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Sweden heavily taxes everyone, not only the rich. I think someone earning about 45K/yr is taxed at above 40% which does not sound particularly socialist. They have so-called school choice - which is what progressives here are fighting against. They DO NOT HAVE A PROPERTY TAX. Instead, they have some relatively small fee (capped at 7400 kronor, or ca. 800 USD) per year. Also no inheritance tax. All of this is strange socialism indeed.
Furthermore, while I do not dislike of so-called "diversity", Scandinavian system will work only if inhabitants of the given country subscribe to the notion of being honest to State and each other (you really did not need police in Scandinavia of the past). This makes governing relatively cheap and one can use resources for improving life quality of people. While Swedes, Danes, etc are honest, this is not the case for their recent imports from Middle East who see it as their goal of life to screw over the State (understandab...
The tale of Sweden has become the liberal panacea for all challenges to socialistic, big government policies. If you call out the failures of socialistic policies in Venezuela, Greece, or essentially anywhere that they have been tried, the inevitable response is that we don’t mean bad “socialism” like Venezuela, we mean good “socialism” like Sweden. If you question the practicality or economic impact of single-payer healthcare, “free” college tuition, high taxes, an expansive welfare state, government regulation, or a year of paid family leave, you hear that it works in Sweden so why not here. Even our recent article in opposition to the $15 minimum wage was met with a repetition of Facebook comments saying how Sweden’s even higher minimum wage has not caused any of the harms that we assert will arise here. Given that Sweden has no minimum wage (much less a minimum wage higher than $15 per hour) we can only conclude that these numerous commenters simply assumed that Sweden must prove their point — because Sweden is the answer to all challenges to big government.
Yet, when Bernie Sanders says that we should look to Sweden to see the results of “democratic socialist” policies, he will not like what he finds — the liberal fairy tale version is Sweden is far from the reality of a country made rich by free markets, stymied by “socialism,” and then revived again by free market reforms. Sanders’ policies were tried in Sweden — and they failed. The era of Swedish “socialism” was marked by economic stagnation, zero job growth, falling wages, growing debt, and ultimately an economic depression. Basically, just what you would expect. It was only after a drastic cutback in government spending, free market reforms, and government divestiture of assets that Sweden finally return to economic growth. Again, just as you would expect.
Sweden is not the remarkable tale of how one country made “socialism” work. It is just another example of the failure of socialistic policies and the power of economic liberty.
http://www.libertyandcommonsense.com/?p=429