Sweden, Not Yet Paradise, But…

I heard this story several times in Stockholm: It was the final television debate before the 1982 parliamentary election. Olof Palme, then a former prime minister of Sweden, was about to speak. His Social Democratic Labor party (SAP)—out of office for six years—was concluding a demanding campaign. The conservatives, buoyed by an aggressive right-wing wave in Western Europe, threatened voters that an SAP victory would slam Sweden behind the barbed-wire barricades of totalitarian communism. Journalists kept pressing Palme to reveal his ideological identity. He accepted the challenge, and with a sizable portion of the population watching, Palme proclaimed himself a democratic socialist.

Today the eyes of SAP activists still light...