“ Under Khrushchev, Stalin-era laws restricting job mobility were abandoned, the official workday was shortened, minimum wages were established and a system of maternity leave introduced, along with a n… Tony Judt
“ The Scandinavian model followed a more selective but also more ambitious program: its goal, as articulated by the influential Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, was to institutionalize the state’s res… Tony Judt
“ Socialism for social democrats, especially in Scandinavia, was a distributive concept. It was about making sure that wealth and assets were not disproportionately gathered into the hands of a privileg… Tony Judt
“ Margaret Thatcher’s notorious bon mot: there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals and families. Tony Judt
“ Keynes died in 1946, exhausted by his wartime labors. But he had long since demonstrated that neither capitalism nor liberalism would survive very long without one another. Tony Judt
“ Finding a homeland is not the same as dwelling in the place where our ancestors once used to live. —KRZYSZTOF CZYZEWSKI Tony Judt
“ Even at their height, the Scandinavian welfare states left the economy to the private sector—which was then taxed at very high rates to pay for social, cultural and other services. What Swedes, Finns,… Tony Judt
“ We need to learn... how war brutalises and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonise our… Tony Judt
“ High taxation was not regarded in these years as an affront. On the contrary, steep rates of progressive income tax were seen as a consensual device to take excess resources away from the privileged Tony Judt
“ By 1945 few people believed any longer in the magic of the market. This was an intellectual revolution. Tony Judt
“ Whether capitalist economies thrive best under conditions of freedom is perhaps more of an open question than we like to think. Tony Judt
“ We need to rediscover how to talk about change: how to imagine very different arrangements for ourselves, free of the dangerous cant of ‘revolution’. Tony Judt
“ We must distinguish better than some of our predecessors between desirable ends and unacceptable means. Tony Judt
“ Until fairly recently it would only have been a slight exaggeration to say that most Norwegians, if they were not themselves farmers or fishermen, were their children. Tony Judt
“ True, many radicals of the ’60s were quite enthusiastic supporters of imposed choices, but only when these affected distant peoples of whom they knew little. Tony Judt
“ Those who got the twentieth century right, whether in anticipation [..] or as contemporary observations, had to be able to imagine a world for which there was no precedent. Tony Judt
“ The only democracies left in continental Europe were the tiny neutral states of Sweden and Switzerland, both dependent on German goodwill. Tony Judt
“ The moral courage required to hold a different view and to press it upon irritated readers or unsympathetic listeners remains everywhere in short supply. Tony Judt
