Venezuela, proof that socialism rocks

Sweden is a great place to start a new business - if you don't plan on being successful. A more lax economic policy in the '90s has increased new startups by 25%, but the economic attitude towards business hasn't changed much since the '70s, where entrepreneurs were treated like pariahs. Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad told Forbes magazine that the Swedish tax bureaucrats would frequently accuse him of using people and "only wanting profits".

The Swedish Institute of Trade reported in 2002 that "the median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800, compared with a median of $39,400 for U.S. households". If Sweden were introduced to the U.S. as a new state, it would rank as the poorest according to these standards. This is in light of the fact that these numbers are gross values - before taxes - and Sweden has the highest taxes in the world. The same report also shows that Swedes fare lower than the lowest American socio-economic class, working-class black males.

This income tax, 55% of the Gross National Product, the highest income tax in the world, is also coupled with sales taxes, property taxes, and other excise taxes and tariffs. The Swedish sales tax, a "value added tax", ranges to 22.5% of items sold, on various goods including most foods. The total ownership of public goods by the Swedish government is roughly 64%, closing in on 70%, once you include all these other forms of taxation. That is not including government-owned means of production, which control about a full quarter of Swedish productivity.

The history of Swedish domestic relations is chock full of civil rights abuses. 62,000 Swedes were forcibly sterilized by the Swedish government over a 40 year period, until 1974, by government researchers who judged families as being "racially inferior". These sterilizations included both the parents and their children. During this time period, a Swedish Television documentary revealed that Sweden lobotomized at least 500 "undesirables", in some cases without the consent of their families, and that lobotomizations may have numbered up to 4,500 people. These practices predated and surpassed the era of Nazi Germany.

Sweden, like other Socialist nations, use methods to "hide" unemployment figures from staticians, reflecting a "strong economy". Most people on the government dole are changed in status to not be considered "unemployed", for instance, out of work citizens are often considered "on paid leave", or given a menial class and considered "students", or simply conscripted into public works programs funded by the government and given menial labor there. The government's ability to fund the unemployed hides unemployment numbers, giving Sweden years of having unemployment numbers like 2%. This, like other Socialist nations of it's ilk, does not reflect the real life numbers of regularly working people.