There is a good backgrounder at The American Interest by Henrietta Horn on how Sweden’s welfare state developed over 150 years and why it is flagging now. Here’s a sample:
From the turn of the 20th century to the 1970s, Sweden’s GDP grew by an average of 2.4 percent—compared to less than 2 percent for the United States and Western Europe. Sweden’s GDP per capita soared from the global average in 1850 to double the average by 1930 and triple in 1965.
This export-fueled growth occurred in a peculiar political setting: From 1928 to 1991, Sweden was ruled by a single political party—the Social Democrats—for all but six years. This single-party rule presided over a corporatist state that was extremely friendly to large corporations, while building a cradle-to-grave welfare system on the back of very high levels of taxation. This stifled small business and entrepreneurship, but that mattered little as long as big industry and government provided sufficient employment for the population.
The Social Democratic “Swedish model†became in effect a hegemonic state ideology: a third, allegedly morally superior path in opposition to both Soviet-style communism and American-style capitalism. With this came a public rejection of all political or military alliances with a view to maintaining neutrality in wartime. In private, Sweden’s Social Democrats—who in the interwar period had taken a clear stance against communism—threw their lot in with the West, including far-reaching covert defense planning with NATO. But only a select few in the country’s military and political leadership knew this; the population at large, and the left-wing grassroots, did not.
Sweden is one of the European countries faced with a decision. Will it remain ethnically and culturally Swedish, will it become multi-cultural, or can it be multi-ethnic and still culturally Swedish? What does it mean to be culturally Swedish? I cannot and will not answer those questions for the Swedes. It is their decision to make and has serious implications whatever they decide.
Perhaps they should demand George Bush and Barack Obama take as many refugees as will fit to live in their own homes, given the two of them are overwhelmingly responsible for the mess.
Well, I’m half Swedish and hail from the Swedish Capital of Nebraska.
I can tell you this, they are socially responsible to the extreme, which is why their welfare model works, no one abuses it or they will face scorn.
Now, if you’ve never faced scorn, or have and didn’t notice because you’re not Swedish, let me tell you, it hurts, and the hurt can fall on your family, and last a lifetime. Scorn as a punishment, and as deterrent, is only effective as a behavioral control measure to those reared and immersed in the culture. It would be amusing to me to watch the Swedes screw up their faces attempting to level scorn at a nineteen year old Syrian refugee who is not only immune to it but unaware of it.
Swedes, like every other social group, have an upper tolerance level for the presence of outsiders, but they are Christians, and they want to be nice. They want to be generous. Yet when that tolerance level is met, if their leaders don’t see it, they will elect new leaders and immigration will slow to a trickle.
To the best of my ability to tell Sweden is a highly consensus-based society with high social cohesion enforced by social standards, completely different from the United States. I don’t see how the Swedes can tolerate people whose views differ radically from their own but that’s up to them.
Some years back I wrote a post on this subject. When they emigrated to the U. S. Swedes brought their socially conscious, consensus-based social views with them and formed the foundations of the Progressive movement here. That’s why the Upper Midwest has the politics it does.