Sweden is infamous for having some of the highest taxes in the world, and yet the country’s tax agency is still one of Sweden’s most trusted institutions.
The Swedish attitude towards tax contrasts sharply with many countries where taxes can be a deeply divisive issue. We investigate what this says about Swedish society and how the popularity of the welfare state might survive growing challenges in the future.
Americans have been taught to hate taxes. They have been sold the idea that the original concept of “no taxation without representation” didn’t include the latter two words. Decades of Republicans demonizing taxes have done it.
Pair that with the GOP systematically destroying public institutions by gutting public funding as much as possible while simultaneously eroding public trust. Our public education system? It used to be the best in the world until Regan and Bush I and II tore it to shreds. Same with our healthcare system. All in the name of privatization.
If it actually did result in republicans being crushed under a giant domino, at least we’d have that going for us.
A lot of voters were. But the grifters running the party just got richer and richer and richer, enabling them to keep regurgitating the same “You’re unhappy because the Big Woke Government Is Too Communist” line ad nauseum.
Certain Republicans did get crushed. The Bush and Cheney families used to be at the center of GOP politics and now they’ve been forced out to the periphery. But others have profited immensely from their fall and risen to take their place. The Christian Dominionist Wing is rapidly consolidating control of the party under the Trump banner, with guys like Mike Johnson and Ted Cruz and Kristi Noem rising into the top ranks of the party while the Bloombergs have had to back away or jump ship to Team D.
Americans hate this one Swede trick.
I mean, its an inaccurate title.
The Swedes have had a number of popular tax revolts in living memory. The big one was back in 1979 (about the same time Americans and Brits were having their own tax revolt) when they threw out the socialist government and brought in a bunch of neoliberal reformers.
Swedes overhauled their tax code in 1985, 1991, and 1994 and then did so again in the 2004 when they abolished inheritance and gift taxes with a unanimous vote.
Until fairly recently, Sweden has been undergoing the same set of neoliberal policies common to western nations. But thanks to being a relatively small economy with an outsized O&G export market, they’ve skated by what industrial centers in the American Midwest and agg sectors in France and the UK have suffered.
Sweden isn’t a high-tax state, its a petro-state with the appearance of high taxes.
Oil and gas products account for 4.2% of Sweden’s exports. The gas exports alone almost rival those of dairy and eggs! Truly a petrostate if I ever saw one
Are you perhaps thinking of a different country?
Oil and gas products account for 4.2% of Sweden’s exports.
Refined Petroleum is their single largest export, at $13B or 7% of gross exports.
