Welfare and votes

Sweden held its general election yesterday. It was my first since moving here, and I’m sure I drove the Viking Princess daft with my incessant questions on how the process worked. Before I delve into what I think I learned, there is one thing that Swedes should be proud of. That is that 80% of the registered voters actually voted! That is a statistic that Sweden should be very proud of and that other western nations should look at in shame. They vote on Sunday here, so that may be why turnout is so high, but I just think that the typical Swede is highly educated and takes an interest in what the boys in Parliament are doing. And they are very likely to use their vote to say that they like or don’t like what is going on. So maybe voting on a Sunday is better than say, the Tuesday in the USA. And one might even suggest that if Americans could vote on a Sunday, there would be a higher turnout. Yeah, like the average American would put aside football for voting. Moving to a Sunday during football season might drop the appalling percentage of actual voters in the USA.

The political battle this election in Sweden was over taxes. Like one politico once said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” And, indeed that’s where the battle lines were drawn. This was my first election in Sweden since I moved here, and even if I didn’t vote it was quite the learning experience. The two main combatants were the incumbent Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Goran Persson and the Moderates, led by Fredrik Reinfelt.

As you may know, Sweden is one of the world’s great welfare states. The concept that the government is for the protection and welfare of the citizens has been the basic operation of the Swedish state for decades. The Swedish citizen is “taken care of” by the government from cradle to grave. Benefits such as health care, education, safety, unemployment and elderly care are de rigueur here in Sweden. And Swedes pay for this protection out the kazoo. High taxes, thy name are Sweden!

Johan Norburg says, (this) “welfare state was built on specific preconditions: wealth, a strong work ethic, a sense of trust in a homogenous society, and an aversion to living on welfare. All of which made it possible to create a strong social security system. Now that may sound great but with it came a gradual distortion of incentives. We see taxpayers are footing the bill for people who choose not to work. Plus we have the strange situation whereby Sweden is one of the healthiest countries in the world but also has the highest level of sick leave. The collapse of the initial preconditions has meant that attitudes have changed to the point that people are no longer sure what is right and what is wrong.” Most Swedes like the idea of the health care, education programs and day care and days off that the system provides. The Swedish culture also is such that no Swede considers himself any better than another. Swedes take compliments very humbly and will go out of their way not to seem proud or egotistical. So this idea of taking care of one another is very appealing. They just don’t like to pay so much for it.

Sweden is a parliamentarian democracy. The plus side of the parliamentary system is that it is more responsive to the people. So when a Swede votes he is electing people to a seat in the sitting parliament where if any party takes enough seats (a majority) they run the ship of state. In this system there is there is no clear division between the Prime Minister and the Parliament. In the States, with the distinct division between the Executive and the Legislative branches, one party can be the executive and another could control the legislative. In Sweden, no party ever garners 50% of the vote, so coalitions are formed to gain power. But because of the coalitions needed to gain majorities, this system can lead to a more unstable government.

The Social Democrats have been in power for a long time and have represented the status quo. Their position that government takes care of the people would be alien to most Americans. Though the idea of having not to worry about one’s health, education and welfare is appealing, the bloated governmental bureaucracy is a burden. To support that bloat taxes, especially on business and personal income are staggering. An American politician who proposed these kinds of taxes wouldn’t have to be ridden out on a rail. He would never be elected in the first place!

The Social Democrats are the “liberals” of Swedish politics, if I can use the American political definition. They are the creators and supporters of this cradle to grave coverage. They demand that the well off support the not so fortunate. The Moderates are the “conservatives” of this scene. They have been unable to effectively come up with a plan to unseat the SD’s, because they have previously always called for big tax cuts and cutting into the social programs.

It was confusing for me because the Big Government Party acted and looked like what conservatives look like in the States. And the conservatives looked like a bunch of liberal tree huggers. So every time I saw the Prime Minister, he wore that smug look of leaders who think they know better than you. He had the look of a patient parent who tolerates the child speaking but would never consider the words actually having meaning. To you Americans out there, Goran Persson always reminded me of Rush Limbaugh, except Mr. Persson actually ran a country.

They say that only one of the top companies in Sweden was started after 1970. Norburg explains, “It stems from a tax policy that has attacked private capital. There are many enormous Swedish fortunes, such as Tetra Pak and IKEA, which are based outside the country. Talented, innovative Swedes often have to leave the country to succeed. Skype is a good recent example: it does its development work in Estonia, is Luxembourg-owned and has its headquarters in London. A more amusing example is the Swedish tax board, which recently had its TV commercials produced in Estonia because it was too expensive to produce them in the country with the highest taxes in the world.”

The strategy of Frederik Reinhart and the conservative coalition was never to lower himself to name calling and just keep on the topic of those taxes and bloated bureaucracy. He smartly walked that tight rope between lowering taxes without drastically cutting benefits. How he implements the scheme will remain to be seen.