Now Even Swedes Are Questioning the Welfare State
Paying some of the world’s
highest income-tax rates has been the cornerstone of Scandinavia’s social
contract, with the political consensus in Sweden to save money for when the
economy is less healthy. Yet the country is showing strains all too familiar in
other parts of Europe with nationalists gaining support and Swedes increasingly
questioning the sustainability of their fabled cradle-to-grave welfare
system.
Resentment
has built over the influx of more than 600,000 immigrants over the past five
years, many from war-ravaged countries like Afghanistan and Syria, a huge
number for a country of 10 million people.
There are also soaring crime rates, gang violence, complaints about education and
pregnant mothers even being turned away from maternity wards due to a lack of
capacity. The number of people waiting longer than 90 days for an operation or
specialist treatment has tripled over the past four years.
“The Swedish social contract
needs to be reformed,” a dozen entrepreneurs including Nordea Bank AB Chairman
Bjorn Wahlroos and Kreab Founder Peje Emilsson wrote in an op-ed in the Dagens Industri newspaper on May
31. “Despite high taxes, politics isn’t delivering its part of the contract in
important areas. We get poor value for money.”
There are warning signs
across Europe of what can happen if disillusionment goes unaddressed. In
Britain, popular anger over rising immigration and creaking public services
fueled the vote to leave the European Union. Nationalist parties, on the march
across continent, just swept to power in Italy.
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