And the most socialist country is Venezuela whose treatment of its citizens is amongst the most appalling in the world.

Just about every country on the world that tried to push forward its socialist agenda has had to wind it back. The main consequences were that their economies were shrinking and their talented individuals that were taxed at 90% marginal tax simply moved to tax friendly countries.

proof re: Sweden ; and keep in mind what people get back from the welfare state as well.

Sweden was successful in the 50s and 60s too. Their Rehn-Meidner model created a high wage, full employment economy to fuel their welfare state.

Sweden has been slowly retreating since the 80s. But much of their historical example is still inspiring.

Also around about the 1980s Sweden implemented its policy "The Strong Society" which was all about welfare for the poor and disadvantaged.

If they've really gone that far backward recently I'd like to see it confirmed. As I said I know there's been a retreat.

Tristan, Sweden followed a fairly typical arc - it got rich through free market principals, and then decided that being rich was easy and you could load the system up with all sorts of taxes to fund all sorts of welfare, and it wouldn't make any difference.

It took them a while to work out that was wrong, and they are now gradually dialling back.

It's interesting, but when you look at the World Happiness Index Australia and Sweden are statistically identical. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/show-post-article.asp?comment=360193

Graham Y, what happened to the link. Thought it was unusual for an 'insiders' comment or link to be 'pulled'.

Graham ; though Sweden achieved full employment when other European countries couldn't. And their industry policies made sure many of those were high wage jobs. A strong welfare state and strong industry policies meant industry could continuously evolve and develop in new directions without social insecurity for workers. This was the 'Rehn-Meidner model'. But in the 70s and 80s the Social Democrats attempted to institute Meidner Wage Earner Funds. Workers had salary sacrificed to help the nation's competitiveness, and contain inflation. Now they wanted collective capital share as compensation. That ended bipartisanship between capital and labor on the basics of the 'Swedish model'. Capital has been pushing back since - and there has been a slow but very significant retreat since then.

Collective consumption and social insurance means less room overall for personal discretion. But if you're getting a better deal on socialised medicine, child care, roads etc ; *at the end of the day* you will probably have more room for discretionary expenditure *after essentials*. So for instance ; if state schools were of the highest quality ; and parents didn't feel the need to cough up tens of thousands for private education to 'give their kids an edge'.