#EU#Sweden#SocialDemocracy#Unions#ClassWar#ClassStruggle: "The Social Democratic–led trade unions organized 80 to 90 percent of the workers, the vast majority of whom voted Social Democrat. Large sections of the middle classes also supported the party’s policies. The broad Social Democratic movement was extraordinarily well organized. It was, to use [Antonio] Gramsci’s phrase, a party with a great capacity to produce and educate its intellectuals itself. The leadership was recruited mainly from the working class, and it soon acquired extensive experience in leading struggles and movements. [. . .]
But the conquests of the Swedish working class are also linked to waves of radicalization, recurrent periods of strikes, increased social struggles, and the emergence of new social movements and revitalization of existing ones. Virtually all important democratic and social reforms can be linked to such periods of intensified class struggle. The democratic reforms after World War I were a direct consequence of the massive hunger demonstrations initiated by working women, who were largely unorganized either politically or as laborers.
The social reforms initiated in the 1930s came about amid the threat of widespread strike movements, a surge in trade union organization, and women’s struggle for the right to work and for basic social security. The spectacular peak of the solidarity-based welfare state in the 1960s and ’70s coincided with the emergence of a series of new social movements with transformative ambitions, in which the women’s movement played a decisive role, and with a strong radicalization of the traditional labor movement, mainly expressed in a wave of spontaneous strikes.
Certainly, the Social Democratic Party has often played a central role in these processes."
By Gunnar Rundgren, originally published by Garden Earth March 29, 2024
"...The economic metaphor of the invisible hand suggests that the lower-level pursuit of self-interest robustly benefits the higher-level common good. ...Adam Smith...assumed that there would be some moral system in place to keep the self-interest of trade in check: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are...some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others...though he derives nothing from it..." It would be unfair to criticize Adam Smith for failing to understand that the self-interest would become so dominating...[it] has eroded...the same self-interest and its main expression, the market.
It seems apparent that the current norm of individualism & the worship of self-interest is bound to undermine human society. This norm is also reflected in the obsession with competitiveness..."
In 1910 in Copenhagen, the 2nd International Conference of Socialist Women adopted the idea of an "International Women's Day" from a proposal by Clara Zetkin (German Social Democratic Party), although no date was set.
The "Journal du CNRS" notes that "Women's Day was therefore the initiative of the socialist movement and not of the feminist movement, which was very active at the time". The historian Françoise Picq adds that "it was precisely to counteract the influence of feminist groups on the women of the people that Clara Zetkin proposed this day", rejecting "the alliance with the 'feminists of the bourgeoisie'": https://lejournal.cnrs.fr/articles/journee-des-femmes-la-veritable-histoire-du-8-mars@histodons
I think I should add that except for (pseudo-)#Republicans, this is NOT "#socialism" but 20th "#SocialDemocracy", or even 19th century IMPERIAL policy (Chancelor #Bismarck, health and accident insurances, 1883 +1884, anounced by his Majesty, Emperor William I. of #Germany in 1881)*.
Wake up to the 21st century, #GOP!
You are an anachronism, a travesty, and a caricature of feudal #England...and a me-too of really poor and undignified quality at that...