In examining any society you have to do so from multiple vantage points and at different levels. What (if anything) may be said to be the goal of modern Swedish Society? Were I to have asked that question in the days of Per Albin Hansson, I would have been in no doubt, whether I agreed with him or not. The injustices and inequalities were everywhere evident, economic as well as social. The social democrats in those days had a very clear-cut goal which everybody knew whether you agreed with them or not. That's called 'open politics' and it is healthy. Today everything is buried in secrecy, officers of the state jealously (and often viciously and vindictively) guard their turf, turning justice on its head in the process. You have to dig hard and persistently to get anywhere near the truth of what's going on in modern Sweden. It remains a closed society, in spite of contrary claims, both to the world and to its citizens, as it proved recently by the unwillingness of the current Conservative-Liberal government to release the East German Communist STASI files that show just how deeply involved the Swedish government was with a murderous Marxist dictatorship. It does not, on the surface, seem to matter what your political persuasion is, for the power-broker élite class protect one another. Why would a 'Conservative' Prime Minister and his allies want to protect the Social Democrats? It's because they're all in the same club, a club that ordinary citizens like you and I can never join.
The title of my essay today may seem a little anomalous for there can be no doubt that there is a goal for Sweden but that society in general - and a good many politicians - are deliberately kept ignorant of it. Other politicians, key bureaucrats and various rich, powerful and influential players in the business, industrial and banking world know exactly what is going on, however, and have very clear-cut goals which they keep hidden as best they can from you and me. These goals are hinted at in various articles in the section of this Swedish politics website, Swedish and EU 'Third Way' Politics: The Communist and Fascist Roots of Tyranny which you can access from the main Politics page. It is my contention that Sweden has been secretly edged into a new Western, version of the Soviet Union, of which being in the European Union is a key part as well as its ultimate goal in becoming a province of this neo-Marxist Empire. The vast majority of Swedes have no idea what's going on though some are beginning to awaken to the truth. It is from the ordinary citizen's perspective that I want now to look at Swedish politics - from the 'bottom up', as it were, so that we can discern the processes at work.
Today's Sweden is, from the public's point-of-view, goalless. It is like a ship adrift without a rudder and slowly sinking. The rudder of the Swedish 'Ship of State' was destroyed, I believe, in the ealy 1970's with a view to creating systematic chaos in small steps, but in the name of various ideologies with no immediately obvious connection between them. By this time it could be argued that Per Albin Hansson's dream had come true and his goals realised. Most social and economic inequalities had been removed, a great achievement indeed, irrespective of whether one agrees with the methods or not. Sweden had become the envy of many countries even if they did not much like her socialistic methods. But what next? Where would Sweden now go?
Something very disturbing began happening in the 1970's as the bedrock of all stable society was systematically chipped away at until centuries of social progress had effectively been destroyed. Like a cancer from within, Sweden started getting very sick (with the highest suicide rates in Europe) until we have the kind of tyranny which is rampant everywhere in this country today. Before this silent 'second revolution' started in the 1970's, abuses of power such as the state kidnapping of Domenic Johansson, Anne Edner, Masha and Nelly, and thousands of others would have been more difficult, even though equally horrendous things were happening like the forced sterilisation of women who did not meet the Nordic ideals or who had congenital illnesses. The great economic achievements of the Social Democrats were overshadowed by a Soviet-type assault on the family from within the movement which begin on 15 August 1969 with a planned 'change of course' for Swedish society outlined in a paper by Carl Lidbom. Lawyers drafted into preparing the new legal aspects of this 'change of course' who did not agree with what was being planned were silenced by being shunted to the less important and less influential rôle of 'technical consultants'. In short, the legal basis for the destruction of the family in Sweden was being planned in detail, not to give rights to minority lifestyles per se but specifically to strangle traditional family life.
