"The Swedish Model," Social Democracy and the Imperialist World System with Torkil Lauesen

In this episode we inter view Torkil Lauesen. Lauesen is a long-time anti-imperialist activist and writer living in Denmark. From 1970 to 1989 he was a full-time member of a communist anti-imperialist group, supporting Third World liberation movements by both legal and illegal means. In connection with support work, he has traveled in Lebanon, Syria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Philippines, and Mexico. In the 1990’s, during his political imprisonment, he was involved in prison activism and received a Masters degree in political science. He is also the author of multiple books, including The Global Perspective: Reflections on Imperialism and Resistance and The Principal Contradiction. He is currently a member of International Forum, an anti-imperialist organization based in Denmark. Today we talk to him about his latest book Riding The Wave: Sweden’s Integration into the Imperialist World System. Which is a thorough investigation into the development of the so-called “Swedish Model” considered by many to be the pinnacle of social democracy. Many US based social democrats, have even gone so far as to describe it this model as a form of “socialism.” Torkil explains the relationship of this economic model to colonialism and imperialism, arguing that the accomplishments of the Social Democratic Party, and trade union movement, would not be possible if one took imperialism out of the equation. We hope you enjoy this conversation, and definitely recommend Lauesen’s new book Riding The Wave, which is not only a great history of the conditions that produced the “Swedish Model,” but deals with many other global phenomena at some length, including how neoliberalism restructured the capitalist world system. A reminder that we are still slowly working our way toward 1,000 patrons for the show, which is our current goal. You can become a patron at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. Our next episode will be a set of reflections between Josh and I on four years of doing Millennials Are Killing Capitalism as we’re a little more than a week away from our 4 year anniversary. Leftwingbooks.net, is having a 20% sale the rest of September on books on its “Against War and Empire” category. Use the code: AGAINSTEMPIRE all one word, all caps at checkout to get that discount.