world's richest nations.
However, the incoming Social Democrats had far broader plans than simply maintaining prosperity.
They had blueprints for socially engi*neered equality and a welfare system covering all the citizens' needs -and money was no object. Ingvar Carlsson, who became prime minis*ter after the 1986 assassination of Olof Palme, once boasted in the 1960s, "Social Democrats are never afraid to raise taxes."
Sweden's child-care scandals are simply one example of how, when you give a government too much money, you give it too much power.
Directed to "promote a favourable development of the young," some social workers have slapped custody orders on children who simply seem withdrawn at school, or whose par*ents have untidy kitchens.
At last count, the country had nearly 16 000 children in care — almost 5 000 of whom were "taken into custody by force." Lawyer Siv Westerberg, who has contested many such cases, claims the distinction between the two cat*egories is almost meaningless, be*cause many parents who surrendered children "voluntarily" did so only under direst threat. "Sweden," she says, "has become a social-welfare prison state."
On their path to Utopia, the Social Democrats have done their best to belittle the roles of mother and home-maker. In a seminal declaration, Gunnar and Alva Myrdal, longtime party theoreticians, sneered, "It is still possible for weak, stupid, lazy, unambitious and otherwise lesser individuals to remain and m.iki (heir way within domestic work, both as housewives and as servants."
Today taxes are so high that few Swedish families can survive on one income. While most mothers with preschool-age children would rather be home tending their children, both parents must now work in order to pay the taxes to support state-subsidized day-care centres.
The effect on the family has been cataclysmic. Along with France, Swe*den now has the lowest marriage rate in the industrialized world, while Swe*den's rate of non marital cohabita*tion may well be the highest. Half of all Swedish babies are born out of wedlock.
Because of rigid controls, other areas of Swedish life are suffering the same way. Just over six per cent of Swedes are on housing waiting lists, and the nation's housing crisis wors*ens, despite enormous subsidies.
Sweden also has one of the world's most expensive school systems, yet academic standards are plummeting.
In most schools, until pupils are 14 or 15, there is no testing, no pressure, no weekend homework.
As Prime Min*ister Olof Palme once said, summing up the socialist approach to educa*tion, "You don't go to school to achieve anything personally, but to learn how to function as members of a group."
Perhaps the worst disaster area of all is health care. In Gothenburg, 64-year-old Bengt Lindgren told me how, in April 1990, he reported to the city's Sahlgrenska Hospital with a 70 serious heart condition.
He learnt it would be 14 months before he could have a vital angiogram to pinpoint the trouble, and another seven-month wait if surgery was called for.
In panic, Lindgren hastened to nearby Norway, where x-rays re*vealed he had less than two months to live unless he underwent bypass surgery.
Back in Sweden, he found a rare, private clinic and had the sur*gery. In Stockholm alone, there are now some 28 000 people awaiting surgery. Five years ago, there were virtually none.
Politicians continue to dream of a Utopia in which only state services would survive. Meanwhile, Swedish manufacturers have seen their prod*uctivity steadily decline since 1970. Labour demands have resulted in a 28 per cent increase in wages over the past three years, while productiv*ity grew only two per cent.
Given prohibitive tax rates, em*ployers find it almost impossible to get employees to work overtime.
Daily absenteeism has soared in some sectors to 25 per cent of the work force. Volvo in Gothenburg has an average of 13 per cent of its work force absent every day; in the same area, bus and tram drivers averaged 73 sick days last year.
To add to the problem, working women now re*ceive 15months'paid maternity leave.
When the Berlin Wall was torn down in November 1989, newly elected officials in eastern Europe came to look at what more than 50 years of "Middle Way" socialism had achieved.
Sweden's sluggish productivity and raging wage infla*tion left few impressed.
As Polish Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz pointed out, "First and foremost we must create wealth.
Only then can we worry about how we spend it."
Is there any hope for Sweden? Of course — because Sweden is a de*mocracy. Many believe this month's elections may bring the beginnings of economic change. Fed-up voters are abandoning Prime Minister Carlsson's party in droves, and the ruling Social Democrats are expected to lose. The New Democracy party, committed to reducing taxes and trimming the welfare state, seems to be attracting voters to the right.
"No-one, however, should under*estimate the severity of Sweden's problems," warns Vice Admiral Per Rudberg, former commander-in-chief of the Royal Swedish Navy and now on the council of his country's Civil Rights Group, an organization set up in 1973 to improve laws gov*erning civil rights. "Our troubles are by no means simply economic.
We have tended to neglect the delicate plant of democracy.
We have learnt to ignore injustice."
It will not be easy for any politi*cian attempting to dismantle Sweden's welfare behemoth.
Social*ism breeds a fearful dependency. Among Swedes going to the polls, 55 per cent will be dependent on the public sector as employees, pension*ers or welfare recipients.
Says Professor Eric Brodin, Swedish-born director of the Foun*dation for International Studies at Buies Creek, North Carolina, "It is sad to see the glitter flaking from the nation that gave me birth.
But so*cialism, whether of the Marxist, de-mocraticor nationalist kind, is bound to fail. It is, in its various forms, a system of institutionalized envy. If the failure of the Swedish experi*ment in cradle-to-grave welfarism serves as an eye-opener to those who would imitate it, then it will have served an important purpose."