The Örebro Shooting and the Retreat of the Welfare State

The recent school shooting in Sweden—the first since 1961—is yet another tragic manifestation of the social decay of Swedish capitalist society.

Ten people were killed by a lone gunman, a social outcast abandoned by the state, whose social benefits had been revoked, leaving him to fend for himself in a hostile system.

In an act of desperate alienation, he turned his frustration into a massacre before taking his own life.

Yet the bourgeoisie and its lackeys scramble to obscure the reality of this event.

The media downplay the incident with empty rhetoric:

Calls to ban AR-10s and AR-15s, despite the fact that these weapons were not used in the attack; demands to improve mental healthcare, coming from the same state that has systematically dismantled it.

Appeals to end racism, even though it is unclear whether the attacker specifically targeted migrants.

The ruling class, feigning concern, has announced a grand “one-billion-krona investment” in mental health services—an illusion, since the figure does not differ from previous allocations (but is presented as if it were), now further eroded by inflation.

This is not an increase in spending, but a calculated reduction, wrapped in the deceptive packaging of reform.

The bourgeoisie has long mastered this trick, applying it to education, healthcare, and now mental health—presenting the decline of social services as progress.

This attack is not an isolated tragedy, but a symptom of a decaying mode of production.

Sweden, once held up as a model of capitalist welfare, is now seeing its social fabric unravel.

More than 30 explosions rocked Stockholm in January 2025 alone; the streets are witnessing an escalating war between criminal elements born of economic desperation, and now, public attacks against numerous unsuspecting citizens have entered the scene.

The bourgeois state, unable to address the root cause—capitalist exploitation—offers nothing but illusions and repression.

The crisis is worsening.

The degeneration of the welfare state is not a policy failure, nor the result of mismanagement:

It is simply the inevitable course of capitalism.

Only the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production can put an end to the misery, alienation, exploitation, and senseless violence it generates.