Actually within the last couple of weeks there was an extensive discussion on the pkt (Post Keynesian Thought) list about that article in which several Swedish economists participated. It was quite well-informed and lengthy and so I would recommend checking that list's archives out. You can find out how to do so by contacting the list manager, Ric Holt at rholt at sou.edu.
Very briefly, starting in the early 1980s Sweden began to backtrack on its system in a variety of ways. An inflationary outburst in 1990 led to a severe retrenchment and tight fiscal policy that led to a large upsurge of unemployment and a political commitment to much more major restructuring of the Swedish system, as described in the NY Times article. Things have basically gone from bad to worse, with rising poverty and inequality, etc., although the Swedish economy has recently begun to recover somewhat.
In 1990 Sweden clearly had the most advanced social democratic system (or let's say, in 1983). Today it does not, and places such as Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, and even Belgium and arguably France have more advanced social democracies and better performing economies in general than Sweden. I have not seen the latest UN Human Development Reports, but I would suspect that Denmark, Norway, and probably Iceland have surpassed Sweden as having the best quality of life for women in the world. Barkley Rosser On Mon, 24 Aug 1998 19:14:54 -0500 "John K.. Taber" <jktaber at onramp.net> wrote:
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
> >
> > Germany and Austria (and Switzerland) are the weird
> > special cases. The more vigorous of the social
> > democracies, not just Sweden which is currently a mess,
>
> Could you tell me a little bit more about the Swedish mess? The
> reason I ask is that the NY Times had a curious article on
> Sweden that I couldn't fathom. The EPI in their "Reading between
> the lines" mentions this article negatively.
>
> So, what's going on?
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu