Speechesfor60thbirthday

Some say that the welfare state and social services are now very broad , so we can be satisfied. They say even that is too large, and related public expenditure is unsustainable , so you should cut them. Others, however, say

Are we satisfied with what has been achieved? Can we withdraw now? Of course not! What has been achieved so far are only incipient attempts at major project the company to be spread. It is not difficult to find still unsatisfactory situations and injustices in society. (3)

Something seems a highly topical issue. But not today, "satisfied" with the welfare state are the conservatives of the 50 Swedish and the following quote made Olof Palme in 1955.

In the 50 and 60, before Olof Palme began his work as head of government, before it began its policies of expansion of the welfare state, we can find his own party mates who believed that the construction welfare state in Sweden was over (how the finance minister Gunnar Strang) won the Palme right wing of his own party and held off the ideas of social liberalism . (neoliberalism advocated within the Socialist party Social Democrats). But this was not the general trend in the rest of Europe, social-liberalism, in the name of pragmatism, was imposed in the direction of many social democratic parties.

single neoliberal thinking that we suffer today in Europe and the world is the result of the total defeat of social democracy in the ideological battle . The curious thing about this battle is that the defeat did not come for the suitability of the neoliberal proposals contrast, the loss came by treachery and jacket change the Social Democratic leaders, who were progressively mutating ideology and went on to defend the ideas of neoliberalism. Then they got to the same social democratic parties change their official party line. This mutation in the dome, which has resulted in a Social l has disappeared as ideological force, their ideas and have no public or media weight, today the defense of social democracy has been reserved for the private sphere, only found in the foundations of social democratic parties and other leftist parties. The Social Democratic leaders, only use these ideas to inflame his followers at election time, once in power, they just take some symbolic measures while scrupulously respecting the Lord's Prayer neoliberal. The Social Democratic parties today drained of ideology, are bowl games, in the way of the center parties, change their proposals based on the circumstances of the moment. No ideology is just demagoguery and political opportunism.

Palme also faced with the dilemma ideals / pragmatism

Socialist politics, the left always means blood enters the ideas and utopia for which you have to work and actually how difficult it is to change. To be able to change reality is to keep alive the ideological debate and always discuss your goals and basic ideas as indispensable to your business practice. But in your practical work have to be pragmatic, if not get anywhere. (3)

But he maintained a balance between ideas and practice and to renounce the ideology never, never support the ideas of conservatives. This setting allowed ideology select practical methods to achieve results effectively to take you to your goal. Rigid ideals, flexible methods:

Fidelity and the consequence in terms of ideas should join (...) regarding infidelity
methods (...)
"Fidelity and the consequence in terms of ideas should join (...) infidelity in terms of methods (3)

Today, however, with the ideological triumph of neoliberalism in of social democratic parties, the methods we have become ideology, replacing the old ideas:

Mal has been the party when we made the mistake of making a political method in a moment as an ideology for all time
(...) The day when men called men of practical life expel the ideas of the scene policy, then we open the doors to the progressive decline in democracy policy (3)

As forecast Palme, we live in a time of political decline . On the body of social ideological stands only powerful neoliberal thinking. This defeat was not by the superiority of neoliberal ideas, this defeat has been by self-destruction. In the same way that some Social Democrats have boycotted, some social democrats could resurrect it. The ideas of social power remain intact, just need someone to rise again and use them to strike head to the enemy, both external and internal.

For these ideas, it is best to refer to him knew that further implementation. The distance between the ideas and proposals of Olof Palme and the ideas and proposals of the present leaders of social democratic parties, is so great that it is impossible to lump them all in one motion . The current leaders of socialist parties mutants (as they have mutated to embrace its original ideology of neoliberalism), if they heard today some of the proposals of Olof Palme, would attribute to disqualify a communist and radical and extremist. And he's right, Olof Palme's ideas are radical and extremist, but only if viewed from the right.

of these ideas I will discuss in the following entries.