Contribution of the Communist Party of Sweden

Comrades,

Today’s theme is a very interesting one because it highlights certain aspects of capitalism, namely organization and profit.

Myth-making is a very powerful tool that the bourgeoisie uses frequently. One of them is the Swedish welfare state. In general discourse Sweden is viewed almost as a workers’ paradise. Nothing is further from the truth and this is the perfect moment to set this straight. Since the beginning of the eighties Sweden has been the prime implementer of so called neo-liberal policies. It started slowly through changes in taxation laws and it accelerated during the nineties and forwards. Not Britain, but Sweden was the country that privatized the most with the exception of former socialist bloc countries.

This has created havoc and massive corruption. The flagrant misuse and theft of government funds through procurements is ridiculous. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate.  Some years ago it was decided that a new electronic system for schools was going to be implemented in Stockholm. The bid that won was 300000 Euros, give or take. It ended up costing circa 100 million, and the best part? It didn’t work. Well, they learned from this mistake. Another system that was procured to help teachers grading students was projected to cost about four million Euros. The actual price? 70 million Euros and counting. Does it work? No.

So what has happened? The decentralization and doing everything trough procurements has led to nothing working any longer. This has been visible to everybody the last two decades when we look at natural disasters. It started with some areas getting flooded but it became a conversation when two major fires hit Sweden, 2014 and 2018. After 2014 it was clear that there was no central planning and no accountability. Investigations showed that there was lack coordination, actions took too long and lack of understanding how to put out fires. The last one is a bit bizarre considering that Sweden is a densely forested country. At least the fixed the problems, or did they? Well apparently not, because the same thing happened in 2018 and after conducting the same investigations they came up with the same results. At least this time they fixed the problems, or did they? Well apparently not, because when the pandemic hit it was exactly the same.

I can give you many examples, for instance that the railroad doesn’t work and that there are continuing issues with the roads during winter due to snow and ice that jams up the highways. Apparently snow and ice is an uncommon phenomenon in Sweden so there is no need for central planning.

When it comes to technological disasters it is the same. But at least we have the Russians to blame. The journalists became a bit bored with this particular blame game, so they threw the North Koreans into the mix for a period, but since nobody bought it they went back to the Russians. One cannot accuse them for lack of creativity at least.

We can clearly see what is going on. Fraud and embezzling of government funds through procurements is the norm in Sweden and it is facilitated by decentralization and the so called “just in time” policy.

Our party brought up these questions numerous times in different media outlets and actions. The main issue is not just this type of capitalist management but also the role of journalism. For some unfathomable reason the mainstreammedia does not use the word corruption. Instead they write simplistic descriptive articles and they talk about politicians being foolish when it comes to procurements. Even though we are not asking them to be proponents for a revolution and the dictatorship of proletariat, even though that would be nice of them, one would think that the journalists would be more aggressive considering that some capital groups have complained about the situation, namely that nothing really works in Sweden.

But then it is not unfathomable if we take into account that the capitalist complainers don’t want to change things because they themselves would lose money in other areas that they are making through procurements.

Yet again, this theme is interesting because it strikes at the core of capitalism and the anarchism it produces in the name of profit and reveals to the workers that they have no other option than to rely on themselves if they want to change things and that they must learn to never demand things from their oppressors that rob them blind. Organization based on their own interests is the only way forward.

 

Communist Party of Sweden (SKP)