
Nostalgia for Free Trade Is Not the Answer
Trump’s trade war has set off economic chaos around the world. But simply going back to the “good old days” of free trade is no solution.
Rune Møller Stahl is assistant professor of political economy at Copenhagen Business School and a former political adviser to the parliamentary group of the Red-Green Alliance.
Trump’s trade war has set off economic chaos around the world. But simply going back to the “good old days” of free trade is no solution.
Elon Musk is attempting to expand Tesla into Sweden and circumvent its unions — but Swedish labor has a long history of taking on big US firms. If they can bring Tesla to heel, it will mark a major victory for organized labor across the globe.
Throughout decades of neoliberal counterreforms, the most resilient parts of the Nordic welfare state have been the ones under direct popular control. Their experience shows that the best way to push back against capital is to democratize power in society.
Denmark’s general election is set to produce the most left-wing parliament in decades. But the country’s Social Democrats have disgraced themselves with anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The Nordic countries aren’t socialist. But they’re still a living, breathing falsification of the US right’s anti-socialist talking points.
Liberals won’t get anywhere fact-checking Donald Trump, because they have no powerful message of their own.
Liberals’ belief in their superior ability to govern has never had the facts on its side.
What accounts for the Nordic countries’ strong welfare states? Hint: it’s not white homogeneity.
In Denmark, the Left’s task is to take on both neoliberalism and the rising anti-immigrant right.