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How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)

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

#31

Post by oblio »

mieses wrote: post #30
oblio wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And what do you think will happen? Sweden will become a warzone? I highly doubt that. It will still be rich and developed, just with lower social cohesion.

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

#32

Post by mieses »

oblio wrote: post #31
mieses wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And what do you think will happen? Sweden will become a warzone? I highly doubt that. It will still be rich and developed, just with lower social cohesion.

Social cohesion is not the issue or a goal. There will be a lowering of freedom, individualism, and other "western" values at the expense of becoming "rich", "developed", and other metrics than can be measured as data rather than on subjective cultural scales. It's interesting that this anti-humanist statistical model of human development is championed by the left. Anything to spite "western" culture.

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

#33

Post by patricius »

crdoconnor wrote: post #7

Sweden did well after WW2 for much the same reason that the US did: it was industrialized and not destroyed. It's always tempting to believe that there was something special about their "ideological prowess", but that isn't really the case. With or without laissez faire they would have done well. With or without a welfare state they would have done well. Econ 101 is "people respond to incentives". Think tanks represe…

> Hence why, even though I'm sure he honestly believes it, Johan Norburg gives free markets credit for Sweden solving their infant mortality problem.

What would be a better explanation in your opinion?

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

#34

Post by crdoconnor »

patricius wrote: post #33
crdoconnor wrote: post #7

Sweden did well after WW2 for much the same reason that the US did: it was industrialized and not destroyed. It's always tempting to believe that there was something special about their "ideological prowess", but that isn't really the case. With or without laissez faire they would have done well. With or without a welfare state they would have done well. Econ 101 is "people respond to incentives". Think tanks represe…

> Hence why, even though I'm sure he honestly believes it, Johan Norburg gives free markets credit for Sweden solving their infant mortality problem. What would be a better explanation in your opinion?

The standard explanation: Sweden built a good social welfare system.

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

#35

Post by crdoconnor »

p0ints wrote: post #9
tim333 wrote: post #2

Liassez-Faire may have made Sweden rich but most western countries went from a poor state 150 years ago to prosperous now pretty much regardless of the political systems they had. Even Russia did kind of ok. I think the advances were driven by improvements in technology more than anything else.

> 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.

>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.

Norway wasn't "made into a paradise" by its natural resources, it was just lucky to be the sole exception unafflicted by the resource curse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

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

#36

Post by oblio »

mieses wrote: post #32
oblio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do you think will happen? Sweden will become a warzone? I highly doubt that. It will still be rich and developed, just with lower social cohesion.

Social cohesion is not the issue or a goal. There will be a lowering of freedom, individualism, and other "western" values at the expense of becoming "rich", "developed", and other metrics than can be measured as data rather than on subjective cultural scales. It's interesting that this anti-humanist statistical model of human development is championed by the left. Anything to spite "western" culture.

I’m neither right or left, but I am an optimist. I guess only time will tell who’s right.

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

#37

Post by CryptoPunk »

data_required wrote: post #21
mediascreen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 work…

>>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.

I think one could reasonably attribute the growth for the first decade or two after tax rates began increasing to the momentum built up during the previously laissez faire era.

Supply chains, investor sentiment, etc all take time to change so a tax hike might not make its effect on GDP immediately evident.

Also, many investments have a time delayed effect on GDP, like large capital projects which can take a decade to complete. Investments in the lower tax era could have only begun outputting goods well into the new high tax era, giving the false impression that the high tax era was responsible. Think a factory that takes a decade to come online for example.

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

#38

Post by mlevental »

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…

>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.

this is exactly /my/ point: which countries were poorer than romania. if there were any then you're talking about basically indigenous peoples that still lived pre-agriculture

another commenter makes the point that serfdom had been eliminated by 200 years ago. fine. peasants. most of eastern europe were peasants (hence of course peasants revolts of the 19th century culminating in the bolshevik revolution). i think it very hard to get much poorer than pre-industrial revolution peasant farmers.

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

#39

Post by oblio »

mlevental wrote: post #38
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…

>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. this is exactly /my/ point: which countries were poorer than romania. if there were any then you're talking about basically indigenous peoples that still lived pre-agriculture another commenter makes the point that serfdom had been eliminated by 200 years ago. fi…

Quoting myself, from the original comment:

> You don’t have to believe me, check the Maddison Project.

But hey, let me Google that for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...

(Romania is lumped up in Eastern Europe, just sort to find the regions considered poorer)

There are a million shades of "poverty". To paraphrase Tolstoi: rich people are rich in mostly the same way, poor people are each poor in their own way.

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

#40

Post by data_required »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #37
data_required wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 work…

>>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. I think one could reasonably attribute the growth for the first decade or two after tax rates began increasing to the momentum built up during the previously laissez faire era. Supply chains, investor sentiment, etc all take time to change so a tax hike mi…

>I think one could reasonably attribute the growth for the first decade or two after tax rates began increasing to the momentum built up during the previously laissez faire era.

It's a bit much to expect growth to peak during the era 20-40 years after laissez faire ended, and think that it was because of the previous laissez faire policies.

>Supply chains, investor sentiment, etc all take time to change so a tax hike might not make its effect on GDP immediately evident.

These things did not use to be so sophisticated a century ago.

Without a doubt at least, high taxes and health and wealth clearly coexist in many countries. In fact, outside of some tiny countries and also some countries with oil wealth, it's the only form in which wealthy countries exist in this world.

And at the state level in America, this pattern is even clearer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income

Except for Alaska (small population, vast natural resources), every state in the top 12 by income is liberal-leaning in its voting patterns.

Likewise, except for New Mexico, every state in the bottom 16 by income is conservative-leaning in its voting patterns.

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