newer immigrants, such as Somalis, who are looking for work is even fewer. They have discovered, for instance, that they don’t have to learn Swedish to get paid. Thanks to government programs, they can get paid to learn Swedish. Of course, the immigrants are assimilating in their own fashion. There was a poster on the wall of the mosque that was so multicultural it doesn’t even need translating: Kung-Fu Dans & Fighting Med Afrikansk Musik (Bakom Pizzeriet Parma) For mer information till ABDUL It’s interesting how—level society as you will—someone always turns out on top. I was thinking this as I was sitting in the office of the Minister for Consumer, Religious, Youth and Sport Affairs. It wasn’t a lavish office by U.S. cabinet secretary standards, but it was lagom —two big, joined suites on a corner looking down the street to Lake Malaren. The walls were painted fashionable teal. The furniture was hip and blond. All salaries in Sweden may come out, after taxes, somewhat the same. But who gets the room with the view? Who flies off to European Union cheese-food milk-fat-content subcommittee negotiating sessions on the sunny isles of Greece? And opera tickets are heavily underwritten by the Swedish government. What a relief to the working stiff. “Bundle up the kids, Helga, we’re all going to see Claude Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande!” I had dinner that night in another expensive restaurant, and in the men’s room, there was a rack of reading material, all of it annual reports. I don’t think anyone had ever been in there who wasn’t—like me—on an expense account, except, of course, for the fellow, probably an immigrant, who cleans the toilet. The Swedish welfare state is based on redistribution of the most thoroughgoing kind. Everybody pays high taxes; even poverty benefits are taxed. And the taxes are returned to everybody in the form of “social goods.” “We have tried to build a system where everybody gets something out of the state,” said Marita Ulvskog. “Our position is that the millionaires must get something out of the state, i.e., a health system good enough for millionaires.” The Swedish Model assumes that citizens agree on what they want and that government can tell what this is. But what if the government is run by someone from Albania? And in return for your high taxes, the social goods you get are
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