Atlas / Comparisons / Castroism vs Nordic Social Democracy
Castroism and Nordic Social Democracy
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on AU, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Cuban Communism | Folkhemmet | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −09 | −05 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −01 | −06 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +09 | −06 | 15 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +09 | +02 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | 00 | −04 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +07 | −08 | 15 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Cuban Communism · AU +09
Coded +9: a single legal party with no competing candidates.
- Documented act or statuteThe constitution names the Communist Party the superior guiding force of society and the state.
Folkhemmet · AU −06
Strongly dispersed authority: proportional representation, coalition norms, and institutionalised bargaining with organised interests.
- Documented act or statuteGovernment formation has required multi-party coalition or confidence agreement in almost every postwar parliament.
- Documented act or statuteWage-setting is conducted by employer and union federations rather than by statute.
Cuban Communism · CH +07
Coded +7: power won by guerrilla insurrection.
- Documented act or statuteThe government was overthrown by armed struggle in January 1959.
Folkhemmet · CH −08
The most incremental tradition in the socialist family, built on negotiated settlement rather than confrontation.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1938 Saltsjöbaden agreement established peaceful bargaining between unions and employers and held for decades.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Castroism
1959– · Cuba
Anti-imperial national sovereignty plus socialist transformation, led by a guerrilla-derived party-state.
Nordic Social Democracy
1932– · Sweden, Norway, Denmark
Universal welfare, full employment and centralised wage bargaining, inside a market economy and a liberal constitution.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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