[cmrdporcupine]

Everywhere where social democracy took strong hold it was as a bulwark against Communism. It seems to me on reflection that the places it was strongest was the places that had a strong industrial working class but had the USSR as their immediate neighbour. Placating the trade unions and preventing the population from turning to the far left was seen as extremely important after WWII.

With the weakening of the USSR in the late 70s and 80s and its collapse in the early 90s, social democracy has gone into a tailspin crisis, with its strength and focus undermined (losses to Thatcherism, the turn to Blairism, etc.)

[useerup]

> With the weakening of the USSR in the late 70s and 80s and its collapse in the early 90s, social democracy has gone into a tailspin crisis

Tailspin crisis? Did you read the article? The Scandinavian countries weathered the financial crisis quite well.

Also read this: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/978...

The Scandinavian countries fared much better throughout the crisis than neoliberal countries elsewhere in the EU.

[cmrdporcupine]

I was speaking of social democracy as a movement, not the how economy of Scandinavian countries faired the economic crisis. Social democratic parties world wide have either lost power or moved to the centre, or both. Yes they have held power more strongly in Scandinavia vs elsewhere, but policy wise many of the traditional planks of social democracy, which included nationalizing certain industries for example, have 'moderated' significantly, dropping those policies from their platforms.

The social democrats in Sweden were out of power from 2006-2014, BTW. So whether any specific social democratic policy had anything to do with weathering the financial crisis is debatable...