AEIR–
Few subjects are more taboo among self-described socialists than the historical track record of socialism in action.
Bernie Sanders recently bristled at the suggestion of any commonality between the government of Venezuela and his own platform, even though less than a decade ago he was touting the country along with other leftist governments in South America as exemplars of the “American dream.”
When Anderson Cooper presented Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a similar question, she scoffed at the suggestion. It is unfair to link their ideology to its violent forebears, they insist, because the “democratic socialism” they envision is a Scandinavian-style welfare state, modeled after the economy of Sweden.
But there’s also a neglected dark side to the Swedish welfare model that its “democratic socialist” admirers seldom mention. That same welfare system developed in explicit conjunction with a violent and coercive eugenics policy, intended to ensure its fiscal solvency and prevent abuses of its programs by persons who were deemed genetically “unfit” by the state.
To counteract the perceived risk of welfare dependence, the SDP government consciously paired its new welfare policies with a complementary system of eugenic laws — intended to prevent or dissuade “unfit” persons from reproducing. These included a narrow compulsory sterilization program, applied to persons with hereditary “defects,” and a much larger “voluntary” sterilization program targeting behavioral considerations. As part of the latter program, the government could induced lower-class citizens to submit to the procedure by using the suasion and levers of the new welfare state itself.
The “voluntary” measures went far beyond involuntary sterilization, which was restricted by law to explicit eugenic reasons. As a 1997 study of the program documented, government officials are known to have used submission to “voluntary” sterilization as a condition for release from mental institutions and public hospitals, for continued access to certain forms of public housing, and even marriage licensing among the poor. In total, an estimated 63,000 Swedes were sterilized between the 1930s and the expiration of the main eugenic law in 1976.
Apparently…They Sterilized all of the intelligent ones..
“moslem hordes? That sounds great !!!!!”
Bobcat….I’ll kill You in Your sleep.
But…..it’ll be different this time………….
I’m a raging Alcoholic Greta…I don’t sleep so much as “Passing Out”
Plus I never stay in the same Parking Lot two Nights in a row.
Greta! To your country, welcome!
(No one’s gonna get that.)
While the Swedes were busy with their culling, they were also busy being neutral in WWII. Which makes total sense, now that I think about it.
Dumb Swedes
While the history lesson is appreciated,
This Bobcat/Greta courtship is much more fascinating,
So Sweden proved that a welfare state can work, but only with lots of eugenics – until you have to import foreigners in hopes of getting someone to do the blue collar work. If they had not imported moslems they might have survived their self-righteous stupidity.
Progressives, leftists and fascists are all scum cut from the same cloth. WW2 was a brawl over what kind of collectivism would dominate.
The US brand of big govt business coalition (fascism)(greenies, news media & entertainment, law and edu are businesses, too, right?) seemed to dominate for a while, but that was because other nations manufacturing were blown to pieces. Meanwhile commie infiltration was rotting every western nation from within.
Collectivism is the right name for the whole group of big govt aholes, whether commie, fascist, Nazi, social democrat, …. – all the same crap with different names to confuse the fools.
I was totally unaware of the strong Nazi support in Sweden until I read – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. And did a bit of research about it. I believe the other Nordic countries were also neutral in WW2, but only Sweden was not invaded. Coincidence?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/14/sweden-far-right-wartime-past .
However, I tend to think of Nazism as far left, not far right, as the above author does. Though maybe it could be argued Nazism was a combination of the worst from both extremes.
JO BLO
I read “road to Serfdom” ~58 years ago. I have said for the last 18 that G. Will i the C word Hayek uses in it. Will never was a conservative, he said Ron was Wrong ,”,,, THE GOVT IS THE PROBLEM!”! To call George a conservative is to smear Barry + Ronny!The entire UNIPARTY can politely be called COLLECTIVISTS. but given Mueller’s ties to the KGB 40 years ago (and likely to Putin right now!) Communist is more apt.
America traveled far down THE ROAD the first 16 years of this century.
“Socialism” is just the come-on sweetener for one of the world’s biggest Bait & Switch scams!
Why should they speak truth about a system which is founded upon lies?
The whole idea, point, and intention of “socialism” is for a small cadre of ruthless murderers to enslave a nation. We’ve seen it, in one of its various guises, for 2,500 years. And yet there is still a great swath of humanity which sucks up the bullshit pretending to be smelling roses.
Ignorance is the chief cause of this. Mankind’s quest for “money for nothing and chicks for free” and the childishly delusional belief that such is possible is also part of the motor the liars and purveyors of totalitarianism employ. As long as there are ignorant, alienated, delusional, and nihilistic people in the world there will be a built-in constituency for socialism.
The Sanders and O’Cortezes will always lie – truth is the province of God (which also explains the mussulman penchant for deception).
izlamo delenda est …
Blink – Norway and Denmark were invaded by Germany and Finland was invaded by Russia. A friend’s father was 14 and in the Norwegian Resistance. He was captured and repeatedly tortured (the Nazis broke his legs repeatedly) until he was rescued by others in the Resistance. Sweden was a POS during the war, they deserve everything which is happening to them now.