Two years ago Swedish labour confederation (LO) economist Rudolf Meidner passed away. At the time Professor Robin Blackburn wrote an excellent tribute to Meidner entitled Visionary Pragmatist and posted on Counterpunch. Blackburn dedicated a long portion of his article to the Meidner Plan for wage earner funds which was a far reaching attempt to really implement economic democracy.

I have often invoked the Meidner Plan on ECODEMA in the past and at the time of Meidner's death I posted the Blackburn article on Rabble's Babble forum which caused a lively debate about social capital funds and economic democracy.

The Meidner Plan was never put into effect and then it was later dropped by the Social Democrats as the Swedish Model declined. In fact, Rudolf Meidner wrote a must read essay titled Why Did the Swedish Model Fail? published by Socialist Register. On this particular topic, I also suggest this extensive interview with Rudolf Meidner on the rise and fall of the Swedish model.

A more brief summary on Rudolf Meinder's pragmatic radicalism can be accessed here: ( see article "How Swede it was").

I hope you find these articles interesting and helpful in understanding how the eocnomy can be democratized via far reaching social capital funds

'There is nothing so revolutionary as genuine reformism'. - Rudolf Meidner

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4