Hello everybody and welcome back to RevLeft Radio.

On today's episode we have back on the program Torco Lawson to talk about his newest book

Writing the Way Sweden's Integration into the Imperialist World System.

It's a fascinating history of a core country in, you know, Northern Europe that has a reputation

as its neighboring countries do as well of being this sort of, you know, almost socialist

paradise.

Every social democrat the world over, especially here in the US, loved to point to not only

Europe, in Western Europe, in Germany, in France, etc.

But particularly loved to point to the Nordic countries and countries like Sweden and

their robust welfare state as an example of what they themselves want to build here in

the US or whatever country doesn't have that advance of a welfare state yet.

And that reputation is often naive, overly simplistic and separated from Sweden and other

Nordic countries interactions with global imperialism, history of European colonialism, etc.

Even the slave trade.

And we discuss all of that.

So we understand where these, you know, welfare states, these robust welfare states, where

they actually come from and what their geopolitical and economic roots really are.

And I think that's really important to understand that history so we can kind of push back on

some of these simplistic narratives that these countries are wholly innocent and their

welfare states do not come from, you know, the assistance of or the direct clundering of

countries and the global south, and victims of European imperialism and colonialism.

So this conversation will definitely get into that and the book itself is really, really

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