During the 20th century, at the price of the world's highest tax burden, Sweden built up what is often called the world's most generous general social welfare system, with such elements as virtually free (that is, tax-financed) schools, child care, health care, pensions, elder care, social services and various economic security systems.
Photo: AC Ridderstolpe / Image Bank Sweden
Although Sweden has always been a solid market economy, the Social Democratic governments in power for most of the 20th century borrowed many ideas from socialism. Swedish prosperity has been redistributed among the population to a greater degree than in perhaps any other country. "From each according to ability, to each according to needs" — that was the radical basic doctrine of a welfare state in which all inhabitants would always be guaranteed basic economic security in all stages of life.
This welfare state, known in Sweden as the "home of the people," was a unique experiment in social engineering that has attracted great attention among political scientists and politicians worldwide. Many of its features have been emulated in other countries. The international labels for the Swedish model are numerous — "the middle way," "the country that protects its citizens from the cradle to the grave" or simply "the Swedish model," to name just a few.
In recent decades, once the country's previous steady, high economic growth had come to an end, the Swedish welfare state has been under heavy pressures. Today the country's economic security systems are financially burdened and are struggling with serious structural problems. Without a doubt, Sweden has become "harder around the edges." Yet the main features of the Swedish welfare state, with its publicly guaranteed and publicly financed safety net for everyone in the country, so far remain intact.