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My personal experience with socialism in Sweden
I was at the headquarters of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute in the ‘80s at the height of Sweden’s socialist experiment. Here’s what I saw:
I was the U.S. representative at a meeting of scientists in Norrköping where we discussed wind-energy integration into electrical utilities. Our host was a Swedish scientist who held a position equivalent to the Chief Scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In June in Sweden, it’s daylight until midnight, so after dinner we took a walking tour of the city. Norrköping boasted a paper mill in the city along the river that runs through the town. It was beautifully designed to look like an old-fashioned water mill, and the odor—there was none, nada. But there was a price to pay.
The U.S. Chief Scientist probably lives in the equivalent of a mansion in Chevy Chase and drives 4 miles to work in Silver Spring. But in Sweden, at the height of its drive to socialism, the “Chief Scientist” and his family lived in a drab looking apartment building surrounded by mostly dirt, not manicured grass. He walked to work each day. This man loved music, he but could not afford to buy many records or tapes. They cost almost 4 times what I paid for them in the U.S., and I didn’t have to pay 61% federal income tax.
In short, the standard of living stank in Sweden. I was a peon scientist with only a master’s degree working at a national lab but living like the richest of the rich in Sweden. And here was one of their premier scientists with a standard of living equivalent to a retail clerk in America. That’s real-world, real-life socialism. It was stark and staring me in the face.
Socialism distributes the misery equally and lowers everyone to about the dregs of lower middle class in America—maybe to upper lower class. Is that worth it to you just to have socialized medicine, you know, like Canada with its death queues, where you hope to get life-saving surgery in time? Do you want to work hard and then pay the bulk of your income to the government?
So how did the story end in Sweden? It sure didn’t end in a socialist utopia! Read on and see where the socialist movement in Europe went in the ‘90s and beyond.
“The ‘socialist paradises’ of Sweden and Denmark are actually running away from socialism and back to free markets. In fact, Denmark ranks a stunning #8 on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Socialism failed the people of those countries and any success of these countries today is due to the free-market-foundation of their economy. For several decades, they tried to escape that foundation and found failure. So they have been moving back toward free enterprise. (Heritage Foundation https://herit.ag/2Ebi7AZ )”
“By 1990, ‘there were significantly more people living off of the state than paying into the system. This reflects Sweden’s move away from a capitalist free-market economy to a socialist model.’”
“This damaged the Swedish economy and resulted in prominent entrepreneurs leaving the country in frustration. IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, for example, moved to Denmark in 1974 and later to Switzerland. The economic situation in Sweden deteriorated as a direct result of extreme labor market regulation and the constant expansion of the role of the state, which led to massive dissatisfaction among the population.
“Pushback against these socialist ideas gathered momentum, and by the 1990s there was a comprehensive counter-movement…”´(Barron’s) https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-myth-of-nordic-socialism-51554296401 )
Here are some more financial articles to read about the failure of socialism in Northern Europe:
Democratic Socialists Can’t Legitimately Claim Sweden or Denmark as Success https://herit.ag/2Ebi7AZ
Bernie Sanders Dreams Of ‘Scandinavian Socialism.’ The Only Problem? It Has Long Since Failed (Forbes) https://bit.ly/3azJY9O
Bottom Line: DON’T LET IGNORANT LEFTISTS OR POWER MONGERS BAMBOOZLE YOU ABOUT SOCIALISM OR MARXISM!
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