Av S.R.Larson
Sweden is on a downbound path that sooner or later will hurl the country into social chaos. The fact that this has not happened yet is entirely due to Swedes still believing that their country is a stable, functional welfare state. They are like the famous bumble bee, which can’t fly but does not know it can’t.

There is a mysterious obsession with Sweden among American libertarians. They superficially glance at some isolated piece of legislation and suggest America follow the Swedish example. Having grown up in Sweden, and having escaped its oppressive tax system, its depressing social collectivism and cultural mediocrity, I am baffled by these Swedeophiles. The country I left for good 14 years ago had deteriorated pretty badly already then, and things have not gotten better.
If anything, Sweden is a prime example of what happens when you go out of your way to try and save a welfare state that is sucking the life out of its host organism, the private sector. From deteriorating schools to a health care system in real crisis, Sweden serves only one meaningful role: as a scarecrow in the cornfields of big government, deterring the sane, common-sensical observer from ever setting his foot there.
In previous articles I have explained how Sweden’s “successful” welfare state, recently praised by The Economist, is little more than an attempt at selling welfare-state snake oil; I explained that young Swedes are not only unemployed by the masses, leaving the country in desperate pursuit of a life, but those who stay are stuck living with their parents at alarming rates; I have pointed to the explosive problem with mass immigration of welfare-dependent illiterates from the poorest corners of the Third World; how the Swedish police is literally capitulating before the onslaught of organized crime; I have asked why such friends of liberty as Freedom Works are so appreciative of the grotesquely big Swedish welfare state, and I dispelled the myth that the Swedish treasury secretary, Anders Borg, is some kind of low-tax crusader.
In fact, On February 13 Mr. Borg explained in a tax policy debate in the Swedish parliament that he opposed flat income taxes and favors a steeply marginal, multi-bracket income tax code because, he said, it is an important income redistribution instrument.
In other words, Sweden is still the full-fledged, “democratic” socialist welfare state it has been since the 1970s. The fact that the treasury secretary has a pony tail and knows folksy-talk does not make a tangible difference.
What does make a difference, but for the worse, is that yet another hallmark of the Swedish welfare state is now crumbling. The retirement system, overhauled 20 years ago in a reform praised as “free market based”, is under such severe pressure that the parliament may have to raise the retirement age to 75. Euractiv reports:
Swedes should be prepared to work until they are 75 and to change careers in the middle of their work life if they are to keep the welfare standards they expect, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said. The retirement age is being debated in the Swedish parliament ahead of an expected pension reform package in April. In its proposal, the government wants to give people the right to remain at work until 69 instead of the current 67 cut-off age.
Let’s just make a brief stop here and notice something. The government in Sweden bans you from working when you turn 67. It is illegal for you to seek employment above that age. People get around that by starting small consulting businesses, but the law is still a good example of how the big, Swedish nanny state operates: anything that is not explicitly permitted is forbidden by default. Back to Euractiv:
Meanwhile, the right to early retirement would be delayed by two years, to 63. However, Reinfeldt said in several interviews over the weekend that Sweden must consider taking the step even further by raising the retirement age to 75. “This is a time of changes in the global world economy. The nations we meet in open competitions don’t have our welfare ambitions. They don’t put taxes on production to finance the pension system or welfare solutions. Therefore the question remains, is our equation correct?”
The man is delusional. This has nothing to do with saving the export industry. The big corporations that have characterized the Swedish private sector since at least the 1950s are either dead (SAAB Automobile), gone abroad (ABB; Pharmacia), gobbled up by foreign corporations (Ericsson; Volvo Cars; Scania) or in the process of leaving Sweden (Volvo Heavy Trucks). This is part of a natural industrial cycle, where big, mature corporations lose out to new, more dynamic business models. Just look at how the Japanese car manufacturers capitalized on the stale, bureaucratic inefficiency that characterized the Big Three in Detroit back in the ’80s.
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