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.

Swedish election 2014 and a long term forecast

Back in January, I made a long term forecast of the election result in the next four elections until 2026. This is an update.

Accuracy of previous forecast

Compared to my forecast, the left did poorly. I had expected 50% and they received 47%. (I have included V, FI, S, MP in the calculation.) The right (KD, C, FP, M) performed as expected. The nationalists (SD) received 13% compared to an expected 10%. (All data rebased on the share of the top eight parties. All parties are described as left-wing or right-wing. Swedish politics is organised into three camps; the left-wing (socialists), the right-wing (non-socialists), and the nationalists.)

Elliott Jaques's strata theory and politicians

The objective of this post is to introduce an interesting theory about organisations and apply it to political systems. Elliott Jaques was an academic that studied organisational behaviour. Most of his research was done outside mainstream academia, which means that there is not a great deal of high quality published, empirical work validating his ideas. I do not know much about his background, but I am aware that many academics consider his ideas unacceptable on political grounds. That is enough to scare a lot of potential researchers away. His sin was probably to imply genetic differences between individuals and to praise hierarchy. I have always found the theory fascinating for its potential implications.

Rant on Swedish politics

The modern world gives proof at every point that it is far easier to destroy institutions than to create them

Roger Scruton

Some people can see fifty years into the future. The founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, is such a person. I do not have this ability. However, I have lived long enough to realise that I can see 10-15 years into the future. Nobody can predict the future, but most people can only see a couple of years ahead. The Swedish politicians fit the description. When such people are in charge, the short-term always crowds out the long-term.

The Swedish political establishment's willingness to experiment is mind-boggling. Since 2000, around 90% of the Swedish population increase has come from non-ethnic-Swedes. I am not sure this is a problem, but I am worried that it might be. Will the Swedish institutions survive? Will Sweden continue to have a largely secular, egalitarian, high trust culture in which men and women have equal rights? Human societies are fragile. That is the message from many historians as well as conservative thinkers like Roger Scruton. I wish Swedish politicians would be humble enough to realise that they might be wrong. If they are wrong, the consequences will be dire. Unfortunately, being conservative is an insult in Swedish.

Should the international community allow ethnicity to determine country borders as a principle?

The Ukrainian region Crimea is predominantly ethnically Russian (or at least Russian speaking). If the citizens living in this region want to secede and join Russia or form their own nation state, should they be allowed? According to the Ukrainian constitution, secession is not allowed by a plebiscite unless all Ukrainian are allowed to vote. I find this question quite fascinating and we are likely to face many such questions in the future. 

Morphing political parties in Sweden

Sweden has two elections this year, one for the European Parliament and one for the Swedish Parliament. I am going to write a bit about Swedish politics from time to time on this blog. I came across the site Political Compass, which uses a modified version of what is normally called the Nolan chart; consider it the standard map to describe political parties. 

The Swedish establishment's schizophrenia

I have lived ten years in multi-cultural Singapore and I thought I should put down my reflections on the current immigration debate in Sweden. This note is written for people that already have some understanding of Sweden.

Forecast of the upcoming Swedish election

I have always been interested in politics, so let me provide a forecast of the future Swedish election results. I conclude that the left-wing is likely to win the upcoming election as well as the subsequent three elections.