Sweden, neoliberalism and populism

Failure of neoliberalism by privatization of social welfare institutions, enriching a few  citizens, increased poverty and inequality,  expanding of multinational corporations abroad to the countries with lower cost labor force in order to increase the accumulation of capital for the few capitalists, deindustrialization by financialization of the economy,  war on the other nations and destabilizing of the countries specially in the Middle East which caused immigration has paved the way for the emergence of the reactionary, conservative, xenophobic, nativist, white supremacist and extreme nationalist in the western world. These groups mostly consist of the lower class and lower middle class that has hardly been hurt of the economic recession and the economic crisis in 2008. In addition, the islamophobic and xenophobic conservatives who are worried about the immigration policy are the adherent of the populist movement. As we know the response to the failure of neoliberalism has been the wave of right-populism spreading in the western world.

During the 90s, the restructuring of the Swedish economy started by liberalization and the privatization of state-owned firms. The privatization had occurred in different sectors. When Sweden has privatized its public services, public financing has generally been maintained while the management of the services has been contracted out. The privatization of the health care and further the enforcement of the private management and budget cut in public hospitals caused a reduction in human resources, which in turn resulted to a long que for operations in hospitals and the workload pressure on doctors and nurses. The introduction of a school voucher system in the 1990s meant that nearly anyone could start a school and receive public funding. Since then there has been a huge increase in the number of privately-run schools. Sweden and Chile are the only countries were profit-making schools are publicly financed with taxpayers’ money. Private schools are benefiting millions of crowns of taxpayers’ money instead of reinvesting it in a better education. The privatization of schools resulted both in a lower quality of schools and the inequality in education level between poor and rich areas in a municipality and among different municipalities in the country.

The huge privatization in the transport not only does not increased the efficiency and lower prices but also it caused efficiency downturn and rising prices. The rise in poverty in urban areas and the higher inequality both in cities and between different cities has contributed to the unsustainable development in the country. According the study under period of 2001-2011 by the institute of housing and urban research in Uppsala the segregation has increased in big cities in Sweden. Despite, Sweden had been well known as a country with a progressive social housing policy compared to other European countries. But the increased inequality, income-wealth gap, the weakened public governance of housing and substantial reduction in rental housing caused the segregation (See Andersson Roger and Anneli Kährik: kulturgeografi institute, Uppsala). Stockholm is a city with a significant socio-economic segregation.

Consequently, it contributed to the criminality, poor health, psychological disorders and diseases such as depression. Finally, as long as the neoliberal ideology continues in the interest of a small groups and unable to solve the structural problems that the economy faces and cannot improve the life of the mass, the space is left open to the emergence and rising of the populist parties in western countries. Hence, the emergence and growth of the Sweden democratic party (Sverige demokrater) is a result of a political-economic failure of the neoliberal elite. This populist-right wing party grow faster due to the failure of migration policy by both liberal-right and social democrats and further the failure of economic policy of neoliberalism. This party has gained support over the last decade, rising from a fringe group with neo-Nazi roots to win 13 percent in 2014’s election and hold the balance of power in parliament. Its growth also up to the Islamophobia and xenophobic wave which is widespread in Europe. But Sweden’s political mainstream has so far shunned the Sweden Democrats due to their radical roots. The far right populist Sweden democratic party will probably be the largest party with 25 percent of voters in the coming election in 2018. Accordingly, the most likely scenario is that both the Moderate and Christian Democrat parties will look for some sort of understanding with the Sweden Democrats. Or may receive support from the Sweden Democrats to form a government.