Posted on 01/01/2019 7:18:58 AM PST by Kaslin
For years, I've heard American leftists say Sweden is proof that socialism works, that it doesn't have to turn out as badly as the Soviet Union or Cuba or Venezuela did.
But that's not what Swedish historian Johan Norberg says in a new documentary and Stossel TV video.
"Sweden is not socialist -- because the government doesn't own the means of production. To see that, you have to go to Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea," says Norberg.
"We did have a period in the 1970s and 1980s when we had something that resembled socialism: a big government that taxed and spent heavily. And that's the period in Swedish history when our economy was going south."
Per capita GDP fell. Sweden's growth fell behind other countries. Inflation increased.
Even socialistic Swedes complained about the high taxes.
Astrid Lindgren, author of the popular Pippi Longstocking children's books, discovered that she was losing money by being popular. She had to pay a tax of 102 percent on any new book she sold.
"She wrote this angry essay about a witch who was mean and vicious -- but not as vicious as the Swedish tax authorities," says Norberg.
Yet even those high taxes did not bring in enough money to fund Sweden's big welfare state.
"People couldn't get the pension that they thought they depended on for the future," recounts Norberg. "At that point the Swedish population just said, enough, we can't do this."
Sweden then reduced government's role.
They cut public spending, privatized the national rail network, abolished certain government monopolies, eliminated inheritance taxes and sold state-owned businesses like the maker of Absolut vodka.
They also reduced pension promises "so that it wasn't as unsustainable," adds Norberg.
As a result, says Norberg, his "impoverished peasant nation developed into one of the world's richest countries."
He acknowledges that Sweden, in some areas, has a big government: "We do have a bigger welfare state than the U.S., higher taxes than the U.S., but in other areas, when it comes to free markets, when it comes to competition, when it comes to free trade, Sweden is actually more free market."
Sweden's free market is not burdened by the U.S.'s excessive regulations, special-interest subsidies and crony bailouts. That allows it to fund Sweden's big welfare programs.
"Today our taxes pay for pensions -- you (in the U.S.) call it Social Security -- for 18-month paid parental leave, government-paid childcare for working families," says Norberg.
But Sweden's government doesn't run all those programs. "Having the government manage all of these things didn't work well."
So they privatized.
"We realized in Sweden that with these government monopolies, we don't get the innovation that we get when we have competition," says Norberg.
Sweden switched to a school voucher system. That allows parents to pick their kids' school and forced schools to compete for the voucher money.
"One result that we've seen is not just that the private schools are better," says Norberg, "but even public schools in the vicinity of private schools often improve, because they have to."
Sweden also partially privatized its retirement system. In America, the Cato Institute proposed something similar. President George W. Bush supported the idea but didn't explain it well. He dropped the idea when politicians complained that privatizing Social Security scared voters.
Swedes were frightened by the idea at first, too, says Norberg, "But when they realized that the alternative was that the whole pension system would collapse, they thought that this was much better than doing nothing."
So Sweden supports its welfare state with private pensions, school choice and fewer regulations, and in international economic-freedom comparisons, Sweden often earns a higher ranking than the U.S.
Next time you hear democratic socialists talk about how socialist Sweden is, remind them that the big welfare state is funded by Swedes' free market practices, not their socialist ones.
The Swedish version of socialism, which had large measures of crony capitalism combined with it as well, is rapidly being displaced by the de facto acceptance of Shari’ah Law, which encompasses a more crude form of socialism, backed up by “divine” authority, being the will of Allah and all.
No. Socialism is when the government owns the means of production.
Communism is when the people own the means of production.
Fascism is when the government directs privately-owned production.
Suicidal = Democratic Socialism = self evident
Socialism is when the govt controls some, not all businesses. It sounds like Sweden was socialist having control of the railway, vodka, health care. Communism is when govt controls all of it.
Total surprise to me too. I mean I’ve thought about that phrase but didn’t ever think I’d see it used. LOL! Check the dna then get back to the pupil. Typical of bullies.
In the not too distant future, Liberals identity politics are going to collide real hard.
I don’t think fags, Socialists, godless heathens, and Muslims will play well together.
Toss in a few ‘chez’ type personalities and boom! Someone will get hurt.
Socialism is private production and government distribution.
________
For a Marxist, communism is the last utopian stage of socialism. So for Communists, the USSR and its satellites were socialist and on the way towards communism. Communism was associated with the final withering away of the state.
As for socialists, someone like Eugene Debs or Norman Thomas might not have wanted cobbler's and tailor's shops nationalized, but they certainly didn't want industrial enterprises and banks in the hands of private capitalists. They wanted socialism to be something more than "the tax collector for the welfare state" (as Newt Gingrich called Bob Dole).
Now that the Soviet bloc has collapsed, "socialism" can mean almost anything somebody wants it too. "Marxism" as well, apparently. But from about 1991 to about 2008 support for state or communal ownership of the means of production was at a low point.
What I think Stoessel is saying is that it wasn't the welfare state that made Sweden socialist for a time, but the attempts at taking industrial and commercial enterprises out of private hands.
The dawn of commercial vodka production began with Tsar Ivan the Terrible. He made sure it was a state monopoly with himself as beneficiary.
This was continued in the Soviet era; the state realized all vodka revenues, vodka was never in short supply unlike practically everything else, and the proletarian masses were kept in a drunken stupor.
BTW, Ivan imported vodka still technology from Sweden. Solzenitsyn blames Ivan for turning Russia into a nation of drunks and away from the days when beer & wine were the only forms of alcohol.
Apparently, that goes back to 1917, before the Social Democrats took over. A lot of cold places have government monopolies on the sale of alcohol, supposedly to discourage alcoholism. Sweden took it a step further than most of the others.
That’s because Sweden’s Islamic masters won’t allow her to be socialist.
Sorry. The definition I use is directly from a 1967 websters. If the commies have managed to rewrite some of the dictionary since then, I don’t accept it.
Same dictionary defines capitalism as privately controlled production and distribution.
It defines fascism as a system of gov characterized by dictatorship, belligerent nationalism and racism, glorification of war, etc. (sic).
[”Sweden is not socialist — because the government doesn’t own the means of production.]
I think he’s confusing Communism with Socialism.
All set for islamization.
Says you, but would you be willing to pay that much tax?
They will regret it.
From what I gather they heavily tax the individuals but not the corporations, so that the corporations remain competitive and thus create jobs and keep people employed.
The basis of this taxing scheme is that you can’t be trusted to spend and save your money wisely, so we’ll take half of it, provide you with some essential basics that you on your own would not prioritize (stuff like education, health care, unemployment insurance, etc.) and leave you the other 50% to spend as you wish.
Not socialism, but a nanny state. It can work if you have a conscientious population and administration that’s not out to game the system, which may have been the case with native Swedes, but I’m not sure how it’ll work out as the invaders become a big chunk of the population.
That was sarcasm, it’s insane.
I think I know.
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