Chapter 70 dilemma experiment

Stockholm is neither boom nor bust.Its architecture tends to be old, but it can't take out famous monuments like Rome and Paris that can stun travelers from all over the world.The streets are not heroic, but full of comfort and seriousness, which is not easy to see in other European cities.Other cities are not long serious when they are comfortable, and there is always a certain heroism in seriousness. This atmosphere in Stockholm presents the political and economic choices of the Swedes, and now, mainly economic choices. Sweden's social and economic system cannot represent Europe, but it embodies an idea with effective practice, so you might as well take a closer look.

Sweden has also been at war in history, and has been strong and weak at times, but since the early nineteenth century, it has gained a large amount of time to concentrate on economic construction.At that time, the world was full of battles and battles, and all kinds of old and new civilizations were exhausted for honor, land and windfall. Only Sweden remembered the lessons of the past, devoted itself to developing industry, and carried out a democratic, Human rights-centered social reform.After one hundred years passed, Sweden, which appeared in front of the world at the beginning of the 20th century, was already a very wealthy industrialized country.In the two world wars of the twentieth century, Sweden was spared due to its strict adherence to neutrality, which enabled it to further avoid the severe attrition that many other powerful countries in the world could not avoid. The degree of wealth and development is already leading the world.

What attracts more attention in Sweden is not that it is rich and developed, but that it has implemented a relatively thorough social welfare policy on this basis.In the beginning, in order to relieve unemployed workers, support the rural economy, and resolve labor disputes in the context of the world economic depression, the government used the power of the government to expand public projects, control foreign trade, issue public bonds extensively, increase tax rates, and increase people's welfare.These policies have all worked, not only avoiding the shadow of the general depression, but also miraculously promoting the overall development of the economy and unprecedented social stability. Therefore, the whole country and all political parties have approved this socio-economic model.

Along this road, Sweden has gradually established a life-long welfare security system called from the cradle to the grave.It not only achieved the dreamed goal of many social reformers throughout the ages, but also did not pay the heavy price of social unrest and totalitarian dictatorship.This not only puts neighboring Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in a state of embarrassment, but also surpasses free capitalism, thus attracting the attention of the world.Neighboring countries in northern Europe such as Denmark and Norway followed suit, and it became popular for a while. However, the problem eventually popped up.

Just like a family, the head of the family manages the house carefully, and the property is evenly distributed. Everyone does not have to worry about it. It seems harmonious and peaceful, which is enviable, but it fosters inner inertia and reduces external vitality. General egalitarianism often conceals some fundamental injustice. For example, from 1970 to 1971, the high-income earners in Swedish state-owned enterprises held a six-week strike to protest the government's egalitarian policies. .Increased production costs, lowered competitiveness, and massive capital outflows brought about by high welfare and high taxes are happening every day in a silent manner.What's more, the actual cost of social welfare is an uncontrollable bottomless pit, which directly leads to the increase of deficit and inflation.In the end, even Mr. A. Lindbeck, chairman of the Nobel Economic Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, sighed: the system of the welfare state brings inefficiency.

In addition, the traditional industry, which is out of touch with modern high-tech, was originally Sweden's century-old pride, but it turned into its century-old burden in an instant.The production costs of traditional industries are getting higher and higher, and the ineffective expenditures of state-owned enterprises are getting bigger and bigger. As a result, efficiency has declined and unemployment has increased.Unemployment is guaranteed by benefits, but benefits cannot stop the decline.There should be a group of adventurous breakouts to reorganize the situation in the future, but the egalitarian system suppresses this possibility.

Thus, a quiet recession exposed the flaws in the bones of Sweden's social and economic system. Decades ago, the western press and economic circles liked to describe Sweden's social and economic system as a middle way between capitalism and socialism. Now that the world situation has changed, people no longer think that there is such a middle way. Necessary, but oddly enough, Sweden remains a coordinate for attempts to find a new middle way between it and the United States. I think the reason is that Sweden's social and economic structure embodies a pursuit of rational order, social fairness and public morality, all of which are easily lost in a free market economy.Sweden has gone too far and tasted the bitter fruit, but if there is no such pursuit at all, it will face a greater crisis, and this crisis will belong to the entire Western world. Many Western wise men have worried about this.

Occasionally, I read an article written by a scholar named Atali in the American "Foreign Policy" quarterly, which is very representative of this line of thinking.He said that no matter how people regard the principle of free market economy as the universal truth of Western civilization, no Western country is willing to fully implement the principle of free market economy in the judicial, national defense, education and communication industries, and no normal Westerner Willing to live in a country where money can be bought and sold for court judgments, private passports, radio waves, biotechnology, drinking water sources, nuclear weapons and drugs.Although the free market economy is the pillar of Western civilization, it has a sharp contradiction with another pillar of Western civilization, the democratic political system.For example, the market economy focuses on the gap between people, and the democratic politics focuses on the equality between people; the market economy focuses on the use value of people, and the democratic politics focuses on the personality rights of people; Settlers; market economy focuses on individual free behavior, while democratic politics focuses on the minority obeying the majority; Attali pessimistically predicted that in the contradiction between the two, the free market economy must be the victor, and market dictatorship will eventually replace democracy , so social fairness and public morality will be difficult to preserve.But in this way, an important pillar will collapse, and the edifice of Western civilization may also collapse as a result.The decline of the Swedish model adds to this pessimism.

I think this Atali obviously sharpened the contradiction between the market economy and democratic politics and made the correspondence too neat.But he showed a lucidity about the inherent paradoxes of a free market economy.In fact, the crisis of the free market economy does not lie in the encounter with democratic politics, but in the fact that it will inevitably lead to global economic integration today, which will cause injustice to various vulnerable groups and cause serious conflicts. It is not alarmist talk. Now, the natural ecology and social ecology of human beings are facing a dangerous situation that affects the whole body. The formulation of a series of global regulations cannot be delayed.Can the development vitality driven by the free market economy and the order control based on the democratic political system be coordinated on a global scale and face the crisis together?Today, countries are still obsessed with their own speed of development, masking a series of potential global disasters.

It is in this context that the slow, warm Swedish model deserves more attention. What deserves our attention more is the cultural concept behind the economy.The Nordic and German economists put forward the principle of evaluating economic relations with the standards of human dignity and social fairness, which is very touching.They convincingly demonstrated such a series of logical relationships: social security depends on people's welfare, people's welfare depends on economic development, economic development depends on market competition, market competition depends on normal order, and normal Order is realized by social security, and social security is realized by civic duty.Therefore, property must be reflected in obligations, and freedom must be reflected in responsibilities. This is the cultural ethics of modern economy.

In fact, this has touched the ultimate concern of human beings.