Gingrich and Ted Kennedy to do your grocery shopping? How many of those groceries do you think would make it home? For twenty-five years, Sweden’s economic growth has been lagging behind that of other industrialized nations, and between 1990 and 1993 the Swedish economy shrank by 5 percent. There’s been a small upturn since, but the Swedish Institute (government funded and hence prone to sunny outlooks) admits, “The majority of households have seen their financial circumstances deteriorate in recent years.” For Swedish industrial workers, aftertax earnings adjusted for inflation have stagnated since 1975. And rightly so, since Swedish labor productivity has increased by only 74 percent since 1970, compared with a 700 percent increase in labor costs—many of those costs resulting from government-mandated employer contributions to . . . well, to the government. As the 700 percent figure might indicate, inflation has been a problem in Sweden. There have been only a few years since 1979 when Sweden’s inflation rate was below the average for other prosperous countries. Government deficits are partly to blame, but Sweden is also a small country moshed up against the Artic Circle. Unless Swedes want their material circumstances limited to wood pulp, livestock, and cod, they have to import a lot of things. The Swedish krona is one of the weakest currencies in Western Europe, Western Europeans being no fools. “Do you want that in deutsche marks, Swiss francs, or day care, family leave, and fifteen-dollar doctor visits?” Thus, imported goods are expensive in Sweden. In fact, everything’s expensive in Sweden because, on top of the other government exactions, there’s an astonishing 25 percent national sales tax on almost all goods and services. Every time you order a burger, you buy the government fries and a Coke. No, actually just a Coke, since the tax on food and restaurant meals is a mere 12 percent. At least tipping is minimal. The Swedish attitude seems to be that all services, even drink orders, should be provided by the government, and the government’s been tipped already. One thing not causing Swedish inflation is an overheated job market, although full employment has been a principle of Swedish government since the 1930s. (Full employment is not one of my own personal goals in life, but it seems to be important to socialists.) Until 1990, Sweden had an unemployment rate of less than 3.5 percent, which is amazing, considering that 3.5 percent of my bum friends wouldn’t take any job, even if it paid $100 an hour and involved doing inventory for a blind liquor-store owner. But now Sweden’s unemployment rate is 7.6 percent, and, if you add the people in various do-little
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