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People who love the idea of socialism love to tout that Sweden is the best place in the world, and that it is what the USA should be. Bernie in particular echoes these statements, but these people fail to notice one key thing about Sweden -- it has RUTHLESS capitalism embedded in its nation to be able to support their massive entitlement programs.

Sweden isn't a nation that has what some call "warm, fuzzy, friendly capitalism" where people aren't fired (or laid off) and old companies are protected. This simply isn't the case in the least.

Sweden is a nation with much larger taxes on the poor and the middle class, and they feature non-progressive taxes on consumption, social security, and payroll taxes (which make up a much larger percentage of GDP for Sweden.

Sweden literally almost destroyed itself with JUST SOCIALIST policies. But they saved themselves from large scale issues by embracing large scale ruthless capitalism, with low taxes on companies and incentiving companies to come to Sweden.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-bernie-sanders-is-wrong-about-sweden-11566596536

Are people are finally having enough of policies like these?

https://www.thelocal.se/20161112/stockholm-transport-heads-defends-gender-equal-snow-clearing

That is a common misconception about Sweden, and Scandinavian countries in general.Socialist all over the world like to use it as an example, but only by cherry picking what they like about it .For example, Bernie Sanders probably forgot to mention that Sweden do not have government-regulated salaries, there is no minimum wage. We all know how Bernie likes to talk about minimum wage :D

Fact is that Sweden is among top countries when it comes to economic  freedoms(they are slowly going down on the list due bad policies last years), they have high income tax ( up to 57%) while corporate tax is only 22%, as they realize how important are those that are actually generating income.
Being a socialist country and having some social aspects like " free healthcare"( even though it is hardly free, someone has to pay for it) is not the same thing.

It's important to note that even though there aren't any minimum wages, there are strong unions within Sweden that ensure that wages are high (even if these unions have been weakened in recent times)

Take an example relating to Toys R'Us when they tried to move into Sweden in the 90's. They attempted to try the same thing that they would've done in America, and tried to just high regular everyday workers instead of going to the pool of union workers to find people. But as the unions are much stronger in Sweden, they all said that they weren't going to work with Toys R'Us in any capacity -- meaning that the Truckers union wasn't delivering, retail unions refused to work for them, and so on and so forth.

Kinda sounds like Mafia when you look at it, but these unions forced Toys'R'Us to work with them, one way or another.

It's completely inaccurate to say he's "wrong."

He's methodologically constructing a Big Lie using marxist dialectic.

^^^ Somebody's got to do it. Bernie is a good choice for the job. I mean, he's old enough so that when he fails, it won't hurt anybody.

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That is a common misconception about Sweden, and Scandinavian countries in general.Socialist all over the world like to use it as an example, but only by cherry picking what they like about it .For example, Bernie Sanders probably forgot to mention that Sweden do not have government-regulated salaries, there is no minimum wage. We all know how Bernie likes to talk about minimum wage :D

Fact is that Sweden is among top countries when it comes to economic  freedoms(they are slowly going down on the list due bad policies last years), they have high income tax ( up to 57%) while corporate tax is only 22%, as they realize how important are those that are actually generating income.
Being a socialist country and having some social aspects like " free healthcare"( even though it is hardly free, someone has to pay for it) is not the same thing.
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What?????

Does Sweden have economic freedom? Definitely NOT. Swedish society is controlled and the smallest sidestep and you are punished. There is an unwritten law in Sweden called "jantelagen" which basically means you cannot be different or you will be punished. If you are into crypto , you cannot open a bank account. If you happen to have cash equivalent to more than 500 EURO then banks wont accept it. If you miss a payment on your bill (lets say you travel) you are blacklisted for 5 years and cannot: get a new phone, get a credit card, sign a rental contract, open a bank account etc.

If your company makes 1000 bucks and want to pay you salary, then the company need to pay 30% tax on your salary (called in Sweden "arbetsgivaravgift"), you need to pay 20-40% tax on the cash you receive (called "skatt") and then what ever you buy is taxed 24% (called "moms"). (You are basically tripple taxed)

I bet Bernie never lived in Sweden or even visited, he probably read a gov sponsored report and was feed the fairy tale by a lobbying group.

my 5 cents

/Bartek

Sweden not having minimum wage law isn't evidence that they are "ruthless capitalists" or else they would have the lowest wages.  Sweden doesn't need wage laws because they have the Saltsjöbaden Agreement which gives labor unions a lot of negotiating power.  Workers being in control is literally the definition of socialism.  The market does not set wages like in capitalism, Swedish labor unions do.  

Wanting a minimum wage law makes Bernie more capitalist than Sweden. The socialist thing to do would be to create an american version of the Saltsjöbaden Agreement where all workers could unionize and negotiate their own wages.  No ones cherrypicking anything.  I'm sure Bernie would support having stronger unions like Sweden but minimum wage law is a band-aid until we can transition to something more socialist.

The problem is that you have redefined socialism as government control when its really about worker control. 

But they don't have a minimum wage, and that's the truth.

Yes, some unions may control certain industries and be able to use that to force companies into paying above market rate rates for wages -- but that in no way is evidence of more socialism being present. They just have more unions, and that's not government control.

Thanks for sharing.  The problem with most discourse on  the topic is that people think there is some kind of capitalism VS socialism thing going on, rather than recognizing that both are absolutely essential and neither can ever be reomved from the equation.  It's almost like the "nature vs. nurture" debate -  while good points might be made the whole thing is comedy and needlessly divisive because of course you always have both.  There's no way to prevent people from taking care of themselves and being greedy, and sometimes this has a useful result.  There's also no way to stop people from taking care of one another and acting as a society (hint - you can read this isn't that cool).  Also, this sometimes has a useful result.  If we would focus on the details of what policies we like or dislike and how to improve then we would do a lot better than fighting over which word we think means something cool or not. 

Thats the point. Socialism means worker control, not government control.   Government control is something necessary to protect people from capitalism but under socialism, you don't need the government to protect workers from themselves. 

As the last poster said, its useless to bring up these words and much more effective to talk about policies.  Sweden has a strong safety net, free healthcare, free education, and low inequality.  Bernie and any other "socialist" really just supports policies to help us get to where they are. 

Yep! Sit around and let the workers decide all their own problems, and collect the 75% taxes without having to have anything to do with the bickering. YES! Love that socialism.

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