IS THERE A “THIRD WAY” PROGRAM INSIDE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTIES?
The affinity with radical Marxism is only part of the picture. The social democratic modernizers are also an important group to consider. But what is the model they are striving for? For several decades, Sweden, one of the few European states that stayed neutral during World War II, was a role model for social democratic modernizers. For a long time, Sweden was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Its system of social services covered all sorts of risks. Its society was egalitarian, and the overwhelming majority of its citizens was in favor of the folkhemmet. (This term is literally a combination of folk–that is, people”–and hem, which means home. If the all-embracing welfare state, which substituted the security of the government for the traditional ties of family, had not run into grave financial problems, Sweden would still be “Mecca” for social democrats. But Sweden’s extremely high level of government expenditures on its social welfare programs could not be sustained. I
