crime has increased fourfold since 1950. Mr. Edin said, “Enormous differences in income, wealth, and power push people toward communism.” And maybe so, but the only people it pushed toward communism in America were ’60s college students who already had income, wealth, and power—or at least their fathers did. And Mr. Edin went on at some length about the social problems and economic inefficiencies caused by competition. Which means, I suppose, that basketball would be a better game if all ten players were on the same side and we lost those stupid hoops. The cabinet minister was Marita Ulvskog, whose last name translates as “timberwolf” and whose portfolio was Minister for Consumer, Religious, Youth and Sport Affairs, and why not just keep going with a title like that and make her Minister of Hobbies, Boardgames, Gardening and Affairs Among Middle-Aged Married People? Mrs. Ulvskog could see I was alarmed at her business card. “I am dealing with the things that politicians shouldn’t deal with,” she said with a laugh. And then, without a laugh, she said, “At the same time, there is lots of legislation on this.” And in Sweden you can bet there is. “We don’t want a society,” said Mrs. Ulvskog, “with large differences—in income, in social welfare, in regions, in men and women.” And good luck to the Social Democrats. Try this with animals, and everything would be a cow. Which may explain why the zoo in Stockholm does, in point of fact, have cows in it. I asked Mrs. Ulvskog if the differences among people in Sweden could be made narrower than they already are. “No, not really,” she said. “And in creating the egalitarianism you do have,” I asked, “is it the Swedish political system or Swedish society that works so well?” “Perhaps,” said Mrs. Ulvskog, “it is the society.” So the Swedes have come up with a wonderful trick to make everyone equal, but it can only be performed by Swedes. Also, it isn’t working very well anymore. But Sweden did work for a long time. From 1870 to 1970, Sweden had a higher rate of economic growth than any country in the world except Japan (and Japan was cheating—using the statistical dodge of starting with a nearly Paleolithic baseline). By the 1950s, Sweden was among the richest countries on earth, with a per-capita GDP—an amount of gross domestic product per person—that was twice the European average.
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