El Opinador Compulsivo

Hablando de Suecia, ¿el “modelo nórdico” es un éxito por socialista o por su insistencia en mercados abiertos, bajos niveles de regulación, una defensa irrestricta del derecho de propiedad y monedas estables?

For years Sweden has made lefties swoon. When Mr Reinfeldt came to power in 2006, the Social Democrats had run the country for 65 of the 74 previous years. Sweden has a huge public sector (in 2007 taxes and social-security contributions swallowed more than 48% of GDP), yet even the flintiest liberal has to admit that it is an exceedingly well-run, handsome place. Its fearsome levels of organisation and conformity are offset by a relaxed, outdoorsy culture, and the openness that goes with being a small, maritime country. If Zurich were crossed with Sydney, the result might be something like Stockholm.

Others say political labels are misleading. Sweden’s big state works because it is Swedish, not because it is big, says Johan Norberg, a liberal economist. The country has had an efficient bureaucracy for 200 years. The public sector expanded only in the 1950s, after a century of astonishing economic growth driven by free trade and free markets (from 1850 to 1950, average incomes multiplied eightfold, as a poor peasant society was transformed into one of the world’s richest countries).