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How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

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Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#21

Post by data_required »

mediascreen wrote: post #18
data_required wrote: post #17

Here is a better article on Sweden's economic history, with far more data backing it up: https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-struc... 1. Sweden's economic growth relative to the rest of the world continued quite strongly for 40 years after the Social Democrats took power in 1932 and built a large welfare state. 2. In fact, the period with the strongest economic growth rate in absolute terms was 195…

While I agree that the question is more complicated, it took until 1974 before tax rates were anywhere near where they are today [0]. Also, while not involved in any wars, I'm not sure i would call Sweden pacifist during the last century. For example Sweden had the 4th largest airforce in the world in the 1950s [1] And, except for tax rates, Sweden has a pretty liberal economy [2]. [0] http://www.scb.se/en/finding-st…

Good additional context!

I think the fact that steadily increasing tax rates over the decades before 1974 also coincided with high economic growth is a good point against libertarianism.

And the fact that tax rates have been quite high since the early 70s, and yet Sweden's share of the global economy has been basically constant, is also interesting. Libertarianism would suggest that should not happen, and yet it works just fine.

I think avoiding being clobbered by World Wars 1 & 2 was the most important thing :). Probably "neutrality" or "non-aggression" is a better word than "pacifist".

Good points about Sweden having a liberal economy other than high tax rates. I agree that has worked well for Sweden.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#22

Post by oblio »

mlevental wrote: post #20
oblio wrote: post #3

Personal anecdote and gross generalization: people who consider Sweden or the other Nordic countries socialists are Americans or have been “Americanized” through consumption of US media. Don’t feel ashamed, I’m also one of these people. These countries actually are social democracies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy Big difference based on just 1 word. Also, Sweden was never truly poor, by world stan…

I don't understand? Romania and the rest of Eastern was almost all serfs 200 years ago. are you saying because people had clothes (as opposed to I guess indigenous peoples in Africa or something) Romania wasn't poor (and therefore Sweden was actually wealthy?

I'm not sure how exactly my comment is not clear, but I'll clarify anyway :) (Edit: found it - the last phrase in my comment should say "at that time", unfortunately I can't edit my comment)

Let's pick some moments in time, say 1500, 1800, 2000 and some countries, say Sweden, Romania and Asgard® (I'm going to use a fictitious country name to avoid offending anyone from a poorer country :) ).

My statement was that in 1500, 1800 and 2000, the wealth levels for these countries were like this:

Sweden > Romania > Asgard.

for all 3 moments in time (or any other, more or less)

The description in the article doesn't make sense, he's appealing to our modern sensibilities. Of course Sweden in 2000 is richer than Sweden in 1800. But it doesn't make any sense to compare things like that. If you want to get a true measure, you need to compare things at that point in time: Sweden in 1800 with Romania in 1800 and with Asgard® in 1800.

So, for your comment:

> are you saying [...] Romania wasn't poor and therefore Sweden was actually wealthy?

1. Romania in 1800 was comparatively poorer than Sweden in 1800, but richer than Asgard® in 1800. So, Romania was still poor, but not as poor as other places.

2. Sweden, as a result, "was actually wealthy" for that time, compared to many other countries in the world, at that time.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#23

Post by Melchizedek »

While it is true that Sweden was economically liberal when it grew rich, liberalism is not enough -- you also need stability, an educated high-IQ population and high trust/low corruption.

The mass immigration (and the word 'mass' is really an understatement) of people with much less education and non-Western culture/values is destroying those other factors, not to mention the fact that they overwhelmingly vote socialist to increase welfare payments.

While Sweden's economy has seen some growth (but really not that much per capita) due to limited liberalization, a floating currency and most of all a huge increase in household debt to pay for soaring house prices caused by population growth (also due to immigration) and extremely low interest rates, the chickens will eventually come home to roost.

Sweden really has no future.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#24

Post by fulafel »

yostrovs wrote: post #15
p0ints wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even Russia did kind of ok. That may be true from 10 thousand miles away. Upon closer inspection, there's a huge difference in current wealth and standard of living between Russia and say Finland, while 100 years ago they were roughly the same. Not to mention the unimaginable wealth of natural resources that Russia has, which, under proper political and economic policies, could make it into a Norway-like paradise.

Finland was part of Russia 100 years ago, which led to another experiment comparing systems for the next 70 years. The results are always the same.

Very different from slavic Russia back then though, having previously changed hands from swedish to russian empire.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#25

Post by oblio »

Melchizedek wrote: post #23

While it is true that Sweden was economically liberal when it grew rich, liberalism is not enough -- you also need stability, an educated high-IQ population and high trust/low corruption. The mass immigration (and the word 'mass' is really an understatement) of people with much less education and non-Western culture/values is destroying those other factors, not to mention the fact that they overwhelmingly vote social…

> Sweden really has no future.

