The average Swedish worker still has it considerably better than the average American one: paid vacation and maternity leave, sector-wide collective bargaining, cheap unemployment insurance. The country’s social welfare state offers free health care, free education, and subsidized cheap childcare.

But there is increasing uncertainty about how long these working-class victories will be defended. Labor law is neoliberalizing and union power is weakening, the housing market is in a permanent crisis, and retirement programs are growing increasingly dysfunctional. Austerity did not come in one fell swoop in Sweden, but by a thousand small cuts. The Sweden of 2020 is one with a growing role for private health care and schooling, as well as one with a far-right party attracting votes from disaffected workers.

Part of the problem is the fact that the Social Democratic Party that pioneered the Nordic model is losing its way. Yet there has been no organized movement to address and repel the crisis from within the party. Until now.