The usual claim is that Sweden thrives because of a welfare state, but Nima Sanandaji argues in a new book in PDF form that the real reason has to do with a stable legal system, a homogenous culture wedded to the work ethic, and actual cuts in government welfare provision. h/t Cobden Centre
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/18688/why-sweden-is-not-a-wreck/
Why Sweden Is Not a Wreck
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That is definitely worth a read.
I also just read that private health insurance has been growing. Of course, much work needs to be done but its progress.
“Despite the cost, as many as 500,000 Swedes are now estimated to be using private healthcare insurance, up from 100,000 only ten years ago, according to a recent report from daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN).”
“And a flawed public system is often cited as the cause of the rapid expansion.”
http://www.thelocal.se/36648/20111010/
Maybe culture and legal framework are a reflection of the underlying biological evolutionary pressures. Cold, harsh weather that gave rise to small, nuclear families (no polygamy, none of the extended tribes that fertile climes allow), and the need to have some rule-based order that cooperation with non-relatives be possible. In this scenario, genetic traits that favoured cooperation, empathy, planning etc. may have conferred a survival advantage.
Anyway, we’re living in the greatest social test-tube of all times. Elites want Sweden full of Burundians in order that Africa can start producing her own Saabs, Ikeas, and Sandviks. Go egalitarianism!
Great read. I’d also bet my life that Sweden won’t be traveling space, curing cancer, or inventing civilization-shifting technology anytime soon.
I will, however, say that the “they work hard” argument is a hideous argument that will most likely backfire — even if it’s partially the cause of Sweden’s lack of collapse.
Sweden is in the middle of a HUGE housing bubble, and it will soon pop…….
Exactly!
The financial crises hasn’t reached Sweden yet. A reason for this difference in timing of the housing bubble crash relative to similar countries, could be that it is very difficult to get building permission in Sweden. Stockholm has thousands of homeless people, their deaths on the streets use to get media attention in the winter. Housing is a sever bottleneck for hiring specialists who need to move between cities. Young people avoid university studies because, even in small university cities like Lund, it is almost impossible to find an apartment. Renting out housing for profit is illegal, and prices for purchasing the smallest simplest apartment in university cities start at about $200,000. Sweden has the highest rate of refugee immigration in the industrialised world, about 1% of the population a year, sustained throughout decades. I guess that all this keeps the Swedish housing bubble ticking a bit longer than in the rest of the world.
I haven’t read the actual book yet, but I’m so tired of the claim that always comes up in these discussions that Sweden is such a homogenous society. Wake up, that hasn’t been true for more than 20 years! The fact that the most common name of new-born baby boys in Malmö (Sweden’s third largest city) is Muhammed should be enough to dispell that claim.
Sweden homogenous in terms of culture? From a guy named Nima? You guys @ mises..org makel alot of sense but sometimes the “Go Socks!” mentalit can fire back as it’s has done in this case. Didn’t ready the text yet but the wrap up was enough to smell a rat.
If one reads a text about Sweden and of all things one could take out of it, one takes out …”stable legal system, a homogenous culture wedded to the work ethic”… then the paper is a rig. Perhaps the work ethic is more focused than Irans, but the cultural diversity has it’s backside and one of them is exactly work ethics.
The legal system business.. well if you live here you better learn to throw a punch.. and at any cost avoid the Law. It’s stable enough, never got caught if you have a job thus something to loose by a few months in the castle.
@Shaun: “inventing civilization-shifting technology ” A joint venture between the private sector and the public in Sweden created NMT and GSM. So if one considers the idea to walk around and talk/surf as someting changing the way people do things, I’d say Sweden already has. Inventionwise Sweden ranks quite well. Note worthy is the Lars Magnus Eriksson the creator of the now bank funded Ericsson was personally against property rights and lost some business since on some German company got the rights instead. I wonder if Albert Einstein was involved in that case
? LM was active during Einsteins time in the patent office.
Yeah and both these radio technologies needed governments to buy the kit, they work well for following peoples possition etc etc. A perfect little gadget to help the goverment get that little better grip around your throat. So that about Sweden.
I saw on mises.se that there had been some discussion regarding Sweden and how it is doing. I guess this post was an attempt to stir the soup and see what come up. So Bon Appetit
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I’ve just wrote an article about the Nima’s book. It’s great read and it have very good arguments and empirical proofs. That’s always good for Austrians, especially when they aren’t coming from Austrians:).
About homogenity … in the book this is used for the past, because the past of Sweden (pre Social-Democrats Era (1940-1990)) is crucial to understand the Swedish success.
One of the interesting thing is that the most succesfull companies today are founded in the pre-1940 period…and the net growth in private jobs is 0 from 1975:)
Read the book if you really want to address Nima’s arguments. Essentially, the author seems to be saying that Sweden built up great economic and moral capital before they embarked on massive socialism, and have been coasting since then on this capital. Thus, the more recent diversity of Swedish society is not important, as far as the argument goes.
In a similar sense, the United States could also be said to be coasting on previously built capital.
I have read the article now and I must say it is actually quite good. I think he paints a somewhat too rosy picture of the present state of affairs, but that was not the focus of his article anyway (for instance, the privatizations that have taken place in the school system are very shallow. Schools aren’t allowed to make any of the decisions that actually matter themselves, such as what should be included in the curriculum.)
As a Swede, I think this was a great read. He’s spot on. Sweden is clearly not homogeneous at all today, but we were until only a few decades ago and he lists that as one of the reasons to our previous success.
Because it’s full of Swedes.
Yeah, right.
http://goo.gl/y8RvE
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