Posted on 12/06/2004 8:33:36 AM PST by dukeman
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- The good times just keep rolling along in Sweden's social-democratic paradise. Welcome to a veritable welfare wonderland, where everyone is taken care of from the cradle to grave; where alcoholics can retire on government pensions; where the average worker calls in sick one day a week, even if he or she is not sick; where drug addicts get disability checks and the where the real unemployment rate is close to 25 percent. If all this sounds like a recipe for disaster, congratulations for grasping some basic economic principles that most Swedes, and in fact, most Europeans, still haven't figured out.
If Sweden ever was an economic paradise, welcome to what is turning into paradise lost. Economists here seem to think that all that is needed are a few tweaks. But this bloated welfare state needs more than a tweak. That's not likely, because most Swedes, and most of the world, assume Sweden has found a combination of socialism and capitalism that works. But does it work?
“Uh, No,” comments Frederik Erixon. “It's quite simple. No, it doesn't work.”
Erixon, one of the few free market economists in Stockholm, says Sweden's standard of living continues to fall farther and farther behind.
“Sweden is much poorer today in comparison to other countries than say 10, 20, 30 years ago,” Erixon continues. “The GDP (gross domestic product) growth has been declining for a number of decades.”
Sweden's official unemployment rate is six percent, but that figure is "cooked", to use an economic expression. Because it doesn't include another six percent on sick leave, at least 10 percent on disability, and a significant chunk of the nation's high school and college graduates are well, just loafing. This according to top Swedish Economist Stefan Folster:
“If one adds all that together, it's probably fair to say that one in four people is not in work but could be,” Folster says.
All Swedish workers get a minimum of five weeks of vacation every year. Not enough, apparently, because, as we mentioned, the average worker also takes one sick day a week, often to work a second job, because taxes take at least half of their first income.
Sweden's welfare state has even managed to turn alcoholism into a career option, since government policy effectively pays people to stay home, drunk.
But if you want to be a Swedish entrepreneur, then you have a problem. Most small businesses in Sweden consist only of the owner. It's too expensive to hire employees and too difficult to fire them. Just ask Trucking Company owner Lars Jansson.
"Somebody said it's easier to divorce your wife than to terminate an employment,” explains Jansson. “When you hire someone it's extremely difficult to fire him if he's not doing his job."
"Economically productive behavior is very difficult to pursue," agrees Erixon.
But it's a similar situation across most of Europe, which continues to fall farther and farther behind the United States.
A study by the Swedish free market think tank Timbro found that the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy now have a lower per capita Gross Domestic Product than all but four U.S. states.
So you might think that would make Europeans want to change their economies to be more like ours, and you would be wrong.
First off, most Europeans don't know that they're poorer than Americans are. Their media, which is largely anti-capitalist, and people like Michael Moore, tell them that the quality of life in America is awful.
In fact, there are so many European misconceptions about America that it took a book to hold them all. In “Cowboy Capitalism”, German journalist Olaf Gersemanna, a business reporter who lives in the U.S., demolishes the strange myths that many Europeans believe about America: that most of us have to work three low-wage jobs just to make ends meet; that America only has low unemployment because we throw so many people into prison, and that most Americans don't have healthcare.
Even the head of one of Germany's most pro-business parties has said that in America, "…freedom is the freedom to sleep under bridges."
Our cameraman discovered that's also a freedom enjoyed by Europeans.
But Swedish economist Folster says Swedes would rather be poor than have an American-style economic system, which is so cruel.
"Poverty is to a greater extent than in most European countries,” points out Folster. “Homelessness, wide income distribution, and things like that that many Swedes are afraid of."
They should be afraid of their own future. Mauricio Rojas, a free market economist from Chile, who has lived in Sweden for 30 years, says the welfare state is turning what was once one of the hardest working nations in the world into a nation of idlers, which is also killing the welfare state itself.
Says Rojas, "Because the welfare state needs people paying taxes, working, behaving in a moral, responsible way. But people say, ‘I don't need to go work. I have too much. I'm tired. My children need me.’ And the state's going to pay."
And Sweden's problem is Europe's problem: high taxes, low growth, huge welfare payouts, and a shrinking population.
Gersemanna says these days, German politicians refer to "the American way" with a sneer. But compared to Europe, the American way looks pretty good.
