Kjell Östberg is a historian. He is author of The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy.
Swedish Social Democracy is often idealized as a benign reformist force that delivered welfare to the grateful masses. Yet the Swedish social model was the product of conflict — and a working-class radicalism that the Social Democrats have now turned against.
Sweden’s extraordinary wave of reforms in the 1970s, an era of explosive radicalism, reveal the achievements — and the limits — of social democracy.
Olof Palme’s career illustrates the Swedish model’s great successes — and crippling weaknesses.