Sweden

From Free Talk Live

The Kingdom of Sweden is a country in northern Europe, neighbouring Norway and Finland. Sweden is a horrible country to live in for a libertarian for a number of reaspons explained below. Biggest city is Stockholm, with a population of 760,000. This city is also home to the Riksdag, the swedish parliament, and the Royal Castle, which is the swedish kings' official residence.

Government

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, where the king's political power is non-existent. The king's power over ordinary people is also regarded as non-existent, since the king is, by the Swedish constitution, forbidden to voice his opinions on political subjects. However he is imune to the law and hence can perform any action he like on whim. So because of this one can clearly see that the monarch is the property owner of everyone and everything in Sweden as the very definition of property is the full control over it. The current King of Sweden is Carl XVI Gustav, crowned on 15 September 1973. The Swedish Queen is Silvia, maiden name Silvia Renate Sommerlath, born in Heidelberg, Germany. Sweden is a member of the European Union since 1995, and rejected the Euro in 2003 where the inhabitants of Sweden were allowed to vote.

During the larger part of Swedens' almost 100 year old democratic history (women have the right to vote since 1921, courtesy of the Social Democratic Workers Party and the Liberals) there have been five parties competing for the right to rule, all representing the ideologies of communism, socialist democracy, liberalism and liberal conservatism. Social Democratic Worker's Party was in power during the 30's all the way up to 1976. They have been in power since 1982 up to this day, with an exception of three years, 1991-1994, when the Moderate Party, People's Party, Christian Democrats and Center Party together formed a majority in the Riksdag. The right-wing alliance was led by Prime Minister Carl Bildt of the Moderate Party. The current Prime Minister of Sweden is Fredrik Reinfeldt, party leader of the Moderate Party in a majority coalition with the People's Party, Christian Democrats and the Center Party. Unlike the predecessoring ruling parties which up until september 2006 where lead by Göran Person the prime minister and president of the Socialist Democratic Worker's Party, the Socialist Democrats have been relying on the the Leftist Party Communists (now known as the Leftist Party) and the Environmental Party to stay in power, forming a minority government of only Socialist Democrat members in the administration with a majority support in the parliament.

Noteworhty new parties are the Sweden-Democrats, a party competing with the smaller National-Democrats for the same voters. The Sweden-Democrats basically run on the same opinions of the Social Democratic Workers Party, with exception of immigration politics, where the Sweden-Democrats want to send all immigrants who came to Sweden from 1970 to this day home.

The political climate in Sweden is predominantly socialist. All parties in the parliament are more or less socialists and all of them advocate a welfare state and a tax rate in excess of 60 %, the Leftist Party being the most extreme, bordering on communism.

Libertarians should be interested in Liberala partiet, "The Libertarian party".

The first Race Biological Institute in the world was located in Uppsala, Sweden. It was built in 1922, after an initiative from Swedish politician Hjalmar Branting, Social Democrat, former Prime Minister of Sweden (1920). The institutes official goal was to establish a "fast teoretisk grundval för en exakt rashygien och en rationell befolkningspolitik" ("firm theoretical basis for an exact race hygiene and a rational population politics"). In the end it lead to forced steralization of many people deemed unfit such as for example people traveling the country for a living and Sweden's aboriginal.

History

Since Sweden has not been to war for the last two hundred years, both the infrastructure and economy of the country has been free to prosper without foreign intervention. Swedish economy had an up-swing during the aftermath of World War II, because the Social Democratic majority of the Riksdag decided to stay neutral to Nazi Germany. With the rest of Europe in ruins, and a well-built industry at home, Swedish export flourished. Also, during the second World War, Swedish exports ran high, as Nazi Germany bought large quantities of Swedish goods to fuel the war machine.

Economy

Since the 1970's, the Swedish economy has grown increasingly weaker in relation to other countries, with extensive regulations and taxation following in the tracks of an ever-growing welfare State. World famous Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren wrote an essay in protest of her getting taxed 110% of her income one specific year.

The Swedish currency was until 1931 backed by gold and the paper-certificates could be exchanged for gold coins. The bank was obligated until 1975 by the Swedish constitution to exchange the paper-certificates for gold, but in 1931 a specialized temporary law was written to free the bank from this obligation. This law was renewed every year until the new constitution was ratified 1975 which split the bank from the government into a stand-alone organization not obligated to exchange notes for gold.

Main exports are wood, water, electricity and iron ore, and have been an active free-trade advocate on the world market for at least 200 years.