Sweden after the Swedish Model – From Tutorial State to Enabling State
Few social experiments have caught the imagination of politicians and students of political economy like the ‘Swedish model’. To successive generations of the centre-left Sweden was something of a paradise. In the report ”Sweden after the Swedish Model – from Tutorial State to Enabling State”, the renowned economic-historian Mauricio Rojas tells us the story of the rise and fall of the old Swedish model and introduces a debate over the present quest for a welfare society that combines fairness with freedom.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has recently expressed an intention to bring the European Social Model up for discussion, so when Great Britain takes over the chairmanship of the European Union on July 1st, these questions will be a top priority.
– The future organisation of the welfare society will depend, to a great extent, on how new problems are tackled. In the end, just like every other product of history, the Welfare State was incompatible with the development of the society, which created it and therefore, it now belongs in the world of myths and memories, says Mauricio Rojas
Mauricio Rojas is Member of Parliament for the Swedish Liberal Party. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Economic History at Lund University and has published widely on immigrant problems and development issues. He is also a Senior Adviser at Timbro.