The Politics of Economic Vulnerability: A Comparison of Australia and Sweden

Abstract

The recent visit of an ACTU delegation to Sweden to See what might be _ learnt from the experience of that country labour movement is yet another example of the perennial fascination that the Swedish model exercises over the mind,, of Australian democratic socialists Sweden's much vaunted achievement, in the field, of welfare provision, labour market policy to minimise unempluyment and corporatist wage bargaining are frequentlv seen as panaceas for all Australia's woes. The desire to emulate such achievement,, is far from irrational and. ot course, Australian socialists have not been alone in admiring the Swedish model, one only has to remember Tony Cros!and's advice to the British Labour party in the fifties that salvation lay in taking the Swedish path of avoiding nationalisation like the plague and piling on the welfare But admiration notwithstanding any serious proposal that we might try to emulate the Swedish example requires a realistic appraisal of the structural antecedents of that achievement and an evaluation of the extent to which other countries are characterised by similar or equivalent circumstances Earlier I argued agamst the Crosland thesis ' Here, I shall contrast some aspects of the development of political economy in Australia and Sweden with a view to establishing whether there is any more reason to suppose that a social democratic strategy might flourish in Australia than in Britain