Wednesday, June 07, 2006
"To say that other countries should emulate the Swedish social model is about as helpful as telling an average-looking person to look like a Swedish supermodel. There are special circumstances and a certain background that limit the ability to imitate. In the case of the supermodel, it is about genetics. In the context of economical and political models, it is about the historical and cultural background."
We spend a fair amount of time around here discusing the validity of social comparisons, particularly between the US and Sweden. One of the reasons that these sorts of comparisons can be so beguiling is that, as Americans, we know comparatively little about other places-- particularly their history. Sweden is a special case in our discussions, for several reasons, including the special insight that our adventure in the Swedish publishing industry gave us-- it's not that Swedish society has eliminated competition, the way a state-operated economy would. It is instead that the risk of failure and the possibility of outstanding success have been loped of the spectrum, leaving moderate prosperity at the middle as the sole remaining economic outcome. Of course, within moderate prosperity there is a fair amount of variation, but it is not hard to see how any entrepreneurial impulse might be pretty readily quashed. (Via Flutterby.) The point of the cited article seems to be that the sort of neo-liberal welfare state that Sweden and most of Europe enjoy cannot be sustained. I'm not so sure that this is true.
We spend a fair amount of time around here discusing the validity of social comparisons, particularly between the US and Sweden. One of the reasons that these sorts of comparisons can be so beguiling is that, as Americans, we know comparatively little about other places-- particularly their history. Sweden is a special case in our discussions, for several reasons, including the special insight that our adventure in the Swedish publishing industry gave us-- it's not that Swedish society has eliminated competition, the way a state-operated economy would. It is instead that the risk of failure and the possibility of outstanding success have been loped of the spectrum, leaving moderate prosperity at the middle as the sole remaining economic outcome. Of course, within moderate prosperity there is a fair amount of variation, but it is not hard to see how any entrepreneurial impulse might be pretty readily quashed. (Via Flutterby.) The point of the cited article seems to be that the sort of neo-liberal welfare state that Sweden and most of Europe enjoy cannot be sustained. I'm not so sure that this is true.
// posted by Bill @ 9:41 AM 
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