Comment on: “Krugman: How American Capitalism Failsâ€”and Northern European ‘Socialism’ Succeedsâ€”at Job Creation”

By Andre Brochu

Krugman is always good at peddling his snake oil.

There is no Scandinavian socialism and the universal welfare states in Sweden and
Denmark are at the morgue waiting for the coroners to go to work.
If you live in Scandinavia you can wonder about Krugman’s sources of data and analysis. There is more substance in good SciFi.

Any degree of Keynesianism to promote employment and public investment has
been reduced drastically since the Social Democrats joined the bourgeois parties
in promoting membership and integration in the EU. The false promise of a Social
EU has proven to be a lie before and after the last crisis. The EU is a neoliberal
project since its infancy with the Treaty of Rome. The so-called freedoms are for capital
and finance. Some people from the establishment have woken up. However, it is a little
late. Rightwing xenophobic populists have reaped a bumper crop of voters in the lastest EU
elections since their false but down to earth arguments and propaganda have
convinced many of the unemployed, frustrated and scared electorate. The Social Democrats
and the parliamentary left don’t address economically or ideologically the problems
of the unemployed, underemployed, and youth who face at best job insecurity and
an inability even when working to gain basic social benefits.

The late Peter Cohen wrote cogently on what was developing in Scandinavia
twenty years ago in an article in Monthly Review which is still relevant :
Sweden: The Model That Never Was by Peter Cohen
1994, July-August, Volume 46, Monthly Review
This article is essential to any analysis and debunking of Krugmanâ€™s mythology.

Before the referendum for Swedenâ€™s EU membership in 1994 the CEO of Volvo Per
Gyllenhammar delineated the goal of the EEC/EU : long-term low wage increases,
reduced taxation, dismantling of the public sector and reduced welfare benefits.
The Swedish Rockefeller, Peter Wallenberg, said that an EEC/EU membership would result in the most dramatic changes in Sweden in the last hundred years. He drew the same conclusions as Gyllenhammar adding that public services would be privatized to a great degree. Today we have an underfinanced public sector with dire consequences for public health, employment, education, housing and infrastructure.

In conclusion there is at least a burgeoning protest movement against the EU-USA Free Trade Treaty (TTIP/TAFTA) throughout the EU. There should be Transatlantic cooperation on this
issue.

Krugman is part of the problem and not part of the solution. Let him sleep on like Rip Van
Winkle.