That
1976 story in Time, for example, went on to report that Sweden found
itself struggling with crime, drug addiction, welfare dependency, and a
plague of red tape. Successful Swedes —most famously, Ingmar Bergman —
were fleeing the country to avoid its killing taxes. “Growing numbers
are plagued by a persistent, gnawing question: Is their Utopia going
sour?”
[...] For example, Sweden was a poor nation for most of the 19th
century (which helps explain the great wave of Swedish emigration to
the United States in the 1800s). That began to change as Stockholm,
starting around 1870, turned to free-enterprise reforms. Robust
capitalism replaced the formerly agrarian system, and Sweden grew rich.
“Property rights, free markets, and the rule of law combined with large
numbers of well-educated engineers and entrepreneurs,” Sanandaji
writes. The result was an environment in which Swedes experienced “an
unprecedented period of sustained and rapid economic development.” In
fact, between 1870 and 1936, Sweden had the highest growth rate in the
industrialized world.
Scandinavia’s hard-left turn didn’t come about until much later. It was
in the late 1960s and early 1970s that taxes soared, welfare payments
expanded, and entrepreneurship was discouraged.
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