{"id":1134,"date":"2026-05-12T18:22:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2026-05-12T18:22:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:22:59","slug":"amazing-transformation-in-swedento-capitalist-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/amazing-transformation-in-swedento-capitalist-system\/","title":{"rendered":"AMAZING TRANSFORMATION IN SWEDEN!!TO CAPITALIST SYSTEM!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The World\u2019s Most Surprising Capitalist Makeover Is Under Way in Sweden<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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The shake-up of cradle-to-grave care is lowering government spending, spurring innovation and stirring fears about those left behind<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sweden\u2014This paragon of collectivism is pivoting toward rugged individualism.<\/p>\n

For decades, Sweden was shorthand for the brand of high-tax, high-spend government that managed people\u2019s lives from cradle to grave through state-run hospitals, schools and care homes.<\/p>\n

No longer. With little fanfare, this Nordic country of 11 million has embraced capitalism.<\/p>\n

Today, nearly half of primary healthcare clinics are privately owned, many by private-equity firms. One in three public high schools is privately run, up from 20% in 2011. School operators are listed on the stock exchange.<\/p>\n

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Sweden\u2019s experience has lessons\u2014good and bad\u2014for other rich countries, including the U.S., where New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to emulate parts of the state-centric model<\/a> such as universal child care and city-run stores.<\/p>\n

The capitalist makeover has allowed Sweden to do what few industrialized countries have managed in recent years: shrink the size of the state. That has enabled the government to sharply lower taxes and, economists say, sparked a surge in entrepreneurship and economic growth.<\/p>\n

Its total public social spending bill\u2014which includes healthcare, education and all welfare payments\u2014has fallen to 24% of gross domestic product, similar to the U.S. and well below the over 30% for nations like France and Italy.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n
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Public social spending as a proportion of GDP, 2022 or most recent year<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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France<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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31.6%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Italy<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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30.1%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Austria<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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29.4%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Finland<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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29.0%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Belgium<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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29.0%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Spain<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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28.1%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Germany<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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26.7%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Denmark<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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26.2%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Japan\u2020<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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24.9%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Canada\u2020<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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24.9%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Portugal<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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24.6%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Greece<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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24.1%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sweden<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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23.7%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Slovenia<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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22.8%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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U.S.*<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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22.7%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Poland<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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22.7%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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U.K.*<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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22.1%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Czech Republic<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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22.0%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Luxembourg<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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21.9%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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New Zealand*<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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20.8%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Iceland<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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20.8%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Norway<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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20.7%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Australia\u2021<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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20.5%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Data for *2021 \u20202020 \u20212019<\/div>\n
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Source: OECD<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sweden\u2019s economy is expected to grow by around 2% a year through 2030, roughly the same pace as the U.S. and double the growth rates of France and Germany, according to an April forecast by the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweden is a real land of opportunity,\u201d said Elisabeth Svantesson, the country\u2019s finance minister. \u201cI want people and capital to stay here and grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many European countries are raising taxes, Svantesson has cut them three years in a row. Sweden\u2019s top income-tax rate has fallen close to 50% from nearly 90% in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Considering the overall tax burden, \u201cit\u2019s more attractive here\u2026than the U.S.,\u201d said Conni Jonsson, the billionaire founder of EQT, a Stockholm-based private-equity firm.<\/p>\n

Critics say the paring back has gone too far. Inequality is soaring in this traditionally egalitarian country. Gang violence has surged in dozens of immigrant-heavy suburbs, creating areas where local criminal networks challenge state authority and hinder policing. A public debate is raging over for-profit schools, which critics say make money by skimping on playgrounds, libraries and staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American perspective of Sweden is so far off from reality,\u201d said Andreas Cervenka, a Swedish author who recently returned home after living in California. \u201cWe are going from a society which is like, \u2018One for all, all for one,\u2019 to \u2018Everybody is on their own.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Spurring entrepreneurs<\/h3>\n

Sweden didn\u2019t always have a big public sector. The country climbed from being one of the poorest to the third-richest country in Europe over 100 years through 1970 without high levels of taxation.<\/p>\n

But starting in the 1960s, the center-left Social Democratic Party\u2014which dominated the country\u2019s postwar politics\u2014sharply raised taxes and spending, ultimately taking government spending as high as 70% of GDP by the 1990s.<\/p>\n

The changes triggered a long period of weak growth, stagnant after-tax incomes and ballooning budget deficits and debt that culminated in a banking crisis in the early \u201990s.<\/p>\n

Under pressure from investors, the government instituted sweeping economic reforms over the next two decades. They included cuts to unemployment benefits and housing subsidies and the privatization of public services, as well as tax cuts and a reform of the pension system to make it more affordable. Strict limits were imposed on government debt. (Sweden\u2019s debt to GDP is a meager 36%, compared with 129% for the U.S.) In the mid-2000s, the government eliminated wealth and inheritance taxes.<\/p>\n

The result: Wealthy entrepreneurs who had fled Sweden\u2019s high taxes have been returning, said Jacob Wallenberg, a member of the Swedish industrial dynasty that owns big stakes in Ericsson<\/a>, Saab and other large companies.<\/p>\n

When Wallenberg was growing up in the 1960s and \u201970s, Swedes weren\u2019t very wealthy, he said. The country, he noted, famously only had one Rolls-Royce car.<\/p>\n

Today, international polling suggests Swedes are far more open to wealth than the French, Germans, Spanish or Italians, and more positive about the market economy than any European country except Poland. Sweden\u2019s Rolls-Royce count is now over 800, and when the automaker decided to open its first showroom in Scandinavia in 2016, it chose Stockholm.<\/p>\n

As the state retreated, the private sector expanded. A study published in April<\/a> by the Stockholm School of Economics found that after Sweden removed inheritance and gift taxes in 2005, private firms with potential family successors grew faster, invested more and paid higher corporate taxes than firms without natural heirs.<\/p>\n

Businesses championed new technologies in a bout of risk-taking with few equivalents in a region dominated by older industries and ambivalent about tech.<\/p>\n

Niklas Zennstr\u00f6m, the billionaire founder of internet-telecommunications pioneer Skype, said the privatizations helped fuel innovation in sectors like telecoms, which have underpinned the country\u2019s tech boom. Zennstr\u00f6m himself started his career building fiber-optic networks for a private telecom operator in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweden was very early with mobile phones, with a high penetration of 3G and competition in mobile networks,\u201d Zennstr\u00f6m said. \u201cThere was a sense of entrepreneurship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country saw more than 500 initial public offerings over the 10 years through 2024, more than Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain combined, according to a landmark 2024 report on Europe\u2019s economy by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. It has now moved ahead of the U.S. in the number of billionaires per capita, thanks to a thriving tech startup scene and videogame industry that has produced hits like Minecraft and Candy Crush.<\/p>\n

\u2018More for less\u2019<\/h3>\n

At St. G\u00f6ran\u2019s hospital in downtown Stockholm, radiologist Karin Dembrower huddled over a computer screen, pointing to tiny light spots indicating cancer on a black-and-white image.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot see with our eyes that there is something going on here but somehow the AI is seeing\u201d it, she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World\u2019s Most Surprising Capitalist Makeover Is Under Way in Sweden The shake-up of cradle-to-grave care is lowering government spending, spurring innovation and stirring fears about those left behind Sweden\u2014This paragon of collectivism is pivoting toward rugged individualism. For decades, Sweden was shorthand for the brand of high-tax, high-spend government that managed people\u2019s lives from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}