Webinar: The Myth of the Socialist
Paradise Sweden
Joakim Fagerström
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Two categories of myths
1) Sweden is a socialist paradise where Socialism
works
2) Sweden is deregulating and we should follow
Sweden as an example
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Difference between state and
society
If we remove the state we still have
the society
The Swedes (Suiones) mentioned in
Germania AD 98
”a powerful tribe distinguished not
merely for their arms and men, but
for their powerful fleets”
Area: 449,964 km2 (173,745 sq mi )
Constitutional monarchy
Population: 9.4 million
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Christians from around 1050
Svealand (Sweden) yellow area
Götaland (Gothia) blue area
Eric the Victorius (945 – 995)
Mises.se
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Gustav Vasa king 1532 June 6th hailed as ”father of the
nation”
Sweden became a great power in Europe from the
17th century
Gustavus Adolphus killed Lützen 1632, played
important role in the Thirty Years War
Sweden third largest country in Europe by land area
middle of the 17th century
Era as super power ended 1718 when Charles XII was
killed
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
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Gustav Vasas was a tyrant and
opressor
Nils Dacke from ”Småland” started
an uprising against the king
Lived in no mans land in the south
of present Sweden
After the rebellion the central state
grew with very few limits
Mises.se
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1) Every person is the private (exclusive) owner of his
physical body.
2) Every person is the private owner of all goods that he
put to use by means of his body, before any other
person.
3) Every person who produces new products thereby
becomes the proper owner of these products.
4) Once a good has been first appropriated or produced,
ownership in it can be acquired only by means of a
voluntary, contractual transfer of its property title from
a previous to a later owner.
State or Private Law Society, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe26.1.html
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Types of Socialism
Socialism: “must be conceptualized as an
institutionalized interference with or aggression
against private property and private property
claims.”
“Capitalism, on the other hand, is a social system
based on the explicit recognition of private property
and of nonaggressive, contractual exchanges
between private property owners.”
A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, Hans-Hermann Hoppe http://mises.org/document/431
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Types of Socialism
“[…] there must then exist varying types and degrees of
socialism and capitalism, i.e., varying degrees to
which private property rights are respected or
ignored. Societies are not simply capitalist or
socialist. Indeed, all existing societies are socialist to
some extent.”
Socialism Russian Style
Socialism Social-Democratic Style
The Socialism of Conservatism
Mises.se
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Definition of Socialism
“We have defined socialism as an institutionalized
policy of redistribution of property titles. More
precisely, it is a transfer of property titles from people
who have actually put scarce means to some use or
who have acquired them contractually from persons
who have done so previously onto persons who have
neither done anything with the things in question nor
acquired them contractually.”
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Tax as a percentage of GDP (2010)
Percent
Denmark
Sweden
Belgium
Italy
France
Slovenia
Hungary
Germany
48.2
45.8
43.8
43.0
42.9
37.7
37.6
36.3
Percent
UnitedKingdom
OECD-Total*
Canada
Greece
UnitedStates
Chile
Mexico
35.0
33.8
31.0
30.9
24.8
20.9
18.1
More countries: http://www.ekonomifakta.se/en/stand-alone/Tidigare-publicerat/Skatter/Taxes-and-GDP/Tax-as-apercentage-of-GDP/
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Tax as a percentage of GDP
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Tax structure
Direct taxes on labour
Indirect taxes on labor
Tax on capital
Value-added tax (VAT)
Excise taxes
Taxes on import
Other taxes
= Total tax revenues
Billion SEK
469.3
399.3
188.5
324.1
119.2
5,7
0.8
1506.9
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Percentage
31.1%
26.5%
12.5%
21.5%
7.9%
0.4%
0.1%
100.0%
Börstjänaren
Direct and indirect taxes
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Income tax 28,89%Municipal tax
Limit for 20% state income tax
Limit for 25% state income tax
Marginal tax
Marginal tax
(excluding employment tax )
34,32%
34 500 SEK
48 933 SEK
66.1%
55.5%
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
3 678 Euro
5216 Euro
Börstjänaren
Breaks the basic rules of a private property society.
The rules of how much we can keep may change at
any time.
Do you own yourself if you don’t have the right to
what you produce and your property?
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
”Free schools”
Limited choice in education
Allows “free schools” from 1992
Funded by public money based on the number of
students
No admission examinations or extra fees allowed
The government is still the customer and the schools
are heavily regulated
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Trojan Horse
Mises.se
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“The Swedish welfare state does create some social
good, for example, by providing relatively generous
social security nets.”
The state can’t produce anything (appropriate first by
force)
The state is an aggressor and a parasite
Parasites need non parasites to live on
The parasite will kill himself and the host in the end
Social good his to help other help themselves
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
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“It is important to realize that Sweden is not a socialist
nation at heart. Taxes are high and the labor market is
rigid, but policymakers have sought to compensate for
this lack of economic freedom with economic
liberalizations in other parts of the economy.”
Non-existing respect for private property
No right to self-ownership
Where are these compensations?
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
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“Swedish society is not necessarily moving away from the
idea of a welfare state, but continuous reforms are
implemented towards economic liberty within the scope of
welfare. The rise of government has been stopped and even
reversed in recent years. The nation is again returning to
the free market policies which served it so well in the past.”
The grip has tightened
New government as socialistic as the old one
A few percent of lowered taxes doesn’t make up for
increases in taxes, regulations and new laws elsewhere
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
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Pharmacies
“Deregulated” 2009
Poor mother can’t get medicine for her daugther
The problem is called a “market failure” and blamed
on the free market and capitalism
Real problem is that the market still is heavy
regulated
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
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We then have a “free market” where:
You can’t decide what products to sell.
What you are allowed to sell changes every month.
You can’t decide what the price of your products should be.
A government agency decides what you must pay.
When they call this a deregulation or privatization:
They let the Trojan Horse in.
Failures will be blamed on the free market which leads to
even more socialism, regulations and statism than before.
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
No safe-haven for Socialism in Sweden.
There have not been any liberalizations in Sweden.
The enemy is still the same: Socialism and statism.
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
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We need to crush socialism and statism, end the state
parasite and cleanse it out of our society before it
devours ourselves and our children.
Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv
Börstjänaren
Thank you for listening!
http://www.mises.se
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Mises.se
Mot staten, för fred och frihet, egendom och rätten till ditt eget liv