Bold claims are like low percentage shots.

A developed country, full of highly educated people, in a peaceful part of the world, should be able to self-correct to some degree. It might, relatively to the rest of the world, not be in as good a state as before, but saying “it has no future” is stretching things quite far, IMO.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#26

Post by db48x »

oblio wrote: post #22
mlevental wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand? Romania and the rest of Eastern was almost all serfs 200 years ago. are you saying because people had clothes (as opposed to I guess indigenous peoples in Africa or something) Romania wasn't poor (and therefore Sweden was actually wealthy?

I'm not sure how exactly my comment is not clear, but I'll clarify anyway :) (Edit: found it - the last phrase in my comment should say "at that time", unfortunately I can't edit my comment) Let's pick some moments in time, say 1500, 1800, 2000 and some countries, say Sweden, Romania and Asgard® (I'm going to use a fictitious country name to avoid offending anyone from a poorer country :) ). My statement was that in…

> Of course Sweden in 2000 is richer than Sweden in 1800. But it doesn't make any sense to compare things like that.

It's definitely possible to get poorer as time progresses, rather than richer. Venezuela is a recent example.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#27

Post by oblio »

db48x wrote: post #26
oblio wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how exactly my comment is not clear, but I'll clarify anyway :) (Edit: found it - the last phrase in my comment should say "at that time", unfortunately I can't edit my comment) Let's pick some moments in time, say 1500, 1800, 2000 and some countries, say Sweden, Romania and Asgard® (I'm going to use a fictitious country name to avoid offending anyone from a poorer country :) ). My statement was that in…

> Of course Sweden in 2000 is richer than Sweden in 1800. But it doesn't make any sense to compare things like that. It's definitely possible to get poorer as time progresses, rather than richer. Venezuela is a recent example.

Yes, of course, there can be major fluctuations in any direction. But the data that we do have (see the Maddison Project) points out to many countries being in roughly the same quartiles across centuries. Sweden or Romania would be some of those. China would be an example of an undeperformer from 1800 to 1990 and Saudi Arabia an overperformer from 1960 (I think).

But these scenarios are not the common case, there’s a reason they are called economic disasters or miracles.

Oh, and the present day has way more noise than the past, cause of industrialization. Now a country can truly be 10-100 more productive per capita than another. But before the Industrial Age it was waaaay harder to stand out, you needed some exquisite social systems to do it, it happened extremely slowly and rarely.

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#28

Post by jazzyk »

Pretty simple, really:

1. Neutrality - not being ruined by 2 consecutive world wars

2. Profiting from wars - in Sweden's case, by selling arms and minerals (Bofors, iron ore, etc.) to both warring sides.

"Peace-loving" and "neutral" Sweden continues to be a major exporter of arms, all the while relying on protection of its allies (spending a mere 1% of its GDP in 2015 on its own defense)

3. Until the influx of immigrants (started slowly 30 years ago), a homogeneous, protestant, population.

https://www.politico.eu/article/neutral-sweden-arms-pedlar-e...

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#29

Post by credit_guy »

mlevental wrote: post #20
oblio wrote: post #3

Personal anecdote and gross generalization: people who consider Sweden or the other Nordic countries socialists are Americans or have been “Americanized” through consumption of US media. Don’t feel ashamed, I’m also one of these people. These countries actually are social democracies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy Big difference based on just 1 word. Also, Sweden was never truly poor, by world stan…

I don't understand? Romania and the rest of Eastern was almost all serfs 200 years ago. are you saying because people had clothes (as opposed to I guess indigenous peoples in Africa or something) Romania wasn't poor (and therefore Sweden was actually wealthy?

Serfdom was abolished 270 years ago in the parts of Romania then in the Ottoman empire [1] and 240 years ago in the parts then in the Habsburg empire [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Wallachia_and_Mol...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_Patent_(1781)

Re: How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

#30

Post by mieses »

oblio wrote: post #25
Melchizedek wrote: post #23

While it is true that Sweden was economically liberal when it grew rich, liberalism is not enough -- you also need stability, an educated high-IQ population and high trust/low corruption. The mass immigration (and the word 'mass' is really an understatement) of people with much less education and non-Western culture/values is destroying those other factors, not to mention the fact that they overwhelmingly vote social…

> Sweden really has no future. Bold claims are like low percentage shots. A developed country, full of highly educated people, in a peaceful part of the world, should be able to self-correct to some degree. It might, relatively to the rest of the world, not be in as good a state as before, but saying “it has no future” is stretching things quite far, IMO.

The self-correction needed is cultural and will take too long. Decades of progressive indoctrination will not be be undone overnight. It's a safe bet that it's too late.
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