One of the goals of the Bolsheviks was the destruction of the traditional family. Why? because they viewed it as a 'bourgois institution'. Shortly after the communists came to power in Russia, a bill was passed eliminating all distinctions between registered and unregistered marriages. The result was chaos. Hundreds of thousands of children were born and thrown into the street for lack of support. The communist authorities bewailed that these rootless children were developing into professional criminals. Peasants boys started looking upon marriage as an exciting game and changed wives as often as they wanted to, since divorce was instant upon request. Abortions escalated. Refusal to enter into temproary sexual liasons were regarded as 'bourgois prejudice', and the deadliest sin in the eyes of a communist. 'Down with Innocence!' was one of the slogans of Communist Youth. Krilenko, the Soviet Public Prosecutor, put the communist aim this way:
"Free love is the ultimate aim of a socialist State; in that State marriage will be free from any kind of obligation, including economic" (The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage).
The endless debating of that time reminds me of the endless talking that goes on in Sweden today in the media. (Almost) every opinion is allowed within the
'Swedish Box'. In the end the Soviets decided that in the interests of production and social stability, and to protect the interests of women, marriage would have to be reinstituted. The Swedish government has not, of course, tried to abolish marriage but to weaken it by giving it equal status to common-law partnerships. Marriage in today's Sweden has a 60% failure rate with common law partnerships having a 90-95% failure rate.
None of this is to say that 'atheism' or 'socialism' is axiomatically anti-family. What is true is that there are atheists/socialists who are anti-family and atheists/socialists who are pro-family. My purpose here is not to make this a debate about atheism vs. religion or conservatism vs. socialism. The issue is whether the family is good or bad for society. Sweden's problem is that it has come under the control of a radical factional socialist anti-family political doctrine that is ruining the country, as Jonas Himmelstrand, President of Rohus (The Swedish Association for Home Education) proves in his book, Att följa sitt hjärta - i jantelagens Sverige (Happy Company Publishing, Stockholm: 2010), clearly demonstrates.
A similar dark impulse seems to have been behind Swedish post-1970's economic reform too. For now taxation (which has always been very high in Sweden in order to finance the welfare state - at one point 75% of all citizens were employed by the government, since reduced to about 50%) served the purpose not for the redistribution of wealth (a socialist mantra) but specifically to control people in a way that would lead to specific social-engineering goals - that is, to get people to spend their money the way the state wants (see Tax Oppression and Sweden's Dirty Little Secret).
In his academic paper, Resan utan mål - Journey Without a Goal, Jurisprudence Professor Jacob W.F.Sundberg traces the evolution of the Swedish state's attitude to the family from the early 1970's to our own day. Education in particular became squeezed into a very narrow, unnatural, monochromatic philosophical view heavily spiced with Marxism to the exclusion of all other ones, and often contrary to plain scientific evidence. In 1971 Roland Hunt Ford published a seminal work, The New Totalitarianism, in which he criticised the new Marxist-type legal mentality that was being forcibly implimented in Swedish society.
What happened in the 1970's, and inspired by communist East Germany, was a systematic attempt to surgically remove the historical foundations of Swedish society and reshape it, secretly behind the scenes without the people knowing what was going on, into a Soviet-type state. All of this was done whilst continuing to wear a libertarian mask that was, in truth, just a sham to win popular appeal. What this secretive cabal had in mind was the complete overturning of that fundamental concept of liberty which the American founders so eloquently defined as "man with inalienable rights". The goal of the cabal was to shift all rights from man to the state whilst maintaining the pretense of 'human rights'. What you see in this country described as 'human rights' is in reality 'state rights' - the rights of the élite. This is why they engage in such Orwellian 'newspeak' or 'double-talk' when they say that "children have the right to schooling" which means absolutely nothing whatsoever, for a right has no objective existence if it cannot be exercised by the one to whom the right is being granted. (See my article, Child's Right or State's Right?). Can a child or its parents exercise the right to educate the way they want to? Not in a Marxist state. And if you have the right to have something, then by definition you have the right to 'opt' out of that right too. So in reality the child has no 'rights' whatsoever, but only the obligation to obey the state's dictats which are that all children must be educated in state schools using a single state curriculum so as to think in only one (Marxist) way. That's not a right, it's a prison sentence, and a deadly wound to the family. That's why the state kidnaps so many children when parents and children attempt to exercise their real 'rights', and not the bogus state ones. And the élite know it. How do you conceal it? Change the meaning of words, pervert language, so people believe that things are the opposite of what they really are. This is what I mean by social engineering and state brainwashing. The truth is, the Swedish state has become a Marxist cult, which is what the reforms of the 1970's intended to make it all along.
There are, like I said, no objective human rights in Sweden. What do I mean by that? Humans can only have rights if they are inalienable and exercisable, meaning, that no other group of people (which is what a 'state' is) can take them away or forcibly remove them, or exercise them on behalf of the people they were created for, as the Swedish Government did when it banned homeschooling in 2010 and kidnapped Domenic Johansson. Man's first right is the right to life and the moment conception takes place his rights begin. The right to life also means the right to have a family. That family has it's own life and right to exist and be protected by the state too. It's one of the fundamental historical rights in all human society. In a truly libertarian country the state's rights and duties are only secondary to the rights of the family, and the only justification for the state to intervene in family life is if that family completely fails, and then only as a last resort. In Sweden the opposite is true - the slightest excuse, even when based on unsubstantiated rumour or fabricated evidence, gives the state the right to destroy a family. That is why the Swedish state is able to take revenge on those families that oppose it, families which have no legal means by which to defend themselves any more. THAT IS MARXISM. (See Why is the Swedish State So Cruel and Heartless?)
The right of families includes the right to educate children in the bosom of family life. This the Swedish state has sought to destroy for now the state owns as it supposes and claims) the children (becoming the children's mythical parents) and educates them in compulsory school with a single Marxist world-view. Indeed, today's state teacher has far more authority over children than those children's own parents. In a genuine libertarian society state schooling is not only optional (provided an alternative education is given, as in homeschooling) but plays a strictly secondary rôle with respect to the family, and always as in loco parentis, as proxy representatives of the parents. Not so in totalitarian societies like the former Soviet Union, Communist East Germany, Nazi Germany, Communist Cuba, Communist China and Marxist Sweden - for in all dictatorial systems the state and the school have the primary rôle, and parents the secondary one as auxilliary care-givers in the employment of the state.
All non-Marxist, non-Fascist and non-dictatorial systems recognise that parents are children's principal educators and that this is an inalienable right. Thus Gandhi could declare:
"There is no school equal to a decent home and no teachers equal to honest virtuous parents".
The family is the basic unit of every stable society, whether religious or non-religious. Every system that has sought to weaken or destroy the institution of the family has suffered immeasurable loss. This is why Sweden was so successful until the 1970's because the family was carefully protected, even by the Social Democratic governments of Per Albin Hansson and afterwards. And in spite of various abuses (such as the forced sterilisation of women), Sweden was basically a happy country. No longer today. With parenthood almost a thing of the past, many parents are having to go to state-funded classes to learn what humans have known for thousands of generations about parenting.
The laws that have evolved over the centuries did so naturally. The élite of the late 1960's and 1970's tried to artificially create a Marxist Utopia and has been as successful in achieving it as the creators of the artificial language called Esperanto have been in making this a global tongue. This artificial tampering with nature, whether you view this from a religious or a non-religious perspective (it doesn't really matter), has led to huge social issues and has catalysed the rapid decay of Swedish society. The evidence is plain for all who want to see it. The mortal danger to Sweden, and indeed to all the nations of the European Union, is an irreversible break down of society unless family rights are restored. The social instability that was sown in the 1970's is as dangerous as the genetic modification of our food which will permanently contaminate the environment.
