The Rise & The Fall of the
Swedish Green Party (1982 - 1997)
Chapter Summaries
1. Speculations PastSweden as a small sensible nation; Sweden's good behaviour this century; 19th and 20th century as Sweden's best two centuries since Scandinavian settlements; Distortions of Viking history by the Christian churches; Common Nordic heritage amongst the maritime peoples on the shores of the North Eastern Atlantic; The future for The Ancient Mariners.
2. Democracy & Civilization
Representative democracy writ large; The many democracies in modern countries; Right sized democracy in Sweden; Thunderstorm approach to civilization management; Imperial purpose of mass elections.
3. Democracy & Size
Reykjavik and Belfast; Numbers and golden means; Sweden's three city regions; Sofa Recliners Party; 'Icelandia' as the fourth political market; States and megastates; Election mechanics; Votes don't get things done; Women and voting; Participatory democracy unpopular; Thatcher phenomenon; Representation as specialization; Politicians, baby-sitters and incentives.
4. Democracy & Parties
Voting for persons or parties; First past the post or proportional representation; Screaming Lord Sutch; The Teddy for Prime Minister Party; Inability of block party politics to be representative of a countryís people; Screaming Lord Sutch as a TPM party man.
5. Democracy & Small Islands
Sweden's political landscape; Small is visible; Gotland, Visby and the Hansa; Decline of the Hansa; Silver coins or magic flutes; Swedish Labour Party; Swedish Farmers Party; Town and Country represented in Gotland; Members of Parliament or Privy Councillors; Monarchy and Democracy; Democracy in Gotland 1982-88; Swedish Conservative Party; Swedish Communist Party; Swedish Green Party; Swedish Christian Democrat Party; Proportional representation in Sweden; Wasted votes; Votes cast and seats allocated in Gotland 1982-88.
6. Democracy & Minorities
Gotland and Glasgow; Threshold Rule; Presidents and Popes; British parliamentary deposits; One party states; Polish elections; Performance bonds and the national debt; Truth in Government Party; Sweden's four percent floor; Screaming Lord Sutch unable to win Swedish parliamentary seat; Threshold rules as discriminating devices; Threshold keeps independent, local, regional and ethnic candidates out of national parliamentary club; Welsh nationalists unable to win a seat in the Swedish parliament; Scotland and the Tories; Scottish monetary freedom as next Tory bribe?; Skåne Party; Stockholm Party; Finns Swedish predicament.
7. Parties & People
Local Party; Swedish NBSP; Young Ones Party; Gentleman's Party; Green Party as representative of a collectivist coalition united under a banner based on fear and mysticism; Swede's response to the threshold problem; 1988 alliance between Greens and Stockholm Party; Kjell-Olof Feldt's attack against Greens as a 'bunch of individuals'.
8. Money Politics
Flying machines to Gotland; Hard Right's Strategic Guidance Committee; How to win; Selling spectacles and vote gathering; Hard Right arithmetic; Promises. media science and social psychology; Direct bribery; Price of a transferred vote; Money for Old Votes Party; Turning Green Ladies into Blue Meanies; Budgeting for a rotten borough; Fingers in tills and guns in ribs; Conservative Party and Euromoney; Economic Treachery does not violate Swedish Official Secrets Act; True Dark Blue Believers.
9. City Politics
History and vote buying; Tudor business plans; Court schemes as alternative speculations to commercial and engineering schemes; National debt as financial intermediary; Privatising elections; From wills, computer fraud and EuroCredit to debts and taxes; Union of Free Gotland Voters; Collective bargaining and the price of a vote; The Heavy Mob.
10. Countryside Politics
Sea cruise to Stockholm; Stockholm as a rich city region; Voting in Stockholm City 1982-88; Town and Country; Company towns in Södertälje and Uppsala; Stockholm and Boston; Difficulty of translating Stockholm into British terms; The other side of the tracks; People's aspirations in Stockholm, Boston and England; Gardeners and Fishermen; Land shortage in England a humbug; National Trust as aristocratic device; Theft of the English countryside.
