Nooshi Dadgostar is chair of Sweden’s Left Party.
On Monday, Sweden’s Social Democratic government lost a vote of no confidence after it tried to abandon the country’s system of collective bargaining on rents. The Left Party was decisive to the defeat — and now, the proposal to introduce market rents has been dropped.
Sweden is a famous for its welfare system, but recent decades’ neoliberal reforms have made life for working people ever more precarious. The Left Party’s new chair, Nooshi Dadgostar, told Jacobin why rebuilding a strong safety net is decisive for shielding Swedes from the pandemic — and reassuring workers worried by the green transition.