Re: Sweden (Was: Economic correlations)

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jul 09 2002 - 16:30:10 MDT


On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 10:12:37AM -0400, Mark Walker wrote:
>
> Anders, I am not sure whether you are saying that Sweden has the wrong
> values, or that they have been implemented wrong or inefficiently. In terms
> of being productive of the types of values that social democrats would like
> to see, e.g., liberty, solidarity, justice, it seems from your description
> that Sweden is very productive of these sorts of values. Presumably, you
> mean economically productive. Suppose it is conceded that one has to pay an
> economic cost (in terms of gdp) for instituting these sorts of values. Are
> Swedes mistaken for making this choice? As you say those who don't like it
> are free to emigrate. It is a shame that interstate mobility is not more
> common: it might help the political satisfaction meter jump. Given that we
> have yet to find a perfect political system (assuming there is such a beast)
> I am glad that we still have some alternate political experiments.

This is a good question. I would say that the answer is a little bit of
both: some of these values are wrong, and they lessen productivity - not
just economic productivity but human growth, and the latter is is why
they are wrong.

The basic problem with the social democratic vision in Sweden is that
liberty is defined as being free within a certain set of rules, rather
than inventing new rules and directions. Solidarity has become less
helping others due to a feeling of shared humanity and more a rhetorical
tool implying that not contributing makes you less human - the need to
promote certain behaviors have caused an erosion of the word usage and
to a large extent its meaning. Justice has been consistently interpreted
as egalitarianism. To a large extent this is a result of public choice
effects. Of course, by now the social democrats (and all political
parties have essentially become social democrats of different colors)
are largely non-ideological and more pragmatists than driven by any
values.

The problem here is that what might have started as a positive vision
(even if I as a libertarian disagree with much of it) that also fitted
well with prevalent cultural views have become sclerotic and
fundamentally counterproductive.

Slow economic growth is a nuisance but IMHO not a major problem. The big
problem is when institutions are created that refuse to recognize the
existence of structural problems, that are fundamentally unable to think
outside the given technic-administrative paradigm and hence will be
extremely brittle when changes cannot be avoided. Sweden is right now
living in a kind of self-produced virtual reality which is diverging
from reality more and more.

I find the constraints imposed not just chafing for me, but I also see
how many people lose their initiative to live excellent lives or even
make their own choices. A lot of human potential is being wasted. That
the door out is open is not a solution if most people don't consider it
as a solution. The ones to leave are usually the well educated, who
instead become internationalists and even if they return doesn't seem to
remain part of Swedish culture. I honestly don't see myself as part of
it anymore; my views set me apart so much that I think I have more in
common with the Dutch or Americans than my neighbour.

I think it is good that there exist regions with different systems, but
I don't like to see people hurt. And they are being hurt in Sweden, in a
very subtle way for what was once high intentions but now have become
dry pragmatism.

> P.S. Happy birthday. Presumably someone your age will demonstrate good form
> and express your age in scientific notation. It really doesn't sound that
> old when you say "Three times ten to the first" :)

Thanks! I don't mind expressing it in seconds either (9.47e8) - soon I
will be one gigasecond old!

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


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