A Norwegian seeking freedom in the united states

"Marsdals winding book cannot be captured in simple theses"

"the”, the left Has been in retreat for thirty years and we never understood it, where with the freedom?” The fated question initiates the norske vänsterskribenten Magnus Marsdals Freedom mothers. It starts in sunny California, where he resides with his little son. He is on parental leave. The wife does research at a university. But when he's strolling around with his son, he feels it: The american freedom!! There is something in the actual vitality here! He fries pancakes for breakfast, eat a large blueberry and wonder: Is there something here that is missing in the equal Norway?"

"In a book that came soon to be fifteen years ago argued Marsdal for a libertarian left and a radical individualism. As I recall it, it was more like a typical attempt to get the left and social democracy to emerge from a collectivist straitjacket and become the modern – by triangulating with liberalism. In a way, the project is also in the mothers but it will be deeper and far more personal. In the united states, he is looking up his family in Washington state, near Seattle, where so many scandinavians once emigrated, to work in the sawmill or as lumberjacks."

"And so begins the Marsdal tell the story of torpar and fiskardottern True that remained in Norway and married Trygve who had made a career in trade unions and in the labor party and built välfärdstaten Norway. And in parallel with it – the story of sanna's older sister, Lina, who went with the man, Ingvald to freedom in America in the beginning. Directly, it must be said: damn, so well told it is! You are drawn into a captivating story about two branches of the same lineage that are separated by a sea, and of two different political cultures. From time to time I forget that it is an overtly political book I read."

"It is the vast resource of Marsdal discussing, in the meeting with the tea party-americans and relatives. Soon he discovers that all vänstermänniskor on the visit to the united states quickly makes: The amazing build-up of a bloody american history where the labor movement was nipped in the bud. "

"In his family's hometown of Everett, and behold he is the place where a massacre occurred in 1916, Something dozen striking workers were shot dead. His american fyrmänning John remembers the shock when he is in adulthood, at university, first became aware of the terrible massacre that rocked his hometown. No one had ever mentioned it."

"So where is it in city after city in America. During the decade after the decade was called the courts, the police, the military and bolagssheriffer in to quell worker protests. In Sweden we have a Valley. In the united states occurred such a each month, year after year. When Marsdal brooding over what the famous american individualism actually consists in the will he presented to the very highest degree of resignation and cynical realism. Fastklamrandet at the private freedom was all that remained when the dream of power over society's rules of conduct time and time again were crushed. The exception is in the decades since Roosevelt's New deal was launched and the economic elites actually lost ground."

"Yet he enumerated a paradox: What it was the Norwegian släktgrenen fought for when they were building a more equal society? Answer: the Freedom of the individual, freedom from dependency, subordination, arbitrary treatment. When his great-grandfather fought for a labour law that said no to unwarranted layoffs, well then it was the individual's freedom they fought for and not more of the state coercion!"

"Marsdals winding book cannot be captured in simple theses. The great objection I have when he pleads for his admittedly progressive frihetsbegrepp is the following: He does not seem to realize the tremendous dimensions of that particular collectivist ideology is needed to bring about a successful struggle for individual freedom. To be content to steal the word freedom from the right is not enough. Collectivist klasskänsla needed to realize the democratic frihetsbegrepp – increasing equity as a way to distribute freedom more – Marsdal believe in. "

"Sometimes perceived an air of a bit of superficial middle-class over the Marsdals way of thinking. When he at the end, on anxiously medelklassmanér, hiring the cleaning lady via a hitch, cleaning and Romanian language Iliana comes home to his and his wife's home, I become cursed: I rely not really on this vänsterman. Then it does not help that he is with Iliana home to poverty, Romania, in order to understand her life. Of a libertarian socialist, I request a bit of collectivist morality!"

"the Value of Marsdals book is, in addition to the joys of reading, understand this: the Left doesn't need to be afraid of freedom. It is the one we are fighting for. But the fight requires collectivism."

"Freedom mödre – the Hunt for et bedre life in the united states and Norway"