Difficult for the sellers and bankruptcies are increasing
It is not only construction workers, employees in schools, care and social care, refugees, labor immigrants as well as the unemployed and sick who are affected by the austerity policy from the Tidö government.
Bankruptcies are at a record high and increasing . At the same time, one of Sweden's top salespeople, who I know, tells me that it is difficult for his professional group as well.
SOU 2025:96 (Final Report of the Productivity Commission) makes good proposals on research, education, digitalization and infrastructure. But the basic view is one-sidedly market liberal: market rents, greater wage dispersion, reduced taxes on high incomes and exposure to competition should increase productivity. MMT shows that a monetary sovereign state is limited by labor, technology, energy and raw materials – not by money. When rents and other necessary costs rise, purchasing power, sales and investments decrease. Historically, active industrial policy, public credit, education and infrastructure have built competitiveness. It is this kind of support that has made China industrially stronger than Europe – not market neutrality and austerity . One of the good proposals, however, is to allow wages for knowledge-intensive professions in the public sector to rise faster than the industry mark as long as it does not go too far.
It doesn't go well for anyone when the state puts on an economic straitjacket.
In this situation, Tidölaget wants to slaughter the unemployment fund for the long-term unemployed.
You can call it a deliberate shrinking of the economy.
In this way, the authorities deliberately put parts of the production apparatus in a mothball.
The parasitic rentier capital profits from this. The rest does not, in any case.
The only way a country can save is to invest. But there is no reason for capital to invest if sales decline.
Colonialism a losing business
It's like colonialism. The colonies and the mother countries lost out. But for individual capitalists, especially the biggest ones, it became profitable. The effect of Keynesianism in Sweden 1930-1973 was that society and production functioned as well as it could for most people. But when the workers were not financially vulnerable, their wages rose relative to those of their superiors and capital owners. In the 1970s, only one large company CEO was paid only 9 times more than an average industrial worker. This was called because the distance of respect decreased. So one reason with neoliberalism from 1973 onwards as it was with the first austerity policies after the First World War was to recreate the class divisions even if this meant that society functioned worse and worse.
When society does not function, private individuals' borrowing needs increase. Then the bank owners become rich and can buy luxury yachts and racing cars while society cannot afford school, care, welfare, employment, working conditions.
Even the ancient Romans knew of steam power and the railway, but this was only used for toys and symbols of power because the labor of the slaves was free.
In the same way, the plague in Europe stimulated the technical efficiency of the boats, which contributed to the development of capitalism and Europe's global dominance.
But as long as the state does not create financing for the production, the class gaps will grow larger. Then technology development and productivity growth stops. The whole society is in decline. That was how it was in Sweden around 1900 after an eternity of right-wing rule, of which the monarchy and nobility was an extreme form.
In the end, social democratic economic thinkers then teasingly asked rhetorically about the consequence of right-wing economic reasoning: can we afford to work?
You can call it a deliberate shrinking of the economy.
This means that you deliberately put parts of the production apparatus in a moth bag.
I suppose the parasitic rentier capital profits from this, somehow. At least the rest don't.
The only way a country can save is to invest. But there is no reason for capital to invest if sales decline.
Just. I think it's like colonialism. The colonies and the mother countries lost out. But for individual kpiatlists, especially the biggest ones, it became profitable. The effect of Keynesianism in Sweden 1930-1973 was that society and production functioned as well as it could for most people. But when workers were not vulnerable, their wages rose relative to those of their superiors and capital owners. In the 1970s, only one large company CEO was paid 9 times more than an average industrial worker. This was called because the distance of respect decreased. So one reason with neoliberalism from 1973 onwards as it was with the first austerity policies after the First World War was to recreate the class divisions even if this meant that society functioned worse and worse.
When society does not function, private individuals' borrowing needs increase. Then the bank owners become rich and can buy luxury yachts and racing cars while society cannot afford school, care, welfare, employment, working conditions.
Even the ancient Romans knew of steam power and the railway, but this was only used for toys and symbols of power because the labor of the slaves was free.
In the same way, the plague in Europe stimulated the technical efficiency of the boats, which contributed to the development of capitalism and Europe's global dominance.
But as long as the state does not create financing for the production, the class gaps will grow larger. Then technology development and productivity growth stops. The whole society is in decline. That was how it was in Sweden around 1900 after an eternity of right-wing rule, of which the monarchy and nobility was an extreme form.
In the end, social democratic economic thinkers then teasingly asked rhetorically about the consequence of right-wing economic reasoning: can we afford to work?
The rentier capitalists, the tollgate capitalists, increase their share, in other words.
And when that happens, society gradually becomes poorer and more primitive. That's what happened in Iraq in the 8th-900th centuries, in China in the 12th-1300th centuries, in Italy in the 14th-15th centuries, in Spain in the 1500th-1600th centuries. And the countries in question become backwaters (see more, including reading tips, at https://gemensam.wordpress.com/2023/02/08/den-allsidiga-krisen-kraver-en-ny-sorts-program/ ).
There is no doubt that the North Atlantic countries are heading in that direction in relation to East Asia. This is not least because of the neoliberal weakness for "outsourcing", i.e. giving away production capacity to others.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot... It's not even to the advantage of the capitalists in the term of a generation, but the competition drives them in that direction. In the choice between losses today and being outcompeted next year, they choose the latter, then they have been able to sell out in the meantime.
Here are an American blogger's very funny, if not super serious, views on the subject (you don't need to worry about the somewhat flat last two paragraphs): https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-retard-parade-of-western-politics-exemplified-by-trump-and-biden/
Yes, today's capitalism is as if it were a woodcutter who supports himself by constantly stabbing himself in the foot instead of chopping wood.
It happens again everywhere.
This week I read Göran Therborn's book Cities of Power, https://www.versobooks.com/products/234-cities-of-power , which lists different city typologies that have been created by different kinds of power establishments. The latest, the "global city" governed by rentier capitalists in collaboration with states, is not about production, but partly about building the highest possible skyscrapers to monopolize the value of the land (what is not built on and thus becomes worthless is left to the public), and partly about separating themselves and their upper middle class tail into a glamorous world above or alongside that of the majority.
Production capitalism could in itself be quite segregating, but there was also a desire to integrate that is completely absent today. Even if it didn't always turn out so smart, see http://gamla.alternativstad.nu/Dokument/segregcentrum.html