11. Suburban Politics
Men and young people dislike suburbia; Misplaced belief in Representative Democracy; Democracy as opium of suburban masses; Sweden goes to communion every three years; Attendance at elections in Stockholm; Reaction to addiction ripe for exploitation; Money for Old Votes Party changes tactics; Returns on Bribery (ROB) explored; Board meetings and the bottom line; Voting in the Stockholm City Region 1982-88.
12. Governments & Radios
The attitude of political parties to representative democracy; Government is a radio set and The Government Party twiddles the knobs; Catholics and Protestants but no Deists; Politicians and Structuralists; Communists, Christian Democrats and Greens as Structuralists.
13. Democracy & Communism
Communism, elections and guns; Class struggles and the Communist worldview; The Good Communist as a man; The Good Communists as a political party; Earned and Unearned Income; Distribution Socialism; Trade and Guild Communism; Communist Parties and Labour Parties; 'Not enough to go round' premise no longer valid; Economic fundamentals of Communist structuralism; Swedish Communists and Labour Parties.
14. Democracy & Women
Parliamentary power passing to women; Trend will lead to Parliament dealing with 'private home' issues; Highjack of the 'public house' and inability of the women's parliamentary power to control The Money Power; Lysistrata and Aristophanes; The Shavian and Randian Woman.
15. Democracy & Christianity
Christian Democrat instincts sound; Societal inversion and Thomas Robertson's seven great mechanisms of society; The Natural Order with finance as society's servant; Usury virus and its workings within society; Usury and interest; Jewish moneylender unfairly treated in written histories; The Inverted Order; Misdirection of money and credit in the inverted state; Chester-Bellocs and Distributists; Thomas Jefferson and abolition of legal rights of corporate bodies; G.B.Shaw's insistence socialists seek to abolish private property not personal possessions; War forces power flow reversal; Dogger Bank for Geordies not Chinese.
16. Money & Power
Money cartels and The Financial Filter; Money and credit as scarce commodities traded for power favours; Tax and Spend replaced by Spend, Borrow and Tax; National Debt as device to institutionalize usury; Lost opportunity to swap national debt for privatized public company shares.
17. Monarchy or Money
Christian Democrats need to reverse power flow; Theocratic State not the way; Idea of a Christian Society; Presidency improvement on Monarchy; America should grow by division; Christian Democrats and Monarchy.
18. Democracy & Ecology
Green Parties and the idea of laws; Rule of Law not Rule of Lawyers; Good, bad and commons laws; Legislating for social justice grey not green; Work and Unemployment; Money and Work; Seven ways to distribute money; GNP a perverse measure of progress; Growth needed to balance the books; Collapsing financial system in inverted state; Green problem reconciling sensible monetary policies with the green agenda.
19. Rural Politics
Farmers Party and Structuralism; Radical strategy option for Farmers Party; Good food and a living countryside; Policy high ground yielded to Green Party.
20. Anatomy of Success
Protest Voting; Liberal Party and protest votes; Anti-establishment feeling now in majority; Green Party cause and effect in protest process; Growth of Green political power 1982-88; High quality of Green Think tanks in Sweden; Effect of Green ideas on other parties.
21. Anatomy of Failure
Liberal Party's electoral fortunes; Emerging New Left; Limits of Political Mechanism's power; King Cnut and King Charles; Of tides and men.
22. Power Politics
In 1997 New Radicals will outnumber Old Guard by ten to one; Why this will not happen; Countermoves by Old Guard; Rise of Ideologues; Election forecasts 1988-97.
23. Party Politics
Future of Swedish Labour Party; Future middle class dinner parties; New voters; Force of Law and Law of Force; Angry young men.
24. Speculations Future
Smart money on youth; Troubadours; Local heroes; Winds of change; Vernacular values; The Ancient Mariners awake.