From: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (Tomas Eriksson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Myths and monopoly
Date: 21 Jul 92 14:49:59 GMT
Reply-To: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

In article <1992Jul20.085334.3909@lth.se>, sundinKC@dna.lth.se (Anders Sundin) writes:
>Systembolaget--the Swedish alcohol monopoly--is praised by Francois Aillet
>who is council of commerce at the French embassy. 
>-No organisation will demand that the monopoly is removed as all the large
>producers are represented. The oligopoly companies ICA, Dagab and KF 
>would only keep 20 different sorts of wine in the shops. Systembolaget has 700
>of which 350 are French. There is no shop in France that have so many different
>wines and sell at so low margin.

That's probably true. If you calculate the price Systembolaget really 
charge (exculsive VAT and alcohol tax) and compare that to "tax-free" 
prices at airports, you see that they are really cheap.

I think some people has confused the question of the distribution 
monopoly with the question of Swedish alcohol tax.

>-Systembolaget has a suberb Cider at 15 kr. Ica can't even sell Coca-cola at
>that price.

That's not true. The cider at 15kr is 500ml or 750ml bottles. Where I
live I can buy Pepsi, and non-alcoholic cider, for 9.98 kr per 1.5l PET
bottle.

Just abolishing the distribution monopoly, and dropping opening-hours 
regulations, would mean that you could buy a bottle of wine at the same 
place you buy your food, at the same price as in Systembolaget (or 
perhaps a few kronor more), at hours when Systembolaget is closed. That 
would be convenient, of course, but I think that most people would still 
go to Systembolaget, both out of habit, and because of their very large 
selection of wines.

>The Swedish minister of commerce, Per Westerberg is critizised in the Journal
>New Technology.

The Swedish journal "Ny Teknik"? I thought they were on summer vacation 
throughout July?

>-He [Per Westerberg] is going to "tear down the Swedish model that has been
>created during 20 years of Social-democratic industrial policy".

What is meant with the "Swedish model" in this respect? The "Swedish model"
for salary negotiations in the private sector is already defunct since
several years. The unique parts of Swedish industrial/commercial policy
have been very bad for the structure of Swedish industry. True, old, big
companies have been comfortable, but it has in reality not been possible
to found new industrial companies and make them grow to large companies
in Sweden during the last 30-40 years. Were that policy to continue, this
would mean disaster in the future. We will continue to suffer from the
bad effects of this policy for quite some time, since the medium-sized 
companies that should have grown during the 1970's and 1980's simply 
aren't there!

>-A week ago he declared that a first step would be the privatisation of
>Swedish Steel AB (SSAB).

Wait a minute! This was declared no later than early May, perhaps earlier!
You could sign up for packets with shares and state bonds until early 
June.

>-The general opinion outside the government is that Westerberg's party was in
>power in 1978 when SSAB was constructed to support the Swedish steel industry.

Since we had centre and centre-right governments (actually four of them) 
1976-82 this is more or less true. The minister for industry (Nils G.
]sling) belonged to the Centre party (used to be Farmers' party). The 
conserative party, which Per Westerberg belongs to (not to be confused 
with Liberal party leader/minister for social affairs Bengt Westerberg), 
was not dominant in the 1976-82 governments. The situation is somewhat 
different today, with Carl Bildt (conservative) as prime minister.

>-It was the same  government that formed Swedish Wharf and that became a large
>owner of the reconstructed Datasaab. This is a logical extension of the policy
>of the Lindman  right wing governments partial socialisation of LKAB [mining]
>at the beginning of the century.  

I find it slightly ridiculous to try to find the influence for 
present-day centre-right industrial/commerce politics in the Lindman 
governments of the 1910's and 1920's.

The late 1970's industrial policy was the exception, not the rule. Very 
few see Mr. ]sling's activities during that time as anything but 
unfortunate. The didn't really save any jobs, just cost the tax-payers a 
lot of money and gave the state several companies it didn't want or need 
or should own.

I also do not see where your arguments are leading. The selling-out 
(about time!) of a steel company the Swedish state is majority owner of 
is the logical extension of socialisation in the 1910's and 1920's ???

There should be very little doubt that the present government intends to 
privatize quite a lot of state-owned companies and activities. You can 
phone "N{ringsdepartementet" (The governments switchboard: 08/763 10 00)
and ask them to send you their information booklet "Privatisering av
statliga f|retag" (free) or possibly pick up a copy at your bank, if you
doubt this or want to see what they intend to privatize.

Also, many old state activities are restructured into "aktiebolag", just 
as any private industry, both to make privitization possible, and to 
make those which will not be privatized more private industry-like. This 
process was in part initiated during the social democratic government. 
ESO (The expert group for studies in public economy) recommended that 
many state activities should be converted in this way a few years ago, 
late 1980s. This conversion is not a controversial issue. The 
selling-out of state-owned companies is slightly more so. However, don't 
forget that the social democratic government actually sold parts of the 
SSAB shares to SSAB employees and to some large institutional portfolio-
holders a few years ago, when SSAB was introduced on the Stockholm stock 
market.

Tomas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Eriksson                                          tomas_e@physchem.kth.se
            Surface Force Group, Department of Physical Chemistry,
               Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
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Quotation of the week (30), from "Endymion" by Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Baconsfield:
	"'As for that', said Waldershare, 'sensible men are all of the same
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic