Sweden Not a Socialist Success — Transcript

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1. 0:00Today, many Americans don't like capitalism.
2. 0:03Socialism would be better, they say.
3. 0:05Not repressive Russian or Venezuelan socialism,
4. 0:09but democratic socialism
5. 0:11like what's practiced in Scandinavia.
6. 0:13I think we should look to countries
7. 0:15like Denmark,
8. 0:16like Sweden.
9. 0:17Say why, do you want to be like Sweden?
10. 0:19Kinda.
11. 0:20Sounds pretty good.
12. 0:21People interviewed in this
13. 0:23just released PBS documentary say
14. 0:25America should be more like Sweden.
15. 0:28It seems like it's like a place that
16. 0:30like no problems or something.
17. 0:32It is a socialist economy.
18. 0:35Volvos and uh,
19. 0:39socialized medicine.
20. 0:40Volvo
21. 0:41is now a Chinese company.
22. 0:45Welcome to Stockholm, Sweden.
23. 0:47My name is Johan Norberg
24. 0:49and this is where I was born and raised.
25. 0:51Johan Norberg made this documentary
26. 0:53because he wanted to set the record straight.
27. 0:55Sweden is not socialist
28. 0:56because the government
29. 0:57doesn't own the means of production.
30. 0:59To see that you have to go to
31. 1:00Venezuela or to Cuba or North Korea.
32. 1:03But we did have a period in the 1970s and
33. 1:051980s when we had something
34. 1:07that resembled socialism.
35. 1:09A big government
36. 1:10that taxed and spend heavily
37. 1:12and that's the period in Swedish history
38. 1:14when our economy was going south.
39. 1:18So much so that even socialists complained about the
40. 1:21high taxes.
41. 1:21Astrid Lindgren,
42. 1:22who wrote the very popular children's books
43. 1:25Pippi Longstocking for instance,
44. 1:26she was a social democrat but she had made a lot
45. 1:28of money from her books.
46. 1:30She found that she paid 102% in taxes.
47. 1:34She wrote this angry essay
48. 1:36about a witch who was quite mean and vicious,
49. 1:39but not at all as vicious as the Swedish tax authorities.
50. 1:42And yet even though taxes were high,
51. 1:44they did not bring in enough money
52. 1:46to fund Sweden's welfare state.
53. 1:48There were waiting lines to get health care,
54. 1:50people couldn't get the pension
55. 1:52that they thought that they depended on for the future.
56. 1:55At that point
57. 1:56the Swedish population just said,
58. 1:58enough we can't do this.
59. 2:00Sweden then reduced
60. 2:01government's role.
61. 2:03They cut public spending,
62. 2:05privatized the national rail network,
63. 2:07abolished certain government monopolies,
64. 2:10eliminated inheritance taxes,
65. 2:12and sold state-owned businesses
66. 2:13like the maker of Absolut Vodka.
67. 2:16Lower taxes reformed the pension system
68. 2:19so that it wasn't unsustainable.
69. 2:21The results from the
70. 2:22spending cuts and privatization?
71. 2:25This impoverished peasant nation
72. 2:27developed into one of the world's richest countries.
73. 2:30All I hear is that Sweden is this socialist paradise.
74. 2:34We do have a bigger
75. 2:35welfare state than the U.S.,
76. 2:37higher taxes than the U.S.
77. 2:38But in other areas,
78. 2:39when it comes to free markets,
79. 2:41when it comes to competition,
80. 2:42when it comes to free trade,
81. 2:43Sweden is actually more free market.
82. 2:46That free market
83. 2:46pays for Sweden's big welfare programs.
84. 2:49Today our taxes pay for pensions.
85. 2:52You call it Social Security.
86. 2:54For 18 month paid parental leave,
87. 2:58government paid childcare,
88. 2:59for working families,
89. 3:01but
90. 3:01having the government manage all of these things
91. 3:04didn't work well
92. 3:05so we had to manage it in another way.
93. 3:08They privatized.
94. 3:09We realized in Sweden that
95. 3:11with these government monopolies,
96. 3:13we don't get the innovation that we get
97. 3:15when we have competition
98. 3:17and this is particularly true for the school system.
99. 3:20Sweden switched to a school voucher system
100. 3:22that lets parents pick their kids' school,
101. 3:25and forces schools to compete.
102. 3:27And one of the results that we've seen is
103. 3:30not just that the private schools
104. 3:31are better than the public ones,
105. 3:33but even the
106. 3:34public schools in the vicinity of private schools,
107. 3:36they often improve
108. 3:39because they have to.
109. 3:41Sweden's version of Social Security was going broke,
110. 3:44so Sweden privatized that, too.
111. 3:46Privatize the pension system?
112. 3:48That terrifies people.
113. 3:50And obviously that scares people,
114. 3:51but when they realize that the alternative
115. 3:53was that the whole pension system would collapse,
116. 3:55they thought that this is much
117. 3:56better than nothing.
118. 3:58Now the bulk of pensions
119. 4:00is really
120. 4:01contribution defined.
121. 4:03So if things are going well for Sweden
122. 4:06pensions are increasing,
123. 4:07but if things are going less well,
124. 4:09pensions are automatically lowered,
125. 4:12which basically takes away from politicians
126. 4:15the ability to buy votes
127. 4:16by just promising higher pensions
128. 4:19and letting future generations pay.
129. 4:21And when it comes to taxes,
130. 4:23what Sweden does may surprise you.
131. 4:25The low income earners in Sweden
132. 4:27pay a lot more than
133. 4:29low income earners
134. 4:30in America.
135. 4:31So despite the fact that Sweden looks
136. 4:33like sort of a socialist country
137. 4:35which taxes rich exorbitantly high,
138. 4:37the truth is the opposite.
139. 4:39People who earn below average income
140. 4:41pay up to 60% in taxes.
141. 4:44This is the dirty little secret
142. 4:46about the Swedish tax system.
143. 4:48We don't take from the rich
144. 4:50and give to the poor.
145. 4:51We squeeze the poor
146. 4:52because they are loyal taxpayers.
147. 4:54Not taking more from the rich,
148. 4:56school choice,
149. 4:58privatization,
150. 4:59Sweden is anything but socialist.
151. 5:02You can't turn your backs to the well,
152. 5:06to the creation of wealth.
153. 5:07You can watch the full documentary
154. 5:09Sweden: Lessons for America?
155. 5:11at free to choose.TV.