"Unless you are an American Indian I'm not sure what you would consider our National Culture. We are a nation of immigrants and I'm very proud of that. Everyone has something to offer and I recognize that there are other cultures that I can learn from. I judge people as individuals, fortunately our constitution supports this."
I agree with everything you say except the premise for your comments, which appears to be that we have no national culture. We do -- it is unique in that it is a civic culture rather than a religious or ethnic culture. Yes, all immigrants have something to offer, but the national culture of the United States offers something to them, too. The most successful immigrants, and those who have contributed the most to our national cultural fabric, are those who have embraced our national civic culture and added to it. Assimilation does not require eradication of immigrant cultural roots, but productive addition of immigrant cultural roots to U.S. culture, IMHO, does require assimilation.
Your snapshot of Sweden and their socialist mindset 7 years ago up to about 2.5/3 years was right on target.
Their tax and spend/anti capitalism behavior was incredibly bad.
Lets hope that some of the individual Euro countries like Austria, Sweden, Italy and even the PIA country Belgium continue to move to free markets, less government restrictions on business, less taxes and a capitalist behavior.
Then our leaders can use them as examples of what not to do re socialism and what to do re returning to pro business/capitalism behavior for the USA and our allies and potential allies.
"First off, most Europeans don't know that they're poorer than Americans are. Their media, which is largely anti-capitalist, and people like Michael Moore, tell them that the quality of life in America is awful."
The USSR's media was exactly the same way.
Yes, but things are looking up.
40 bucks would buy you a 100 lbs. each of rice and beans and could feed even a large family for over a month. And that's not even with the Food Stamps, the rent help and other govt help.
Booking flight to Stockholm ping
And How!
Nice, succinct and well put.
When you hire a kid straight out of university in Sweden...and you count in all of the extras you have to pay for him...the total package is well over $50k. Alot of this is simply medical coverage, state taxes, unemployment compensation, etc. You can understand why Europe can't compete now against the US...with the Euro rate dropping. You can manufacture a typical European vehicle cheaper in the US, and ship it to Europe than manufucture it there in the first place.
Sorry, but American Indians were immigrants as well. Further, the differences between their tribal cultures make the red state/blue state rift look like a brotherhood.
We DO have a national culture, based on freedom, opportunity, self-reliance, and responsibility. You can find examples of it in the films of Frank Capra, the illustrations of Norman Rockwell, among many others. American culture expands and evolves organically, as it did with the arrival of the Irish and Italians in the 19th and early 20th centuries, through immigrants coming here and ASSIMILATING, which is the antithesis of "diversity". I certainly feel sorry for you if you refuse to "judge" whether or not a cetain cultural value is good or bad, worthy or unworthy of adoption.
Thanks!
Silicon (rhymes with "lawn"), the element used to create semiconductors, is not the same as silicone (rhymes with "loan"), the thick, clear, squishy stuff used for breast implants and bathroom caulking.
A truckload of breast implants isn't going to help you make any computers.
Welcome to FR. See post #41.
Yeah, like one of the world's highest suicide rates and alcholism.
An American at the poverty level has about the same standard of living as the average citizen of Greece or Portugal. (Indeed, according to a recent study by the Swedish Trade Research Institute, Swedes have a slightly lower standard of living than black Americans—a devastating statistic for Scandinavians, for whom both the unparalleled success of their own welfare economies and the pitiable poverty of blacks in the racist U.S. are articles of faith.)
http://hudsonreview.com/BawerSp04.html
"A truckload of breast implants isn't going to help you make any computers."
But it couldn't hurt!
Genetic self-selection has made the United States the place where people who get off their duffers and get to work at making a better life for themselves.
So, who is left in Europe? The lazy, good for nothing, little brother who sat around the house and played idiot,(or at least his great grandson). So you say you want a United States of Europe? Ok, first thing, get the industrious, motivated Europeans who have been coming here for the past 300 years to change their mind and go back home. Good luck...
I doubt that very many of us with Euro ancestry would want to go back to Europe, home of our ancestors.
The European Fabian Socialist Model: Sucks!
Thanks for the welcome. I saw your post, but wanted to amplify your point and add the examples of American culture, and emphasize the "diversity" of Indian cultures. Anybody who lumps the Iroquois in with the Flatheads doesn't know his history.
Correct Grampa. The Swedes have come a long way over the past few years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.