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.
Sweden has historically been ethnically close to homogeneous (until the 20th century, life in Scandinavia was hard, and few wanted to move there) and has a relatively flat social hierarchy, meaning that redistributive taxation to fund services is popular (after all, if everyone needs a specific service, having the government provide it through taxes is an economy of scale). America, meanwhile, was founded on racial slavery, which resulted in a racial hierarchy (i.e., the definition of who counts as “white” shifting over time), and there’s a non-negligible proportion of voters who would resent being taxed extra to help lift those below them in this hierarchy closer to their level.
While your point remains somewhat valid, it’s not actually valid to say “native” in the same sense as “native Americans”.
There were a whole bunch of tribes in the area. Some were more influenced by Europe (swedes, Norwegians) and some less (Finns, Estonian, Sami). Surprise to no one, these tribes living in the southern regions were more successful (easier weather), so they expanded northward and thus rolled over the semi-nomadic Sami in a very nasty, but extremely historically common human way.
it’s not actually valid to say “native” in the same sense as “native Americans”.
It actually is, it’s just that Swedes are just as native as Sami. Which is why usually we’re talking about autochthone minorities in Europe (or some similar term), and if you see a European unironically using terms like “BIPOC” you can be sure they haven’t used their brain in a while because the “I” in that abbreviation is literally the overwhelming majority of the population.
Its almost as though efficient utilization of tax revenue offsets the hatred of paying taxes. I just threatened my 1st cousins into pitching in $100 each to buy a 2nd cousin of ours a cello after I asker if she planned on continuing to play thru college and she said no she can’t afford school, dorms and instrument rental. I looked for programs that actually helped students like her but found nothing of actual use. You can do more help with your own money than giving it to the government or charities.
Maybe people wouldn’t hate taxes if they were put to good use, not squandered on shit we don’t want and corruption. We have to watch as all our taxes go to pay corrupt politicians hundreds of thousands of dollars and cover all their expenses, meanwhile this year our elementary and middle schools are getting their sports/music/art classes cut because there isn’t enough budget.
The public services, income distribution, corporate socialism and Government of Putin in the USA are massive dumpster fires. The USA needs a new generation of politicians that will actually focus on rebuilding and constantly improving education, infrastructure, public transportation, income gap, banking regulations and bring back the tax brackets from the 1960's. Until then, the Europeans and several Asian countries will leave the USA in their dust trail.
I don’t really care if someone has it worse. We should still strive to do better. I don’t think that’s relevant.
It would be nice to get something for that money. However little or however much it is. Functional services, a social safety net for example. I’d certainly be willing to pay more to have those services. A functioning healthcare system would be nice. I think you would get fewer complaints if the benefits were most obvious.
We’re losing that in Sweden though. Public healthcare is becoming more and more under funded. Doctors barely have time to treat patients, so they’re often sending patients home with prescribed paracetamol.
The only way to get proper healthcare nowadays is through private healthcare, if you can afford it. I know many who haven’t gotten proper healthcare until they sought private healthcare. It sucks, because it used to be great.
And people vote for that shit because politicians dangle tax cuts in front of their faces. It’s really sad to see swedes fall for the lower taxes scam, when our entire thing is built on taxes.
Naw, the issue is more with corruption creeping into the public system. Swedish society used to have a high degree of trust within the system due to a rather homogenous culture and relatively short social hierarchy, and as such structures of enforcement were rather unneccessary.
It’s become a lot more pressured as time goes on though, inefficiencies, abuse of public funds, straight up corruption which has created huge hole in the public purse - in addition to a sharp rise in organized crime and tax evasion among small businesses such as restaurants and shops.
Corruption is absolutely on the rise. And many opportunistic assholes are utilizing privatization as a vector to abuse the system. However, people still vote for lower taxes and that is a huge problem, especially when we find ourselves in a situation where so many institutions need more tax funding.
So, what you’re saying is that you’d want to go to a system akin to what the US has? Hmm.
I mean, I’ll personally take affordable, universal healthcare that needs some tweaking over a system that will bankrupt me if I break my arm or, God forbid, get seriously ill.
We should stop voting for people who promise to dismantle said services. We also really need to move towards a basic income setup instead of having all of the hoops and paperwork for people to prove they are eligible for whatever it is. In the USA people going on disability are always denied even if they are a paraplegic. We would spend so much less money and other resources if we just made it available to everyone with no proof of eligibility needed.
Same in Canada, at least Quebec, 50% of my taxes go in health care system, I have no family doctor, all doctors are millionaires, nurses make 100k+, people dies in ER after 48h waiting
Education system is a joke. Teachers earn 100k+ too
Not many physicians make over a million, and the way provincial governments have set up the bureaucracy around healthcare feeds the high wages, ie: it’s not the nurses caring for patients that are making $100k per year.
In 2021 (the year your article is about) there were 21,176 physicians in the province and 294 made 7 figure salaries. That amounts to less than 1.2% of physicians.
So not all physicians make a million dollars, not even a lot of physicians make a million dollars. It is rare that this happens.
I’m trying to get a feel, as someone who does not live in Canada, as to how often this actually happens. If it’s really an urgent issue, or more hyperbole than anything.
Could you elaborate further on how often this actually happens?
Because Canada’s universal healthcare is funded by the feds and provinces, but administered by the provinces, numbers are not available. But I did find an educated guesstimate from this source put together by two Canadian physicians.
“The extra deaths caused by emergency department crowding are so rarely counted because it’s hard to pinpoint the crowding as the proximate cause of the death. But when you look at populations and population-level data, you clearly see excess hospital deaths when emergency department crowding is worse,” he said.
He and colleague Dr. Paul Atkinson from the department of emergency medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax tried to put a number on what they called a “hidden pandemic” of harm.
The U.K. data suggested that between 260 and 500 patients a week may be dying in excess of what would be expected when ERs are crowded.
“If you do simple multiplication based on our population, you would find that over a year, somewhere between 8,000 and 15,000 patients are dying in Canada because of emergency department crowding,” Worrall said.
It’s like how they’ve installed that DeJoy person to dismantle the Postal Service from inside out and then complain that the Postal Service is having issues, so we should privatize donate the business to rich people so their disgusting amounts of wealth can trickle down on our faces or something.
Also Sweden’s population is about the size of Los Angeles county. Every time I see Scandinavia held up as something to aspire to folks should remember how small and historically homogenous these countries are.
Comparing the US to the EU as a whole is a much more accurate way to look at things, with us states being akin to eu member countries.
Add comment