Why the Swedish left keeps winning -- Final End

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Date Posted: 01:09:52 09/21/02 Sat
Author: Drummond
Subject: Why the Swedish left keeps winning

Why the Swedish Left Keeps Winning
==================================
By Nathan Newman

>From the Progressive Populist
October 15th issue

Defying a conservative swing in Europe, Swedish voters
on September 15th decisively reelected to government
the Social Democrats, the party that has run Sweden for
all but nine years of the postwar period and who built
what most consider the most generous social benefits
system in the world.

A strange success for a government that, according to
conservative propagandists, has left its people poorer
than most African Americans in the United States.
Leading up to the election, a conservative business
group published a study that the median household
income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the
equivalent of $26,800 compared with a median of $39,400
for U.S. households. US conservatives widely
publicized the numbers to show the horrors of the
Swedish welfare state.

So what do the Swedish voters know that these pundits
don't?

First, they know the old adage that there are lies,
damn lies and statistics. This whole failed propaganda
exercise is a good opportunity to walk through how
conservatives twist statistics to make their case.

Start with "household income": comparing household
income is deceptive since Swedes have fewer people
living in each household and fewer people working in
each home, so the supposedly larger household income in
the US includes more wage earners divided between more
people-essentially an apples and oranges comparison.

On top of that, Swedish workers work an average of just
1,552 hours per year, while United States workers work
an average of 1,889 hours. Essentially, Swedes get the
equivalent of two months extra time off per year, so
any increased annual income in the US is "bought" by
giving up the vacations and holidays that Swedes enjoy.

So the key comparison number is really what a person
can earn per hour in each country. And here's where you
see a fun rightwing ideological trick. When discussing
the horrors of the Swedish welfare state, conservatives
will bemoan the poverty and low wages of the Swedes.
But when discussing regulatory and employment policy,
conservatives will argue that hourly compensation costs
are destroying business competitiveness in places like
Sweden. ie. their workers make too much money and
benefits. Sort of odd that such a poor people make more
per hour than US workers.

Luckily, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has
periodically done such international comparisons of
wages in manufacturing, including employer-paid health,
vacation and other benefits. According to those US
statistics, Swedish workers are paid more per hour than
US workers when you factor in both wages and benefits.
This addresses the obvious fact that ignoring all the
non-wage benefits of a welfare state is slightly insane
when discussing living standards. If your employer or
government is paying for your housing, child care,
health care and range of other expenses, just looking
at nominal wage rates is just plain stupid.

As far as trends, median wages in Sweden rose 22
percent during the 1990s even as the unemployment rate
fell considerably. In fact, unemployment in Sweden is
lower than in the United States. So the conservative
propagandists lose again.

It's easy for Americans to feel horror hearing that the
Swedish government takes over fifty percent of peoples
income in taxes, but when you remember that those taxes
pay for health care and other costs that Americans
usually have to pay on their own with after-tax money,
the story is quite different.

Most people are most familiar with the idea that
Europeans don't have to spend their after-tax money on
health care, but they don't realize that countries like
Sweden also subsidize housing costs. Swedish
homeowners spend only an average of 22 percent of their
after-tax income on housing, far less than the housing
costs to most Americans, with comparable subsidies for
renters as well. As for child care, another big expense
for families in the US, parents have to pay only 15% of
the costs of child care in Sweden.

So with government and employer funds in Sweden paying
for so much of health, housing and other family
expenses, just looking as gross income measures misses
the real issue of importance to families and voters,
which is how much they have to spend after those core
expenses are paid. Which is why the Social Democrats
in Sweden won reelection once again so handily.

The lesson here for progressives is clear. When
government covers core family expenses, people will
support the taxes necessary for those programs. Social
Security and Medicare are the perfect examples of that
in the United States and its clear that if universal
health care coverage was extended to all voters, there
would be full support for the taxes necessary once
people recognized the savings in their family budgets.

Which is why you see the conservative pundits in such a
frenzy to discredit the success of the Swedish system.
Funny how the voters in Sweden seem to know something
that the statistic manipulators don't.

--------------------------------------------------
Nathan Newman is a union lawyer, longtime community
activist, a National Vice President of the National
Lawyers Guild and author of the just published book NET
LOSS (Penn State Press) on Internet policy and economic
inequality. Email nathan@n... or see
http://www.nathannewman.org. >>

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