A Study On The Mode Of Swedish Social Democracy

The Swedish social democracy experienced complicated development process in the past 120 years, to form sound and deserving the global attention style of social democracy. However, there is not systematic and in-depth research on it, no matter if in the political studies or comparative analysis. It is mostly analyzed as the"Third Path"of the European social democracy, and analysis is usually peripheral. This is especially true for the Chinese research on it. Yet, the Swedish style is unique and deserves to be analyzed, particularly for uses of China's socialism development. As such, this article studies the historical and logical path of development of Sweden's social democracy political theories and political focus. The article describes in detail the Swedish social democracy, systematically summarizes its value principles, theoretical system and characteristics of its practice. It also provides suggestions on the Swedish social democracy general cross analysis covering areas of political studies, political history, history of the political system and macro economic studies.Sweden's social democracy does not originate from Sweden. In the end of the 19th century, when the international labor movement and local capitalism were developing quickly, Sweden's social democracy gradually overtook one of the core roles in the political scene by a series of political movements. In the past 120 years, Sweden has insisted its value and political principles, developed the theories and formed its unique practice.Sweden's social democracy ideological origin includes three parts: one is Christianity and humanitarianism; another is Germany classical philosophy; the third is Marxism, Revisionism and Fabianism. Sweden's social democracy principles can be basically generalized as freedom, equality and unity. These principles are obviously different from Marxism and the right wing theory. They have social economic characters and at the same time keep capitalism frame. The realization of socialism is constantly improving. On this ideological basis, Sweden's social democracy generates four basic political principles: left-wing, democracy, parliamentarism and reformism. These principles are the basic standpoints of Sweden's social democracy.The theory development of Sweden's social democracy is very complicated. Karl Hjalmar Branting led the first generation of Sweden Social Democracy Party members and confirmed the theory basis: practice, reform (peaceful) and democracy. After that, the Sweden Social Democracy Party led by Hanson presented a core slogan: people's home and built the Swedish democracy style. Meanwhile, Sweden adopted a complete set of political economic theories on the Stockholm school group's support. Sweden's social welfare policies and systems gradually become more mature and systematic.Welfare socialism is considered as Sweden's most dazzling label. People usually are impressed by its golden era. In fact, Sweden's welfare socialism has splendid past, but also difficult time. During the welfare socialism development, there are three famous words: welfare socialism, functional socialism and fund socialism. These three words show the stages of Sweden's social democracy found, development and adjustment.Sweden's social welfare democracy was formed during the Great Depression and the Second World War. It is characterized by fast growth, high taxation and high welfare. It was highly popularized and systematized, and attracted most attention amongst the welfare systems in western welfare countries. This set of policies matured twenty years after the Second World War. Its core values are based on the model of"Rehn-Meidner Model". This model has classical political sense for the Swedish social democracy and represents the bright characteristics of workers in the social democracy path. Without workers'movements, the Swedish social democratic party would not spend long-term efforts to develop into its present style. The macroeconomic theory of Stockholm school group provided the basic theoretical support for Sweden's social development and economy with governmental intervention. All this reached a culmination of the Swedish welfare socialism in the 1960s, becoming an impressive example for a welfare society. However, along with the historical changes, the Swedish welfare socialism went into a crisis, with the functional socialism coming in place as an adjustment plan after this. Despite this, it remained at the ideological level, focusing on describing the theory of functional socialization of the property, and was only a summary of the Swedish social democratic practice, lacking of feasible and effective measures. As such, it didn't result into an effective practice. In order to solve the deepened crisis, a social democracy style of"Employee Investment fund"as a core value was adopted to deal in practice. It aimed at gradual socialization of the raw materials property to realize socialism. This helped slow down the crisis, but impacted by severe historical strikes; it remained only a method for macroeconomic control, and finally failed in the 1990s.After traditional welfare socialism crisis happened and its adjustment failed twice, Sweden's social democracy style gradually turned to The Third Path. In fact, it is a combination of the traditional"Rehn-Meidner Model"and the new liberalism policies. It has a series of market-oriented policies based on financial liberalization. However, the first stage of the experiment failed and new liberalism could not combine with Sweden's practice. As a result, the Third Path in the second trial stage came as more stable and traditional. The political, economic, social, welfare, and other fields all improved. The experiment actually was the Swedish adjustments for confronting the economic globalization compact. Globalization has significantly changed the Swedish particular economic system and politics structure. However, the basic characteristics of its development style did not change. Sweden will lose more traditions, but its development style also will gain more new contents.The Swedish development path cannot be adopted by other countries, but it can serve as an important reference and caution signal. Its social democracy created the combination of unique concepts and practice, with the practice of highly effective equality values and welfare system, close relationship between social democratic party and labor organization. All this is worthy for us to learn and use as reference in establishing the Chinese style of socialism in practice.