Lessons from Sweden’s Welfare State: An American-Swedish Perspective

Abstract

The Swedish welfare state has often been held up as a model for other countries to follow. For a long time, it was seen as a mid-way solution between the state-controlled socialist economies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, on one hand, and the more unrestrained capitalist economies, often represented by the United States, on the other. Since the demise of socialism in Eastern Europe, Sweden is instead seen as a more social form of a capitalist market economy, one that combines the free play of market forces in large parts of its economy with an extensive social safety net and public provision of welfare services. Although the Swedish model is by no means unique and shares many features with other Nordic welfare states, it remains true that it represents one polar case among capitalist economies and that the United States is at the opposite pole.