Crime

Like most democratic countries, Sweden tends to experience a crime wave during every national election campaign-- primarily at the instigation of the Conservative Party, which can rely on the gutter press to frighten the populace with tales of grim and terrible deeds. This election is no different, but the best available evidence suggests that the overall crime rate has remained fairly stable during recent years. There have been increases in some categories of crime, but decreases in others. A rise in physical assault among young men is attributable to easier access to alcohol. It is often difficult to distinguish reporting trends from the actual frequency of crime. The most reliable measures, victim surveys, indicate that Sweden still has one of the lowest crime rates in the western world.

In general, however, the level of education remains comparatively high. Swedish students routinely receive high marks in international comparisons, usually ranking at or near the top in language skills, geography and general knowledge. Although not as clever as the Japanese in math and science, they also do reasonably well in those subjects. The information technology resources and capabilities of Swedish youth are world class.

Some critics, including a number of prominent business leaders, have complained that the proportion of the population with a university education is lower in Sweden than in other countries, especially the U.S. But such comparisons make no attempt to determine the level and quality of education. Anyone who believes that the average American is better educated than the average Swede is obviously not very familiar with either. A secondary school education in Sweden is roughly equivalent to one or two years of university in the U.S.-- except that the quality of education in Sweden is more uniform.

There is some genuine cause for concern, however. Recent reforms of basic education, including that pushed through by former Education Minister Göran Persson, may have done more harm than good. In addition, budget cutbacks and hare-brained experiments with privatisation have affected teacher morale and increased the rate of burn-out. A serious issue that has received surprisingly little attention is an increasing reliance on educational materials developed and paid for by Big Business.

By comparison, the Conservative Party receives at least twice as much financial support from the Swedish Employers' Confederation ("SAF") and related interests-- and this does not take into account the enormous amount of supporting propaganda churned out by national and international news media. The difference is that, whereas the LO-SDP connection has been entirely open, that between SAF and the Conservatives has been hidden and disguised. It is safe to assume that SAF's massive support for the Conservatives would not continue very long if that party were to suddenly become enthusiastic over the Nordic model.

But for want of more exciting issues, the issue of campaign financing has received a great deal of attention from the SDP's opponents and the press. The SDP leadership has ineptly contributed to that interest, by trying to pretend that the party has never been under any particular influence from LO-- unbelievable. A survey commissioned by a business journal has found that over half of LO's members are opposed to the direct party support, but the methodology is suspect: The survey question neglected to mention the obvious comparison with SAF's support for the Conservatives. Nevertheless, the results suggest the existence of widespread alienation from both SAP and LO among union members.

The phenomenon in question is forced sterilisation, a socio-medical policy that originated early in this century in the United States and spread to most other western countries. In Sweden, as presumably elsewhere, the policy invested medical and other authorities with powers that they sometimes abused-- although no one knows to what extent. The author Sven Lindqvist has convincingly argued that the development of the general welfare state was instrumental in eliminating such abuses. But thanks to Dagens Nyheter and its eager associates around the world, the Social Democratic Nordic model has now been firmly and falsely established as the source of the problem.