It’s a cliché that dies hard. Even today, many imagine Sweden as a socialist paradise, an egalitarian haven with happy taxation. Proof, coming from the north, that a third way between capitalism and communism would be possible. A Ipsos Mori study conducted by Rainer Zitelmann proves, however, that the inhabitants of the Scandinavian kingdom are significantly more open to the free market and to the rich than the French. At the international level, out of the thirty countries surveyed by the German sociologist, Sweden is part of a small group having a generally positive vision of the market economy, behind Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Czech Republic, the United States and Poland, but far ahead of Germany, Italy or, of course, France. If, as in many states, the word “capitalism” acts as a repellent for a majority of people, Rainer Zitelmann ranks Sweden among the nations which have a generally neutral attitude towards capitalism, at the same level as Brazil, the Uganda and Romania.
The Swedes also have a much more positive view of the great fortunes than the European average. Rainer Zitelmann established an index of the perception of the rich. A score greater than 1 means that it is mainly negative, a score less than 1, positive. France, with an index of 1.2, stands out for the poor image that the rich have among the population. Sweden obtains an index of 0.6, the same as that of the United States. According to Forbes, it also has one of the highest densities of billionaires in the world. “Today, Sweden is far from being a socialist country,” assures Zitelmann.
The anger of the designer Pippi Longstocking
The Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom index, which measures the degree of liberalism in all countries around the world based on 10 criteria (freedom of enterprise, burden of taxes, government spending, fight against corruption, protection of private property…), places Sweden in 9th place in the world, between Denmark and Norway, well ahead of the United States (25th). France is in… 62nd place. Although government spending still represents almost 50% of GDP, the country has eliminated inheritance taxes, gift taxes and wealth taxes.
The image of a bastion of socialism that we associate with Sweden in the same way as the Krisprolls or Abba actually dates from the 1970s and 1980s. Under the influence of the left wing of the hegemonic Social Democratic Party, the State, then one of the richest in the world, applied a very costly social protection policy. Between 1970 and 1985, the number of civil servants increased from 26 to 38% of total employment. Even the novelist Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking, was outraged in 1976 by a marginal tax rate of 102%. Rising wages and taxes are accompanied by high inflation and devaluations. In 1992, for a few days, the interest rate peaked at 500%, and the public deficit reached 12% of GDP. Fourth in the OECD GDP per capita ranking in 1970, Sweden was relegated to 16th place in 1995.
Faced with the economic crisis, the 1990s were marked by major liberal reforms, allowing productivity gains and strong growth in exports. In 1999, Parliament unanimously voted for a reform of the pension system, pushing back the pivotal age to 65 and combining distribution and capitalization. The reduction in the tax burden does not prevent a spectacular reduction in public debt, which falls from 70% of GDP in 1995 to 31% in 2023. For two decades, only a few countries, including Poland and Vietnam, have experienced greater economic liberalization than Sweden. “If you want to be inspired by Sweden, don’t try to imitate what almost destroyed our country in the 1970s and 1980s! Here, both the left and the right learned the lessons of those decades. At the time, we were indeed Marxists, we doubled the size of the State, regulated the labor market, increased taxes… But it was disastrous on the economic level”, warns the liberal essayist Johan Norberg, for whom his country has since returned to the recipes that made it successful: “Open markets, with efficient multinationals which make it possible to increase wages while financing the welfare state.”
.