Swedish citizen here wondering if and how welfare can be reformed to function with a growing older population?
My government (ruling parties at least) tells me that Sweden needs the immigration of young "refugees" so that they can work and pay into our wellfair system in order to not just compensate for the help they've recived but also to support our growing elderly population.
Which is all fine and dandy provided that we don't take on too many at once to the point that we can't afford supporting them while they are still trying to adjust to our country.
However this also means that Sweden is relying on a exponentially increasing younger population via either birthrates or immigration to support the children and elderly. And i hope i don't need to explain why a exponentially increasing population is a problem in a country with a ongoing housing chrisis and growing unemployment.
and here you see the contradictions of not just capitalism, but welfare capitalism (social democracy/welfare state): they rely on constant population and productivity growth we all know that this cheap labor from immigrants only profits a small group of people
only communism can save us from mass immigration to make more profits for the wealthy
Eli Lee
Well as I see it there's three simple solutions and any mix of the three.
1. Raise taxes to the point that X number of working age people can provide for Y number of non-working people.
2. Increase the number of year everyone has to work before pensions. (Reduce the number of people relying on wellfair Y while simultaneously increasing the number of working age people X.)
3. Lower standrards on the welfare to the point that the taxes will cover the costs.
David Parker
But I agree with your observation of what happens when there's an increase in the avalibility of low skill labour.
This is why you want to have controll over who can enter your country. So you can protect the wages of your working class citizens.
In practice: Build a wall.
Joshua Clark
Politicians kicking the can down the road and creating bigger problems for the future. I do agree with taking refugees but probably half the people arriving are economic migrants, not refugees.
Jose Sanchez
here is a good redpill: taxing the rich too much will lead to capital flight (libertardians like to point this out) and this is 1) a perfect example of people following their class interests and 2) a good example of why revolution and not reform is possible
or establish communism, dumbfuck stopping immigration goes against the interest of the bourgeoisie
Leo Cruz
I agree but if you say that here you're called a racist neo-nazi by the media and get marked for death by AntiFa.
Most people think that we should stop taking in "refugees" but our state media is very left leaning so it's not ok to be talked about in public.
Wyatt Garcia
you mean socially 'left' but economically right, AKA privatization with rainbow flags
Jonathan Kelly
Just raising taxes for everyone was what I was talking about in the first one. We already have a increasing taxation depending on how much you're paid.
As an outsider i find it funny how Holla Forums blames the jews for immigration and waning to destroy the white race or whatever and Holla Forums says that the bourgeoisie are doing it to maintain bad economic systems.(The latter seeming more realistic)
Caleb Adams
Essentially yes.
Joshua Morris
Welfare can't be reformed, the prosperity and welfare of the post-war era was a one time anomaly in capitalism's history. Meanwhile politicians of all camps(from left party to swedish democrats) are pulling this charade of pretending the welfare state can be rebuilt, and you seem to have fallen for it.
Hudson Diaz
Stop lying about Sweden you little shithead. Antifascistisk Aktion only targets active nazis.
Daniel Campbell
It's basically a lie. You don't need immigration of a younger population.
Even eschewing MMT and the idea you don't need more tax revenue, all you need is for tax revenue to grow from other sources - wage growth means more income taxes, hiring unemployed people domestically means a functionally identical improvement to immigrants (+1 employed taxpayer) while also cutting the unemployment welfare cost. Increased automation/productivity also holds that option.
The UK has 1.5 million unemployed yet spreads the "we need immigrants to do jobs" meme. My baseline idea is that it's just an attempt to ensure a constant labour surplus.
Capital flight is just an argument for capital controls tbh. We should've listened to Keynes at Breton Woods. Social Democracy is a constant cat-and-mouse game, but it's possible.
Landon Young
Is that the same government who says we need a universal basic income because most jobs are going away? Someone who doesn't know better might even think they aren't being 100% truthful and have second intentions.
Lucas Collins
wtf is going on with sweden?
Dylan Perez
This was an option that hadn't even crossed my mind but being aware of it now it seems obvious to get rid of unemployment and "kill two birds with one stone."
Jackson Edwards
Swedish Socdems don't want UBI, and to my knowledge there is no talk of introducing it from any party. Stop necrobumping this shit thread
Samuel Jenkins
ALWAYS, ALWAYS with that trick
maybe because the numeric drop in swedish hdi of 0.04 doesn't have the same visal effect as making a chart and scaling it so that it seems really really big, plummeting even
I wonder why france that is projected in 2030 to reach 0.993 from 0.961 isn't depicted there
Jason Bell
Ok, but work WHERE??? The problem is capitalism and the fact that Nords think their system can still work, even if factories have left and automation is going to take over.
NEWSFLASH! IT CANNOT!
I "know" socdem, when capitalism is in crisis, becomes fullfascism, but what do you think as an internal observer?
How likely are Swedes to go back to "you darkhaireds git" and so on?
TOP KEK
Luke Ward
The "demographic catastrophe" meme is pure deceitful neolib propaganda. 1st-world economies (especially the very strongest, like Sweden) have such gigantic GDP/capita that no realistic scenario could actually cause the economy to collapse. Further, mass immigration would be the exact worst possible way to tackle such a problem, since it would mean an EVEN BIGGER glut of old people in the further future, instead of getting it over with now, and transitioning to a sustainable replacement-rate homeostatic population after current retirees die off.
Retiree benefits only soak up about 10% of GDP across the EU, and even the absolute worst projected scenarios by the EU itself peg such expenses rising to no further than under 14% of GDP through 2060. Entirely manageable, and far from justification to burn down your entire labor market.
And why can't we just subsidize other countries that are economically, culturally, and geographically closer to the refugees own home countries (in addition to subsidizing the far greater numbers of internally displaced refugees who never left) to take them in, thus eliminating perverse incentives on both sides?
This
Brayden Roberts
You make a good point. And It was the "Modetaterna" (The economic right block) that sugested that we should "Open our hearts to immigrants."
Litteraly what Sweden Democrats want us to do. (And they're labled racist nazies bu mainstream media for this because clearly they just don't want brown people here.)
Lucas Morgan
I and most of my friends will be voting for SD-2018 but If the option to actually talk about the issues caused by and unhinged immigration is opened it would really blow off some steam.
If not then there will be more Soldiers of Odin and Northfront.
Nolan Barnes
It's even worse than that, countries such as Sweden are directly taking far more efficient foreign aid out of the mouths of desperate people in the 3rd world, and abusing it to support far smaller numbers of immigrants inside expensive 1st-world economies: irinnews.org/report/102225/how-refugee-crisis-hurting-foreign-aid
Aiden Roberts
Just implement an LVT >>1683438
John Kelly
loans are okay but should probably be completely nationalised* tbqh. (this is completely off the cuff without any theoretical basis whatsoever, although keynes "socialisation of investment*" might be it.)
*i think keynes was thinking more municipally, but why not have regional, municipal banks owned at the end by the state? it's worth a try.
