SWEDEN: THE MIDDLE WAY ON TRIAL

by Marquis W. Childs ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 1980

In 1936, Marquis Childs proposed Sweden as ""the middle way"" between capitalist individualism and ""the new collective order""; and Sweden: The Middle Way became an enormously influential book and a tag-phrase. There's a story in what's happened since, but Childs hasn't gotten it here. Nor is this even a coherent picture of present-day Sweden. The long introductory chapter is a muddle: topic jostling topic, abrupt switches back and forth in time, and from one chronological sequence to another; the term ""Keynesian"" constantly used as a description, explanation, accolade (for developments that, in 1936, Childs set in a domestic context); out-of-date information, misinformation, misleadingly withheld information. (Characteristically, Sweden is repeatedly compared to Japan as an energy-poor country; then, out of the blue, the high use of electricity is attributed to the abundant hydroelectric power.) Most damaging in a substantive sense is Childs' want of discrimination or follow-through: Sweden's radically reformed, very costly prison system ($36,000-43,000 annually for a youthful offender) is presented as both a practical failure (in terms of rehabilitation) and a human triumph--without any attempt to reconcile the two. Ditto the draconian, ineffective liquor control. Among Sweden's real showcase achievements, indeed, only the cooperative movement and mass transit get anything like adequate treatment. Much of this not very long book, however, is simply immaterial and/or undigested. Childs correctly attributes Sweden's economic dip, in the mid-1970s, to high wages and high social-welfare costs; and the nuclear energy debate warrants attention. But the detailed accounting of the 1976-78 FÄlldin administration, in which these issues figured, is already past history; and the extensive presentation of the views of Curt Nicolin, head of ASEA (Sweden's GE and Con Ed combined), reads like a PR handout--as does the equally extensive presentation of the very different views of radicals Gunnar and Alva Myrdal. (Are we simply meant to take them as Outstanding Swedes?) Finally, Childs praises Sweden's treatment of its foreign workers/immigrants as evidence of ""the continuity of the middle way""--and then, without blinking, admits of violent exceptions. . . which recently have led, predictably, to a painful recognition of their own prejudices on the part of the Swedes. The conceptual problem here is that Sweden, however admirable in many respects, can no longer serve as an exemplar in the 1980s.

Pub Date: April 16, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Yale Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION