Apr 23rd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The Horrors of Nordic Socialism Exposed
The Daily Show did a nice segment the other day exposing the horrors of socialism as practiced in Sweden. Basically, most people are better off than most Americans, but rich Swedish people aren’t nearly as rich as rich Americans:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| The Stockholm Syndrome | ||||
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My sense of things is that, all joking aside, Sweden really has gone too far and if I were Swedish I’d be looking to recalibrate to something more like the model of social democracy on display in Denmark or Finland or the Netherlands which all, like Sweden, are ahead of us in the Human Development Index and would be regarded by Glenn Beck as little better than life in a gulag.
85 Responses to “The Horrors of Nordic Socialism Exposed”
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April 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Yes, but in the Netherlands you have access to drugs which make you blissfully numb to the horror of your gulag slave existence.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
But, seriously, life in those countries might well be horrible for Glenn Beck in actuality. Here in the US, his pathology leads to wealth, fame and honours. There, it could lead him to be classified as town crank or town asshole or even cause him a few stints in mental institutions.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I think what Conservatives fail to grasp is if you took a vote that said “would you take a slightly lower total GDP with less gap between rich and poor and less opportunity for people to get rich but had greater stability and ensured a basic standard of living for everyone with the majority of people comfortably middle class” you would find that the vast majority would vote yes.
The whole key to conservative success is to keep the debate around abstract terms.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Welcome to the US, where we have the best, most active, most fully developed pathological personalities in the world!
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Not to mention that Nordic countries produce obscenley gorgeous women, which must be a real bummer.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
why do i see
even though when i go here http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/tag/sweden
this post shows up?
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I wonder if Matt’s constant denigration of the opportunity to become wealthy stems from growing up so pampered. There might be some kind of self-loathing involved.
But look, the opportunity to get rich and/or improve your lot in life is extremely important. It’s what’s kept immigrants coming to this country for over two centuries. It’s also what gets people out of bed and working hard.
Could we do better on some made up UN social statistics chart, in which the top country (which is currently going bankrupt) is destroying us by .02 points? Maybe. But we’re also the only country above us that takes in vast numbers of completely impoverished immigrants every year. So I don’t think switching to a model of confiscatory taxation and free babysitting for all is going to solve all our problems. Plus, there’s a lot to be said for the American notion of liberty, that is, free from state direction of all facets of life. Of course, we know Matt really doesn’t care about that too much, as long as he gets his gee-whiz trains.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Sweden really has gone too far and if I were Swedish I’d be looking to recalibrate to something more like the model of social democracy on display in Denmark or Finland or the Netherlands
What is so different between Sweden on one side, and Denmark or Finland on the other??
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I’m not sure what Matt means by “Sweden has gone too far”. Too far in which direction? Why are Denmark or Finland supposedly better? And why bring in the Netherlands, which isn’t social democratic at all, but rather the brainchild of paternalist Catholics?
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Can I eat this marvelous “opportunity”? Can it treat my illnesses? No? Well then, up yours. For sane people, reality trumps fantasy. (And I didn’t grow up pampered.)
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Umm – in what manner has Sweden gone ‘too far’?
And Brad:
“But look, the opportunity to get rich and/or improve your lot in life is extremely important. It’s what’s kept immigrants coming to this country for over two centuries. It’s also what gets people out of bed and working hard.”
You’ve never had to work in a factory, or as a temp, have you Brad? Most people in America do not have the opportunity to get rich. Most people work because they will starve and be homeless if they don’t, and thanks to regressive social policies, even working hard is not allowing people to keep their homes or food on the table.
ex animo-
Jo
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I think Obama fucked up greatly by not adopting Nickelback’s Economic Stimulus Plan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEpTERujseM
“Hey, hey, I wanna be a Rock Star!”
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
But look, the opportunity to get rich and/or improve your lot in life is extremely important.
A lot of work is being done by that “and/or”.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Shorter Brad: “fuck you, I got mine.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Utter rot. There’s plenty of opportunity to become wealthy in Sweden and many other “socialist” countries in Europe. Both my siblings live in the UK, and the families have both started successful businesses from scratch and are doing extremely well for themselves, despite being “burdened” by higher taxes and universal health care.
So what if it is harder to get insanely wealthy in these countries? If you hadn’t noticed, only a tiny portion of Americans ever come close to the wealth that conservatives so covet. I still believe that the American Dream is a valuable part of the American psyche, but conservatives have been responsible for skewing it far too far in the direction of the pursuit of wealth at the cost of the pursuit of happiness.
The other problem in America is that to be safe from the twin disasters of unemployment and ill health, you do need to accumulate millions of dollars before you can be certain that you won’t lose all you have should misfortune befall you.
When researchers looked at young people in that socialist paradise, Denmark, they found that while they were much more contented than their American counterparts, there was no lacking in drive and ambition to better themselves (despite a much higher tax burden). The big difference is that they don’t have to become as rich to feel secure, and they don’t see wealth as the only means to a fulfilling life.
The sooner more people around here come to their senses and realize that they are never going to be multimillionaires, the better it will be for all of us in America.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Hey Matt,
I think I can’t put the embed code in a comment, but you should at least point to part 2 from last night:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225126&title=the-stockholm-syndrome-pt.-2
I too am curious as to what criteria you use to differentiate Sweden as having gone “too far”. Is there really some sort of continuum, or don’t nearly all European countries (including the UK, which is in some ways more “free market” than the US) have more social protections than the US, but which in each case have been adapted to local conditions, customs and political and economic systems?
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Sweden will only be going too far if their citizens’ democratic freedoms start being eroded. Last time I looked, they weren’t the one whose government was kidnapping people off the street and subjecting them to torture.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
So what if it is harder to get insanely wealthy in these countries?
The way to become wealthy is typically through banking and finance, which is a thriving industry in the socialist hellholes that are France, Switzerland, Germany, and the UK. I assume that particularly in the UK, there is a larger class barrier to breaking into the banking industry than there is in the US, but that has little to do with whether the US adopts health coverage reforms or not.
I assume that salaries for doctors are lower in European countries, but I’ve really never met the model young republican youth praising the values of wealth and entrepeneurship having the motivation, smarts, or the patience to actually become a physician.
I would also guess that the US has many, many more Amway salesmen than Europe. Is that a good thing?
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Sweden’s population is 9 million. They are all cousins. Throw in the cultural norms of modern Scandinavians and you have a place that is small, idiosyncratic and absurd as a model for anywhere else.
Sweden’s wealth is astounding. Especially when you consider it has never been due to the inflation of their assets. The thing that has always been the foundation of America’s wealth, except in the post WWII period. (hmmmmmmm) How they distribute it is secondary.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I wonder if Matt’s constant denigration of the opportunity to become wealthy stems from growing up so pampered. There might be some kind of self-loathing involved.
But look, the opportunity to get rich and/or improve your lot in life is extremely important.
Indeed, that poor Swedish pop star is forced to live in a nice apartment, rather than a gigantic mansion. Horrifying! What a socialist hell hole.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
The sooner more people around here come to their senses and realize that they are never going to be multimillionaires, the better it will be for all of us in America.
The trappings of “opportunity” that exist in America will always be around regardless of what health care, regulatory, and tax reforms we make. Talk about “opportunity” in America relates more to the idea that just about anyone on a middle class income can buy a decent-sized house and, when they retire, opt to move to someplace like Montana and buy a huge plot of land in the middle of nowhere that’s “theirs.” This can be done at relatively modest expense and is something that’s much more difficult to do in the far more densely populated Europe. I don’t get the impression that these opportunities are going to be taken away. A still VAT tax might make it more difficult to purchase large motorized recreational items, but I don’t see such a plan on the table anytime soon.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I wonder if Matt’s constant denigration of the opportunity to become wealthy stems from growing up so pampered.
Brad: I haven’t seen much evidence Matt denigrates “the opportunity to become wealthy” but anyway, as it happens, it’s almost certainly easier for a non-wealthy person to become wealthy in Western Europe than it is in America. The erosion of social mobility in the United States is a serious problem.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I think what Conservatives fail to grasp is if you took a vote that said “would you take a slightly lower total GDP with less gap between rich and poor and less opportunity for people to get rich but had greater stability and ensured a basic standard of living for everyone with the majority of people comfortably middle class” you would find that the vast majority would vote yes.
If your assumption is correct, taxation beyond a minimal amount would be unnecessary because you could collect funds to “ensure a basic standard of living for everyone” voluntarily. If you worry that this system would be unfair because a few would not pay their fair share, you would essentially be making the same argument as Conservatives:
Why am I paying for you?
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
But you’re not Swedish, and they seem to be doing all right.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
The one thing to remember about Europe is that all the ‘nice’ stuff in Sweden and in the rest of Europe wasn’t invented in Europe and if you want to check out what Europe would be like if they could only have things that were home grown, watch an old movie circa 1910 or 1920 to see what their standard of living would be like.
Sweden being such the nice place that it is is predicated on the US being the rough and tumble place that it is, economically. It would really suck for Sweden if the US became more like it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
It’s interesting to compare the link Matt provides above to a list of countries organized by total tax revenue as a percent of GDP. Japan and Switzerland stand out to me as countries with total tax rates in the 20s (like us) but above us on the HDI. Australia and Ireland are within a few percentage points of us in total tax rates, but are higher on the HDI. Why not emulate them?
Probably because of the free-rider problem inherent in these HDI rankings. How much do the countries above us benefit from technical and medical innovation, intellectual property development, large capital markets, energy development, and global security provided by countries like the U.S., the U.K., Germany, etc.? Would Canada be that high if it weren’t our immediate neighbor and largest trading partner? Would Japan be that high if it had to pay for its own military? And so forth.
It’s more complicated than just saying, “Let’s be more like Ireland, or Switzerland, or Finland, or the Netherlands” because, for better or for worse, we don’t have a U.S. or a U.K. we can rely on. Probably, it’s better to look at specific policy implementations in those countries and evaluate how they’d work here rather than explore copying their model of social democracy.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Nothing can improve this clip. Not even Dune music.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Being Swedish and pretty familiar with the political economy all of the Nordic countries, I’m curious about Matt’s sense of Sweden having gone too far, compared to our neighbors (we’re really not that different).
Swedish CEO:s are getting their bonuses as ususal, and while those bonuses are certainly smaller than American ones, the super-rich of Sweden are doing alright. Perhaps Matt took Wyatt’s interview with Robyn a bit too seriously…
People over here generally find it ridiculous (but amusing) when Sweden is referred to as being ’socialist’. The basic economic logics of Scandinavian countries are not different from the US; having affordable health care and parental leave is not the same as abolishing capitalism. And, comparing Scandinavia and the States, higher and more progressive taxes don’t seem to lead to lower social mobility.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Sweden has only one real problem. Not enough sun 9 months a year and too much the other 3.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Perhaps Matt took Wyatt’s interview with Robyn a bit too seriously…
Though the exchange with Björn Ulvaeus is fun. The “socialist” moniker is absurd though, really, when used to refer to Every Other Industrialized Democracy, and it might be the growing sense of that absurdity which kills off what’s really just vestigial McCarthyism.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I agree with comments above -MY needs to explain in what way Sweden has ‘gone too far’. As it stands, the statement seems like an empty, thoughtless, throwaway and meaningless signifier to prove that MY is ‘moderate’ and ‘reasonable -a Bayhline, as it were.
Historically, Sweden has had well-defined sectors of capitalist activity where competition and market discipline is allowed to function. A famous example in the news now is its bank nationalization policy during the financial crisis of the 1990s -which was essentially a way to force market discipline on its largest banks that had gone bankrupt, but for which normal bankruptcy procedures would not work. That was actually a very capitalist policy -far more so than the current US policy. They also are letting Saab fend for itself (and that means it may well go bust), saying that they do not view supporting an auto industry of a given size as a government function. It seems to me that they did this with less fuss and trouble and attempts at salvage than we are doing with Chrysler.
The argument could be made that Sweden went ‘too far’ in the 1970s and 1980s, when it adopted policies that impeded labor market adjustments and attempted to force capital markets to do all the work of economic adjustment. But those policies were decades ago.
Swedes in business that I know view themselves as better capitalists than we are, and view there industrial sector as very competitive and efficient. They cite their past success at buying decayed and dysfunctional US companies and making them profitable. I have been told this several times, sometimes rather rudely when alcohol has been consumed beforehand.
As for the idea that Europe invented all the good advanced industrial stuff -that is nonsense and historically illiterate. People need to read some economic history before making statements like that.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
The one thing to remember about Europe is that all the ‘nice’ stuff in Sweden and in the rest of Europe wasn’t invented in Europe and if you want to check out what Europe would be like if they could only have things that were home grown…
Right. The Chinese invented paper. The Brazilians invented bossa nova. Your point?
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I meant to say
“But those policies were abandoned decades ago.”
instead of
“But those policies were decades ago.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Not to mention that Nordic countries produce obscenley gorgeous women, which must be a real bummer.
Actually, everything evens out. Those uber-gorgeous Nordic women tend to be genetic sports. Most Nordic women look, well, not so much. (c.f. Garrison Keillor’s “all the women are strong and the men are good looking.”) There are enough gorgeous women to confuse you into thinking that they’re all that way, but it ain’t necessarily so.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Dayum, I am not typing well today. I meant to say
“As for the idea that the US invented all the good advanced industrial stuff and that Europe is free riding on US advances -that is nonsense and historically illiterate. People need to read some economic history before making statements like that.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Ahem, to play devil’s advocate for a bit: could the Swedes and Europe have built this social democratic paradise without the implied protection of the American military for the last 60 years? In all seriousness and not to be one of those “if it wasn’t for us, they’d be speaking German” idiots, you have to admit it is mighty convenient when a good portion of your GDP doesn’t need to go to defense when another party is paying a large chunk of it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I live in Sweden. I can assure you, the Swedes haven’t gone too far.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
As for the idea that Europe invented all the good advanced industrial stuff -that is nonsense and historically illiterate. People need to read some economic history before making statements like that.
If you are referring to ‘j mct’ post, he actually wrote the opposite of what you quoted: Europe invented nothing, capitalism and democracy were invented by Indian tribes.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
This is a very good and serious point. But we must distinguish even between the Nordic countries. Norway was a frontline state in the Cold War, and as such, always committed to much greater defense outlays than neutral Sweden. And I don’t think Finland ever relied on security guarantees, whether implicit or explicit, from the United States – it never even joined NATO. So it’s probably safe to say Finland and Norway weren’t forgoing defense spending, hoping that the US would hop to the rescue if they needed rescuing.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I can just picture mobs of disaffected young Swedes carrying signs and chanting, “INCREMENTAL CHANGE NOW!”
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Well, but this works both ways, surely. How would the US get by without Canadian natural resources and energy, for instance? Or, how would it get by if it had to obtain those resources from countries that are less friendly, more distant, governed by less stable regimes, etc?
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Why oh why Says:
Europe invented nothing, capitalism and democracy were invented by Indian tribes.
That’s going to surprise a lot of Greeks.
Much like how surprised the British will be that they didn’t invent the steam engine or RADAR, the French didn’t invent the internal combustion engine, the Italians didn’t invent concrete, and the Germans didn’t practically invent chemestry.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Capitalism wasn’t invented. Capitalism just means that you can rent your money out without some religious wanker having you killed.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
“I live in Sweden. I can assure you, the Swedes haven’t gone too far.”
They must have. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any Swedes.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
As for the issue of military spending during the Cold War, that does not explain Sweden’s emergence from dire poverty in the late 18th and early 19th century. Sweden was impoverished after its militaristic imperialist flameouts of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Their economic development and history of social democracy go back to the nineteenth and early twentieth century. So, the post WWII military spending issue does not address the basic points at issue here.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
cynickal, I think we’re reaching the outer bounds of irony here. In any case, Babylonians (or Iraqis as they’re called these days) deserve most of the credit for all the good things we enjoy.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I agree with comments above -MY needs to explain in what way Sweden has ‘gone too far’. As it stands, the statement seems like an empty, thoughtless, throwaway and meaningless signifier to prove that MY is ‘moderate’ and ‘reasonable -a Bayhline, as it were.
Matt Yglesias’s desire to be perceived as Serious is once again defeating his desire to actually be intelligent.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I know people who have worked in Scandanavia and they say it is nice , but expensive.I have always wanted to go there , and greatly admire the Scandanavians.
But I must agree with the comment by RAPIER who said that it is an unusual model to follow. I would actually go further ,and say that while all countries can learn from each other , no country can copy another one exactly. This may seem obvious , but too many people think that if only America becomes like Europe everything will be great.
We can certainly learn many things from them , and vice versa.But we have different strengths and weaknesses. There is very little diversity in scandanavia, and they are fairly homogeneous.
That is a strength in the sense that there is more order and cohesiveness.
But our country has much more racial and ethnic diversity , and that is OUR STRENGTH.I will not try to prove the point ,since it would take too long, but we are a nation of immagrants and not only has that brought us many talanted people but also many new ideas.
Many people will point out that Finland or Sweden also have immagrants , but if you look closely, they are mostly fellow scandanavians, such as Swedish Finns or Finnish Swedes .
This does not mean that there is anything wrong with Scandanavia . It means simply that we do not live in a sparsely populated , homogeneous country like they do.
We can learn lessons from abroad , but i think we would be better off talking about our own strenghts ,and how we should use them.
I am white but live in a city with a predomintly black population.I am always surprised when even black politicians talk about the young black people only in the context of the problems they have ,and, or , cause.Yes , many face great obsacles , but the young kids in my city , black , white and latino are our greatest rescource.
The next great invention in the U.S. may be created by one of the kids you see walking around West Baltimore. The kids in the projects and the run down rowhouses often present challenges,but they are our greatest stength and our greatest rescource.
this may sound corny and like a cliche. But i think it is often overlooked.
The answers to our problems don’t lie in Norway .They lie here ,in America .
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I should add that while we can not completly copy Scandanavia ,it does seem a strange straw man for the far right to choose.
It is especially ironic because the Swedish car industry is in trouble [like all car industries around the world].
But the Swedish government has announced that they WILL NOT bail the Swedish car companies out.
This means that George Bush was more socialist than the Swedes ,since he started the auto bailout before Obama took office.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Per who invented what, Europeans invented and thought up lots of stuff that increased living standards… in the 19th and early 20th centuries when economically they were rough and tumble capitalist compared to where they are now. The haven’t done much of anything in this regard since WWII, and all of their improvement in their standard of living came from new inventions and ideas that came from the US. Europe has had a glorious past, but they’re has beens who don’t pull their weight, and Europe has achieved it’s status as a very pleasant place to live because they’ve imported the means, and basically never had to pay for them, from abroad, from the US. That’s also OK with me, all in.
If we become more like Europe, we, and Europe, will look pretty much the same in the future as we do now and the material standard of living will not be all that much higher in the future than it is now.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
People who cite the role of the US in WWI and WWII as proof of the superiority of US lassez-faire, free market capitalism should think again. The US adopted command economy techniques to produce the required war fighting power in timely fashion. The free market intellectuals of the past, such as Hayek, who are influential among the conservative lassez-faire free market dead enders of today, did not approve of the methods actually used by the US in WWII. I remember reading that Hayek spent WWII trying to devise a free market approach to the industrial economic policy needed to provide the war fighting might that FDR provided using government planning. I also read that as WWII drew to a close, Hayek was still diddling around with free-market subsidy and tax policy proposals that might do the trick without explicit government planning and directives of capital, labor and manufacturing sectors. I am not sure if that the latter part of the account is fair, but it is true that the US did not produce the means to win WWII with free market economic policies.
So, what is the point of bringing up the rescue of Europe in WWII in this context? Or the Cold War, since the same arguments apply to that period as well. Eisenhower warned us about that that approach would do to democracy and free market capitalism in the U.S., and I think he was far more sensible and practical person that Hayek.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
‘j mct’, all of what you write is fact-free. What are your sources? All those high-tech companies in Europe, what are they doing? You try to draw a line between pre- and post-WWII, with very little evidence.
Without a doubt, the US has become the most powerful country in the world, but that dates back to WWI, not WWII, and it has little to do with economics or innovation.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
j mct –
Most of the really impressive inventions that have come out of the U.S. in the last 60 years have some straight out of government sponsored research, most of it military. How, exactly, would more vacations, universal health care, free higher education, etc. interfere with that?
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
As much as I love the whole ‘country x invented gadget/concept y’ crap, the implied idea that if, say, China hadn’t invented paper, then we’d all still be writing on clay tablets and publishers would have kilns in the basement is retarded.
In the 60s, the US was dropping 8.8% (of GNP) on defense. UK was at 6.4, France at 6.3%, and Germany and Canada were in the 4s. In 1995, we were at 4%, and Sweden was at 2.5%. All numbers from Public spending in the 20th century by Vito Tanzi and Ludger Schuknecht.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Why oh why, and jimbo: I can’t respond unless you clarify your comments. There are typos in my original comment that I corrected in later comments, so please make sure you read those corrections. I apologize for my typos but I am typing very quickly ’cause am trying to do this during lunch time at work.
To be clear, I am arguing against those who say that Sweden’s social democracy has ‘gone too far’ as MY said, and against those who are arguing for the unambiguous superiority of supposed lassez-faire free market US economic policy.
As for sources, they are really basic. You can start with the Wikipedia entry on the history of Sweden, you can go to the library and read the Cambridge economic histories of Europe and the US. You can read a good text on US Economic history, for example, American Economic History by Hughes and Cain.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Someone should perhaps mention that just about everything in Sweden is owned by the (Count) Wallenbergs? Not socialism, certainly, but quite nasty nonetheless, ownership of a country by a single family.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
And frankly, Sweden is sponging off other countries for civilisation. Was there ever a Swedish John Singer Sargent? A Swedish Evelyn Waugh? A Swedish opera, even?
Sweden only gets to be the way it is by not contributing anything to the elevation of human civilisation. A decent civilisation needs some sort of a distinct, well-ordered social hierarchy, and Sweden, with most people barely four generations removed from subsistence agriculture, does not possess such a thing.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I don’t think there are even any Norman Foster-designed buildings in Sweden. Nor a decent symphony orchestra, which requires a critical mass of comfortably rich people (which Sweden does not have).
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Myles, sources? How much do the Wallenbergs pay in taxes, and how does it compare to Bill Gates or Warren Buffet? And do they have anything close to the influence billionaires have on Congress?
It is hard to find a more corrupt system than what we have in the US, no matter how hard people like Myles try.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
And frankly, Sweden is sponging off other countries for civilisation. Was there ever a Swedish John Singer Sargent? A Swedish Evelyn Waugh? A Swedish opera, even?
What about ABBA? What about spelling? What about Ingrid Bergman? As I recall America sponged all her people off of other countries.
America has been sponging off the rest of the world for 40 years, borrowing back the dollars we send them for their stuff. Most don’t quite realize it yet but those dollars to lend us are drying up. Nobody wants to lend to us anymore which is why the Fed has now promised to print at least 2 trillion and probaby a lot more to come.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I have already said that we can only copy so much from scandanavia in comments 48 and 49. However i can not figure out why those that disagree with mr Yglesias on this issue then must bash Sweden.
It seeems that every time some makes a statement eveyone else must take the complete oppisite opinion and cede no ground .
may be that is how society is nowdays, or maybe it is just the internet.
I just feel it is sad.
For the record i think both America and Sweden and the rest of Scandanavia are great countries that have all contributed much to the world.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I was just checking on “Swedish Opera”. An interesting hit:
Gustav III of Sweden, a member of a House of Holstein-Gottorp, was assassinated at a midnight masquerade at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm on March 16, 1792. This became the basis of Eugene Scribe’s libretto for the opera Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball). Who composed the opera?
Your answer: Gaetano Donizetti » INCORRECT ( correct answer: Giuseppe Verdi )
What makes it quite ironic is that Gustav III sponsored the creation of Royal Opera 10 years before his demise.
Another hit: Birgit Nilsson was a world-class Wagnerian soprano.
Does Sweden “go to far”? When I visited Sweden, my host referred to Denmark as a relative example of social Darwinism. During an earlier visit, my cousin was despairing about the policies of the conservative government of Sweden, “soon it will be as awful as in Austria”. I understand that her close friend from highschool lives in Austria, and the comparison was based not on some statistical or ideological tracts but on phone conversations in which office workers from two countries compared benefits.
The importance of Sweden in the context of social and economic policies is to large extend this: right wing politicians and economist love to predict how much GNP growth would decrease or increase after cutting/increasing taxes. According to their formula, Sweden is wasteland, impoverished strip of tundra patrolled by jackbooted tax collectors, with only occasional moose roadkill saving them from death of hunger.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:29 pm
De Tocqueville noted that Americans have a burning passionate belief in Americas total superiority in all things. The old joke about the French not thinking they are better than everyone else, but instead knowing, it is a joke here, because we know we are the best. Damn French!
Virtually every single serious student of macro economics and global politics in the world recognizes that America is suffering the biggest relative decline in its history. That was masked when at least our economy was not shrinking, by the numbers. Numbers now proven illusory. Military adventures, torture, all if it should be seen as a reaction against that decline. Chest thumping shows of strength to mask the underlying weakness. We have to bash the 9 million Swedes, less than dozens of US metro areas, to convince ourselves how great we are. Hell, let’s nuke the bastards. Why not? More than a few wanted to nuke Canada post 9/11 or various nutty reasons. Damn Canadians. Don’t get them started on them!
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I am not sure ABBA is art. My point is not that America is great or anything.
It is that Sweden is a pretty awful country to compare to. If you used, say, Germany as an example I wouldn’t mind so much. But Sweden is a wasteland, if we are to talk about civilisation. It’s actually done less for civilisation than modern Canada, which is quite something.
And I don’t know if you know this, but one of the cornerstones of the existence of high civilisation is the existence of a class of people comfortably wealthy enough to support it, and a social attitude hierarchical enough to uphold it. Even America does not have, in the present day, the second part of the equation. That’s why modern art, modern art music, and modern literature in the U.S. has been so bullshitty. What’s the significance of Jackson Pollock in the grand scheme of civilisation? A big fat zero. What’s the significance of John Cage? Zilch. What’s the significance of all those weirdly trashy postmodernist art Americans, and frankly only Americans and Scandinavians, love to buy?
It is a curious thing when that in the 21st century the United Kingdom, a far weaker and less resourceful country than the U.S., has been able to have erected far more historically significant architecture (Lord Foster’s public buildings Holyrood etc, the Gherkin, the Wobbly Bridge). Just look at what’s supposed to be the new Freedom Towers; absolute, nihilistically Internationalist-style filler.
If even American civilisation is in such a state, imagine what a more collectivist country like Sweden is like. Ikea?
One of the more insidious effects of collectivism is the mediocrity of art. The public architecture in Canada, although very hip and comfortable and well-built and well-designed and so forth in recent years, are bland and mediocre beyond description. They can cost a billion dollars but would never feature in any art history textbook. It’s this weird softness, this desire to placate all people, this desire for egalitarianism of thought, that poisons the transcendent genius of civilisation that, by definition, must not be egalitarian. You can’t build grand Baroque palaces today’s West not just because the style has changed, but also that people lack the will, and the drive, to excel above others, to be grand, to elevate civilisation beyond the common rabble.
I bemoan the decline of Western civilisation.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
“Sweden is a wasteland if we are to talk about civilisation.” As a U.S. citizen who has lived both in Sweden and the U.S., I must say Myles that I couldn’t disagree more with you. Sweden strikes me as much more civilized than the U.S. as a whole. The intellect is respected and celebrated, people have a good work ethic and they are incredibly gracious. The majority of Swedes speak at least three languages, can converse easily about world affairs and have likely attended many more cultural events in the past year than their counterparts in the U.S. Your claim strikes me as sorely out of sync with reality. Have you ever visited the country?
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I’m glad somebody brought up what we sacrificed, in blood and sweat, in the cold war. Building our missiles entirely and selflessly to benefit others. America always has had a problem with selflessness.
And did we stop after the Cold War was over? No way! Liberals wanted us to stop. But conservatives, much as they might abhor Sweden, knew that America had to keep onguard and protect those Swedes from, well, the international conspiracy of evil hatched by Iran!
Oh, we could have taken the easy way out, and had state paid health care, better jobs, that kind of shit. But no – we wanted Sweden to have that kind of thing and were willing to sacrifice for it. Even now, the right is indignant by the very thought of lessening our military committment. They say, it might sound easy, but then (sob) the jihadists might take over Sweden!
What can I say? The right is just more, well, moral. Like Jesus. With nuclear missiles.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Sounds like Myles SG has overdosed on The Third Man.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Re: The other problem in America is that to be safe from the twin disasters of unemployment and ill health, you do need to accumulate millions of dollars before you can be certain that you won’t lose all you have should misfortune befall you.
While universal healthcare is certainly a boon elsewhere. it’s not like European countries, even Sweden, have somehow eliminated joblessness.
Re: But Sweden is a wasteland, if we are to talk about civilisation.
And the US, boasting such cultural glories as the Jerry Springer Show, Gangsta Rap, and chocolate-smeared nude people pretending to be art, is some sort of modern day Renaissance Florence? I won’t pretend to defend Sweden on cultural grounds but the US is ground zero of general tackiness and Philistinism.
Re: This may seem obvious , but too many people think that if only America becomes like Europe everything will be great.
Europe is not monolithic, something that the Right in its Europhobia and the Left in its Europhilia both forget. The individual European nations may differ from each other as much as they differ from the US.
Re: As for the issue of military spending during the Cold War, that does not explain Sweden’s emergence from dire poverty in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Big factor: the climate improved markedly in the 1800s. The Little Ice Age had made Scandinavia almost marginal for civilization.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:30 pm
OK, I give up. Sweden is pure evil and in league with the totalitarian French monsters to destroy the flowers of civilization, which are rugged capitalist, and I guess feudal, authoritarian junta, military, and other hierarchical societies with a stupendously wealthy overclasses. Surely we saw the complete destruction of French culture of any kind at all after the French Revolution! See how Haiti surpassed it as the income and wealth distributions of those two countries diverged, to the horrifying detriment of France.
In addition to the goofy comments on the lack of Swedish accomplishments in any field of civilization, I will add the the monstrous Luddite plot of global warming theory was developed by Fourier (French) and Arrhenius (Swede). The oppressive totalitarian invention of seat belts was also Swedish. Totalitarian global positioning technology was also developed in Sweden. What more do you need?
Abolish Sweden, for the sake of freedom, for sake of humanity. Now.
I think the Myles SG comments might be jokes, though. Surely that commenter is having a bit of fun with us earnest people.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Re Myles at 64: “But Sweden is a wasteland, if we are to talk about civilisation. It’s actually done less for civilisation than modern Canada, which is quite something.”
————-
Bullshit. Sweden gave us the Volvo 240 DL — which ranks up there with the Mona Lisa as far as i’m concerned.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Sweden also gave us the Carl Gustave M45 machine gun — aka the “Swedish K”. Weapon of choice for the CIA in Vietnam and the snakeeaters liked it too.
God gave us Sweden and Russia to teach Americans how to do real engineering.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_M/45 .
Hey, CHARLETON HESTON used it in the Omega Man. And if anyone knew how to select a gun to hunt ghouls, it was ole Charleton.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
JonF
You say that Europe is not monolithic and that each country is different. I agree ,and had even thought about rewriting that in my comment ,as soon as i had typed it. But i am a very slow typer and i was too lazy. i should have been called out on that !
You might want to read a book by Timothy Garton Ash called “Free World”. It is a very good book if you haven’t already read it. And there is a whole chapter on what you said about every country in Europe being different.
He goes even further than you, and claims that many of the “differences” between America and Europe are exaggerated.
I would agree with him.
I have always felt that there was a middle ground between mindless worship of Europe and mindless hatered of Europe.
A man can love his wife without hating another man’s wife.
And one can like all or many of the countries of Europe or elsewhere and still love America. I do not believe it has to be ,either,or.
Thank you for calling me out on that JonF. I deserved to be. I am just glad you did not call me out on my dreadful typing and spelling!
April 24th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Re pete’s comment “I am just glad you did not call me out on my dreadful typing and spelling!”
———
Hey, you’ve come to the Mother Lode of misspelled words — although Matthew likes to call them typos.
Matthew looks upon the spelling conventions of the bourgeoisie with aristocratic disdain. One of the perks of a Harvard degree.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Mr DON WILLIAMS
MY excuse is better than any Mr. Yglesias could come up with.
I took typing class in 10th grade back in 1984. And my teacher had a crush on Carl Weathers, the actor who played Apollo Creed in Rocky.
We spent the whole class , the whole qaurter ,watching the fight scene where Apollo has his shirt off .
I am not making this up .i actually watched Rocky one and two at least 70 or 80 times. Especially the fight scenes. I also got an A as did every one else.
The class became known as “Rocky 101″.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:57 am
@Troy:
What is it with this “pay for its own military” canard that Americans like to trot out about every one of their allies? Japan has one of the biggest defense budgets in the world; the “Self-Defense Force” has been quietly built up into one of the planet’s strongest militaries. Yes, American forces are stationed in Japan (not without some controversy) and yes, Japan enjoys some expectation of American help if it were ever seriously threatened. But this idea that the Japanese have been busy devising ever more novel personal robots and video games while leaving fresh-faced Uncle Sam to keep them safe is absurd.
Same goes for France, which spends HUGE amounts on defence, has one of about three militaries in the world capable of genuine expeditionary operations, actually kicked out American forces in the 1950s, and explicitly designed its (large) nuclear deterrent on the notion of fighting independently. And yet The West Wing’s writers thought it would be funny for Jed Bartlet to make a funny dig at how the French “don’t pay for their own defence” once in a while. Hilarious.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:36 am
My first comment is that it would be a mistake for the US federal government to think that they can emulate the success of the Netherlands and Denmark by increasing social spending. I base this statement on the fact that British social spending is about the same as Dutch or Danish social spending [when allowances are made for the taxes that the Dutch and Danish governments levy on welfare benefits: see Willem Adema, OECD Observer, no.211, pp. 20--23]; and yet Britain has notorious social problems, and is lower than the US in the Human Development Index.
In any case, as pointed out by Troy above, countries that rank above the US in the HDI do not always have high taxation levels.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:45 am
My second comment is that, based on personal experience, levels of taxation are pretty much irrelevant to quality of life [at least directly], unless you are self-employed. I say this even though I am probably slightly to the right of Glenn Beck.
What really makes a difference for me is (a) the quality of housing and (b) people’s attitudes. For instance, I was pretty happy in a part of Italy run by the Communist Party, in the Netherlands, and in conservative Alberta, because I found comfortable housing and people with positive attitudes. I felt rather miserable both in England and in Denmark, because pretty much the only way to find good housing is to buy it, and [perhaps as a consequence] the local people, even if satisfied with their lives, seem to have a fatalistic attitude. This is the reason why I might conceivably move to “red” America, but never to “blue” America. (Italian Communists are also red.)
April 24th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I’m a European (currently in the UK, otherwise Eastern) and I like the American model better than the European one.
Basically, the problem is one of psychology: if you are padded and protected from all direction, there is little left in life that really worth struggling for. Then you are just whiling away your life easily and comfortably, without ever beginning to really _live_. Most of my fellow Europeans look like _sleepwalkers_ to me – they do very little, dream little, and fear little.
It’s kind of an extended childhood existence – without any hard decisions to make, when stuff like healthcare is taken care of, you don’t really work for your life but neither for your dreams: your income is basically just like the pocket money of child, to be spent on entertainment and little treats.
So, please, think about the psychological health, not just about the “stuff”, i.e. the money, the goods and the services, think about stuff like psychology, character, soul, whatever you prefer to call it… a welfare state just doesn’t help you become a real adult. When was the last time you met a Swede who had that real “get-go” _drive_ in them that people raised within harder circumstances, such as Americans or Eastern Europeans?
April 24th, 2009 at 9:57 am
sounds terrible
April 24th, 2009 at 10:04 am
obviously you’ve never seen that at&t commercial with sven
April 24th, 2009 at 10:48 am
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/sw/Top-Rankings
April 24th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
“Swedes have gone too far” = classic, if crude, example of careerist posturing.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Shenpen, sorry to break it to you, but most Americans don’t “struggle” either, at least not the ones I assume you’d be likely to associate with as a literate blog reader. Most Americans sleepwalk through life as oblivious and self-content as any Swede or Englishman, certainly more so than most Germans in my experience. Maybe you’d like Russia – they’re people have to “live.”
April 24th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
This is a late comment, since I’m catching up as usual, but I don’t understand the comment that Sweden has “gone too far” either. At least not today.
I had no idea that the Swedish submachine gun M45B was used elsewhere. This was my designated weapon when I did military service.
As for worth living in Sweden, many Americans seem to have their heads full of wool – they know nothing, or approximately nothing. I don’t see why it’s worth living that way. Even their feeling of superiority is usually uninformed.