Marxism both defies nature and destroys it. And it is not the friend of human rights - that much history has demonstrated again and again. The Marxist social engineers are both dismayed and viciously vocal, therefore, about age-old family sentiments resurfacing in Swedish society. People are starting to want traditional family life back again! And this is anathema to Marxists because it will eventually mean dismantling their oxymoronic social utopia. People will only put up with oppression for so long and then rise up against it. It is therefore time for all Swedish libertarians to stand up and demand an end to this ghastly Orwellian experiment at people-control.
The goal of a society rooted in nature or in God (however you want to view it) will always be a family-based society. When the goal of the integrity and rights the family is lost, society soon becomes lost too, which is what the Marxists want because it is only in social instability that they have the slightest chance to establish and consolidate their own dictatorship. They have never won a free and open democratic election and never will because what they espouse and proclaim is unnatural and inhuman. The barometer of freedom in any society may be measured by the laws that protect the family. This is not to say that people do not have the right to live alternative lifestyles if they want to - what it is to say is that these should be a protected minority, and not be elevated to an undemocratic position by discriminating against the majority. The grave error of the social engineers of the 1960's and 1970's was to supposedly place the family on an equal footing with other lifestyles, while all the time the state was assuming the former rôles and responsibilities of the family. Alternative lifestyles were never the main issue, and still aren't, even though the Marxists want to make them the main issue to deflect attention from what they are really up to - this was their smokescreen to allow a tiny minority of radicals and extremists to assume dictatorial powers behind the scenes (whilst predictably calling all their opponents 'extremists' and 'fascists'). Had the ordinary people known what they were up to, they would never have allowed them to wreck their country.
The goal of the ruling powers is ostensibly equality and egalitarianism, just as it has been and is in all Marxist régimes. We have seen the truth of what they were really up to, and this has been the bait to hook libertarians. They have never meant it and never will. (See The Bloody History of Communism and Fascism and Marxism are the Same Thing).
If Sweden will restore family rights to where they were before 1970, a great and positive transformation will take place. If this does not happen, Sweden will slide further into the political and social abyss of totalitarianism and oppression. This should be the country's first goal. Restore family rights and most social ills will take care of themselves. Protect minority lifestyles and religions by letting people live the way they want to but protect the family thy way it was protected before, and reinstate the right of the family to home educate its children if it wants to. Who but a few power-greedy élitists will have anything to lose if this is done? There will be free choice and authentic libertarianism. But first, the Utopian Illusion has to be shattered. As Member of the European Parliament, Nigel Farage, so astutely reminds us:
"The most dangerous politicians depend on the Great Lie. Once the Great Lie has been ingested, it readily and rapidly grows into doctrine. Then a political preference becomes a religion, its champion a demigod and any aberration heresy. The politician excuses himself for abominations because he has seen the way clear to that shining city upon a hill. He has a duty to follow that path and to shepherd or lash others onto it for their own good. The Great Lie is just this: one day, time will stop...for Marxists, [it is] the Worker State, for romancers, the Happy Ever After, for buyers of cosmetics, Eternal Youth, for childish idealism, John Lennon's Magic Roundabout Elysium where there are no countries, no religions (and hence, presumably, no customs or loyalties) and all the people live (half-)life in peace...It is, of course, irresponsible gibberish. It serves only to make life's rich and only occasionally disgusting stew...appear unsatisfactory and affords nearly infinite power to the man with the hastily scrawled treasure map...The leaps of faith whereby these were turned into the Great Lie, however, initiated centuries of totalitarianism and intolerance...As for Lennon's brutal nightmare world, by what grotesque means is its survival for more than a split second to be assured? Brutal regimentation and compulsory unisexing, I assume" (Nigel Farage, Fighting Bull, pp.232-233)
It is time to lay to rest Sweden's "utopia" and create a free and pragmatic Sweden based on natural rights. That is surely a more worthy goal than the goallessness of what is happening today.
References
(1) Jacob W.F.Sundberg, Reisan Utan Mål - En hyllning till Anders Agell (Institut för offentlig och internationell rätt, Nr. 103
