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.
“But, looking at their self-destructive immigration policies, one might say they have just substituted one bad set of ideas for another, and even more dangerous set.”
Absolutely! They don’t realize the intractable pains they’re buying themselves with the introduction of other races and cultures. They had the US as a prime example of racial strife, but they chose to ignore it. They will go through the same agonies that we’ve gone through and continue to go through, and just as we can’t send back the Africans neither will they.
After getting a good taste of the “vibrancy” of multiculturalism, they will belately realize that diversity is discord and they will yearn for the good old days of “boring” monocultural, monoracial Sweden.
bmp
Exactly! Direct taxation from the individuals for the Nanny State. Skin in the game so to speak. best in homogeneous cultures where everyone works.
The Socialist tell the folks they can get someone else to pay the bills for you but soon find they cannot squeeze blood from a turnip. Fails every time
“Very good explanation of how Sweden is not socialist.”
They should go on and explain, in depth, about Sweden’s immigration policies.
Sweden used to work, because Swedes (not the recent arrivals) are hard working and proud of it. They don’t mind extra taxes to take the bite out of retirement, maternity, layoff, illness. It works for Swedes.
Enter non-working individuals from a place with a corrupt government and a very low expectation of trustworthiness. The Swedish system falls apart rapidly.
As long as the new arrivals stay, Sweden is heading for perdition.
All modern societies are a mix of Socialism, Capitalism, and Corporatism the arch enemy of Capitalism.
To ascribe credit or blame to one of the big three for the entire economy is a major error in logic. The question needs to be asked: In which specific industry sector in which demographic situation is one of the three a better, or worse choice.
Example 1. The US has moved from Socialist Prisons to Corporatist prisons. That move has proved to be costly to both the prison budget and to society. Socialism is iherently more suited to run the prisons because the prison mentality is Socialism.
Example 2. When LBJ created Medicare and Medicaid it was mostly Socialist... aka FFS-Fee For Service. Since LBJ, both R and D and both the Federal and state levels have seen tha the Socialist FFS approach has major inefficiencies. Both R and D have moved toward Corporatism, aka Managed Care or MCO/CMOs. The ACA was a major increase in Corporatism (not Socialism). The ACA is not Socialism for the poor down trodden masses.
The ACA is taxpayer money to big pharma, to big hospital corps, to big insurance and to big IT. None of the poor get the ACA money. They only get a warm feeling in their heart that someone cares about them enough to tell them pretty fairy tales.
Which direction shoul Medical Care, and Health Care go in the futue? Among the ACA crowd, the key phrase is “Social Determinants”. That means the government bureaucrats should step in to tell you whether a gun in your house, or Juul in you house or pot in your house or bacon in your house is good or bad for your health.
Thanks.. i couldn’t remember the exact number. But, the point is 90 percent of her interview was about that. Is it paid by the company?
It looks like they receive 80% pay, and must split the time over 8 years. It seems to me the company you work for pays.
https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-maternity-leave-paternity-leave-policies-latte-dads-2018-4
I remember seeing part of a program a few years back where Oprah was on a trip to Sweden and was doing a travelogue-type show about it.
The part I saw was her going into a Swedish home and interviewing the occupant, a housewife. Her intent was clear. To show her American audience how well these folks lived under socialism.
But she was caught off-guard when she noticed that the house didn't have many "things" in it like consumer-buying American homes do. Not much furniture. Few pictures on the walls. No major appliances. It was like a sparsely furnished, austere apartment. Minimalist lifestyle.
She asked the woman why they didn't have many things in their home. Was it due to their frugal, egalitarian lifestyle in Sweden?
She obviously wasn't expecting the lady's answer because she did a beeline out the door and on to something else in her travelogue.
And what was the Swedish homemaker's answer that so spooked Leftist Oprah?
"We don't have many things because we can't afford them. Our taxes are too high to buy much else besides the household essentials."
Blew Oprah's defense of socialist Sweden right out of the water. It was a classic moment to see.
John Stossel is pro big business, anti people, because they butter his bread.
If Sweden steals from the people instead of business,
then Stossel is okay relabeling Socialism.
It is the same thing, the people become poor when others run their life be it the State or Business supporting the State.
We have Constitutionally mandated free trade between the 50 states.
You want your Social Security?
You can KEEP your Social Security!
 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' |
Party ownership of the print media
made it easy to manipulate public opinion,
and the film and radio carried the process further.
|
....... The Ministry of Truth, Winston's place of work, contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. The Ministry of Truth concerned itself with Lies. Party ownership of the print media made it easy to manipulate public opinion, and the film and radio carried the process further. The primary job of the Ministry of Truth was to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays, novels - with every conceivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary. Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. When his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. He dialed 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to rectify. In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and on the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames. What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. In the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. And this hall, with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one-sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were huge printing-shops and their sub editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices; clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall; vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored; and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence. |
However, we manage to TAX corporations who merely consider it yet another cost of producing the final product and add that tax (along with the cost of monitoring it) along to the final consumer.
Think 3 Card Monte.
Beware “the little woman with sandy hair”.
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