Please don't be irony-deficient.
Sweden is indeed a capitalist state where the rights of private proverty are upheld -- though to a far lesser degree than in the US , since the existence of rights is a matter of degree. It is also a welfare state where the workers have won extraordinarily extensive concessions from capital such that the main advantages to them of a shift to socialism, understood as full public and democratic control of production and investment, would be mainly theoretical.
A Swedish Communist once told me that it was as hard to be a Communist in his country as in the US, but for the rather different reason that it was hard to explain what concrete benefits Communism would offer that Swedes do not already have. So, while Sweden is capitalist, the workers there do not writhe under the iron heel. I should not have to explain this obvious stuff in such a pedantuc manner.
I will say again that what the Swedes have would be worth our fighting for, that if we won it it would be a victory past imagining for ordinary and working people (sorry 'bout that ol' time populism -- must be a Midwestern disease), and that we are not likely to be so lucky in our lifetimes or those of our grandchildren.
--- Turbulo at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/21/04 2:04:37 PM Eastern
> Standard Time,
> lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org writes:
>
> Andie wrote:
>
> > Both Sweden and the US are capitalist
> dictatorships in
> > which the workers writhe under the iron heel of
> > capital. Right?
> >
> >
>
> I don't get this at all. Sweden and the US are both
> capitalist states, which
> isn't to say they are identical capitalist states.
> In the former, the working
> class and social provision are much stronger. But in
> both, the right to
> private property in the means of production is
> upheld. Is this controversial?
> > ___________________________________
>
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