Post-Keynesianism, socialisation of investment and Swedish wage-earner funds

This paper analyses the performance of one of the most controversialof recent economic policy ‘experiments’, namelySwedish Wage-earner Funds (WEFs). It examines the ability ofthe WEFs to meet macroeconomic, financial and democratic objectives.The analysis indicates a favourable financial performance, butlittle significant democratisation. Macroeconomic influencewas constrained by the limited size of the scheme and, thoughassociated with positive changes in economic variables, theexperiment was ultimately overwhelmed by the collapse of anasset price ‘bubble’. Nevertheless, the performanceof the WEFs has legitimised the concept of collective investmentfunds as an economic policy instrument.     

Restructuring the labour process in Sweden: the offensive of the SAF and the LO response

Compromise between organised labour and capital facilitated decades of economic growth and industrial cooperation in Sweden. However, management's monopoly over the ‘right to manage’ increasingly conflicted with the labour movement's desire for industrial and economic democracy. This article analyses organised capital's ability to resist labour's reform initiative and pursue a neo-liberal agenda which has greatly shifted Sweden in this direction.     

British Trade Unions and Economic and Monetary Union

British labor movement attitudes toward European integration and,most recently, toward participation in economic and monetary union (EMU) have evolved from hostility to firm support. This article analyzes the contradictions in the trade union desire for a European social model (ESM) within a neoliberal EMU framework and indicates the need for a modification of the current trade union strategy.