No more vision in Sweden

This is a posting about politics. In the future I will migrate such postings to statsvetenskap.blogspot.sg. The current blog that you are reading will be devoted to business strategy.

Left-wing philosophy has invaded the brains of most politicians in Sweden. All the seven established parties, representing 84% of the electorate, have adopted a very dangerous left-wing idea, which is going to have very negative consequences in the coming twenty years. The dangerous idea is that there can be no more grand visions for the future of society.

All grand visions are dead

Some organisations have had strong visions during certain times in history. Just a few examples:

• The European Economic Community (EEC) had a strong vision of a peaceful Europe in the 1950s.
• NASA had a strong vision of putting a man on the moon in the 1960s. 
• OPEC had a strong vision of increasing the revenue from oil reserves in the 1970s. 
• Margaret Thatcher had a strong vision of making Great Britain more entrepreneurial in the 1980s.
• Microsoft had a strong vision of owning the desktop in the 1990s. 
• Singapore had a strong vision of creating world-class universities in the 2000s. 
• ISIS has a strong vision of a Muslim Caliphate in the 2010.

Visions are neither inherently good nor necessary for progress. They also seem to have a best-before date. However, they are a powerful device to mobilise action. That is why they are valuable and important.

In the late 70s, Jean-Francois Lyotard, a left wing French academic, argued that there are no more metanarratives, i.e. visions. A metanarrative is a coherent story about where the future is going. A story that will guide people through life. The metanarrative of the Western civilisation has been a belief in economic and political progress and salvation through Christ. Lyotard argued that all such metanarratives were disappearing. He considered it a good thing, because the metanarrative had suppressed minority groups like blacks, immigrants, homosexuals, and women. In the future there would only be a number of contradictory competing smaller narratives. This would overthrow the existing power structures in society. Lyotard was a Marxist, but more sane people should be very worried about the situation.

Being a French academic, Lyotard never bothered to perform any empirical testing whether metanarratives were in fact disappearing. Metanarratives are what academics call social constructions and they can become true by sheer mindpower. During the subsequent twenty years many, if not most, social science academics in the West accepted the postmodernist ideas at face value. Lyotard is an influential postmodernist. After incubating several decades in academia, the ideas have now spread to the political area; there can be no new grand visions.

Mostly a European problem

Grand visions and narratives are the same. Most Western European countries, including the European Union lack a grand vision or narrative about the future. This is partly due to the aftermath of the economic crisis that hit in 2008, but mainly due to European opinion leaders having accepted the postmodernist ideas. The novel situation is that the mainstream right often has adopted the ideas as well. This is certainly true in Sweden and half-true in Great Britain. The last visionary leader in Western Europe was probably Margaret Thatcher.

The situation outside Europe is different. In the USA, a large portion of the population still thinks that God has a special relationship with their country. Nevertheless, postmodernist ideas are relatively common on many US university campuses. In China, a large portion of the population thinks their country is destined for greatness. In the Middle East, the vision is often more violent, but equally strong. Metanarratives are social constructions and if people believe in them, they are true.

The Swedish vision in post-war history

Sweden had a strong vision called Folkhemmet in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. This Social-Democratic idea consisted of the government providing education and welfare to the population through high taxation. This vision gave the Social-Democratic party victory in every post-war election until 1976. The vision was not shared by the whole population, but the majority liked it. After a long decade of crises, a new vision slowly emerged in the early 1990s. This was a vision defined in the negative: a reversal of the excesses of the the Folkhemmet vision. This vision was largely shared by the left and the right. Visions defined in the negative are weaker visions, because they have a well-defined objective that can be reached. It is too early to tell, but it is possible that the vision took its last breath with the ouster of the non-socialist coalition in 2014.

These two visions were metanarratives. They defined success rather clearly and involved the majority of the population. There were certain expectations on what individuals should do to make the society progress. This created a certain order in society.

The lack of vision in 2014

Since 2014 Sweden has a new left-wing government, after eight years of a non-socialist coalition government. Prior to the election there were no discussion among the old seven, mainstream parties about a vision for the future. All of them had accepted Lyotard's conclusion and everyone talked about small modifications to the existing system. Anyone reading the tea leaf's in the opinion polls would have predicted a left-wing government. The new government has been in existence for three weeks, but there is still no evidence of a vision. In fact a number of haphazard, disjointed proposals so far virtually ensures that there will be no new vision. Key proposals so far:

• The gymnasium school should be compulsory. Only 1% of Swedish youth stop school after the compulsory nine years. Yet the first educational proposal was to extend the compulsory schools from nine to twelve years.
• There should be less profit allowed in private health-care and schools. However, instead of coming with a proposal, a committee will investigate and propose action in 2016.
• Sweden gets 50% of its energy from nuclear power and this should stop. The new government will increase the levy on nuclear power, hoping that the power companies spend more money on alternative energy.

One can agree or disagree with the details, but this being representative proposals, it is not a visionary government.

Grand visions are not totally dead...

Narratives and visions are social constructions and if we agree to create a joint vision that is just as possible today as it has been in the past. If we do not create a joint vision, Lyotard is proven right and we will have a multitude of competing narratives about the future. The only parties with a visions about the future are Feministiskt initiativ (FI) and Sverigedemokraterna (SD):

• The left-wing feminist party FI has a positively defined vision of a feminist society based on left-wing politics. Their vision includes free immigration. White men are having too much power in society and they should be taxed higher and their power privilege should be removed. 3% of the voters.
• The social-conservative SD has a vision defined in the negative about a return to the Folkhemmet vision of the 1960s, Their vision includes a sharp reduction in immigration. 13% of the voters.

These visions are certainly not shared by a large portion of the population so they do not qualify as a metanarrative. They are relatively novel political forces and it is yet open to what extent they are able to forge a consistent vision that appeals to a larger voter base. Since these two parties are young, they are still able to change and evolve quickly. Both these parties also have strong leaders.

In contrast, none of the large political parties, representing 84% of voters, have clear visions about the future. They only propose safe, short-term, minor modifications to the status quo hoping that would be sufficient for the future. Balancing the budget is not a vision.

... but a crisis is needed to wake up 

I think Lyotard's idea has already been too powerful to enable a broad discussion about the future without a major crisis occurring. Sweden is very wealthy and such a crisis is unlikely to come in the next few years. My guesstimate is that the country will muddle through and a crisis might break out in the early 2020s. What can be the source of the crisis? Your guess is as good as mine, but here is my guess:

• An inflow of 400,000 lowly educated Muslim asylum seekers. Quite possible within a five year period given the current situation in the Middle East. The Swedish policy is to hand out permanent residency directly. It is very difficult for somebody with only primary education to get a job in a country like Sweden, so they will live on the taxpayer for a long time.
• A continued meltdown of the school system. The current trajectory in the PISA results is negative. There is a shortage of qualified teachers. This has to be coupled with anger and street demonstrations by parents to qualify as a crisis. The left-wing government possibly outlawing privately run schools might be another catalyst.
• An ISIS terrorist attack in Stockholm killing 20 people. ISIS tried such an attack in Stockholm a number of years ago, but the suicide bomber was incompetent and only managed to kill himself. The West is largely saved because very few people want to kill themselves, but this is a clear possibility. 
• A crisis in the world economy punishing the export-oriented industry. Sweden's wealth is created by multinational industrial companies that sell to the world market. The same as 25 or 50 years ago.

In a later posting I will write more about potential visions for Sweden.