[catears]

My understanding, as a Swedish native, is that income from labour is taxed rather high (i think 70%+ for income over a certain amount). However, capital gains are taxed comparatively low. The two most common ways tax either 30% of the profit, or 1-3% of the annual total value (ish, I don't know the exact numbers and they are probably changing from year to year).

How the incentives play out you have to ask someone else about tough ;)

Edit: Got curious and looked up income tax. Turns out I was slightly wrong, Income is regularly taxed around 55% for really high income, but if you also count in VAT ("moms" in swedish) you get ~70% taxation.

[perbu]

It is pretty interesting to see, though. Sweden has a lot of "old money" and they seem to quite happy letting then keep it.

[jacobr]

The Swedish welfare state involved a lot of compromise and give and take. The system benefits workers in some areas and capital owners in others.

[alkonaut]

Top marginal rate of tax paid by the employer is 55.5%. Employer pays some payroll taxes too but those usually aren’t included when comparing income tax. As a rule of thumb it costs the employer $1.50 to pay someone $1

[hoschicz]

You can't add 55+25 like that; VAT is 25 % of the 45 % left over. So maximum total marginal tax rate is 66.25 %

[jollybean]

It's still uncompromisingly brutal in the minds of most people.

The 'Swede' I know best (Doctor) left for that reason.

The argument most often used is 'But I Get Good Services' - which I'm suspicious of because 1) well, you could just keep the money and spend on the services you want, instead of the services the state chooses for you and 2) there's incredible efficiency in private institutions. I don't see any government in the world ever making a good 'Spotify'. Despite it's flaws, it's nice to have 'music when I want it'.

In short, probably thinks like 'Healthcare for Everyone' (though maybe not socialized entirely) and better retirement comp. are really good ideas and should be universally applied (much as we now know that 'central economic planning soviet style' is a bad idea).

But 2/3's to the State is just a gigantic amount.

Even a small adjustment such as '15% must go towards your Healthcare Insurance' and then let people pick plans, or, 10% must go to a 'Retirement Savings Plan' (of which some of it cannot be withdrawn until 65 and some of it pooled) might even be beneficial.

I think that would start to create some social nudging functions (i.e. payment for Healthcare) while being a bit more fair (i.e. service quality sometimes proportional to money put in).

And maybe the 66% kicks in, but at some much, much higher rate, like over 1M in income.

Finally, we don't seem to account for just 'organizational intelligence' which I think is the biggest difference.

When I see the lunches Swedish kids get I don't think 'they are rich' I think 'they are smart'.

Lunches, esp. mostly vegetables do not have to be expensive, I think the whole 'burgers and tater tots' you see in USA is just stupid, lazy thinking.

Just being a bit creative with the menu, a bit conscientious with the process, and esp. having children help quite a bit would help. Any school kid can do 'something' and past age 8 they can wash veggies, help clean up, sweep. They do this in Japan for a lot of things, why can't we? I suggest children can even learn to prepare certain kids of veggies responsibly.

Since a lot of education is kind of just 'daycare' why not give them some responsibilities as well? I mean, it's like a 'win win'.

The remaining meal functions can be done by a staff.

We can't avoid inherent costs in things but I suggest there is enormous upside in being intelligent about things in 'whatever' systems: Drugs, Incarceration etc..

My minimal exposure to Swedish startups is that they have way better communications - they present their concepts using language, visuals, way ahead of others. This despite Swedish formal education system flailing a little bit behind others (that's a complicated thing). p All of that said I 100% agree that 'safety net' will improve the likelihood of participation 'early stage' startups, not sure what it means beyond that stage.

[jacobr]

> I think that would start to create some social nudging functions (i.e. payment for Healthcare) while being a bit more fair (i.e. service quality sometimes proportional to money put in).

An interesting definition of “fair” - in Sweden the principle is equal health care prioritized according to who needs or benefits most from the care, not how much you pay. If you see it from that point of view, tax is not a transaction where you pay for the services you receive. You pay for the society you receive, which includes people in general being more healthy, not just yourself.

[jollybean]

Most people would reject the idea that someone works hard all of their life gets the same healthcare that someone who does nothing.

Most people are somewhere in the middle, but there absolutely are people do nothing and people who are always being constructive, some in powerful ways.

A society in which 100% of resources would be allocated in that manner (basically communist) would completely fall apart.

I think 'same treatment Healthcare' is actually a bit of a hard-socialist idea that happened to make it's way through society historically (because it needed to have some socialization) but that will ultimately fail, it's on the edge in Canada right now as they are discussion private options.

In much the same way I think fully-private healthcare is a failure.

For the later (fully private) we have to understand the mechanisms are not the same as for regular products or even food etc. - there are existential issues which create gigantic asymmetries. So there must be heavy regulation and likely socialization in certain aspects.

But the converse is still true: 'everyone the same' is a disaster for most of the economy, it's also maybe not such a good idea for healthcare.

FYI - in Sweden the are Private Clinics.

In Canada, where I am from, we have pretty crazy laws, some of those most limiting in the world.

It's illegal to provide private services for all but a minority of issues.

Just consider that: a mechanic can fix your Mazerati, but it's illegal for them to fix your arm.

In practice - there is filtering. 'Important People' somehow manage to get good access, like Sports Stars, politicians. Actual Doctors/Hospitals are not owned by the government (as they are in UK) so they are selective, but the billing rates are theoretically the same.

On the other end, you may or may not get the surgery depending on if you're an alcoholic/smoker etc..

Due to all of this there are very, very weird asymmetries in Healthcare all over the place, notably Doctor's guilds controlling access to their domain, pricing insanity in the US for actual services, insane drug prices due to IP laws and lobbying, inability of governments to innovate effectively. One weird artifact of the later is how much we have to depend on the advancements of other nations.

The NGO style they have in the US is an interesting model as well.

[sofixa]

> The argument most often used is 'But I Get Good Services' - which I'm suspicious of because 1) well, you could just keep the money and spend on the services you want, instead of the services the state chooses for you

I'm honestly baffled anyone seriously thinks that. It takes a minimum of reflection on all of the services provided by a functioning state and their role in society to realise that is just highly impractical. You get economies of scale, you get people who can't afford "services" who can not die, you get social mobility, happiness (if the workers servicing the ones that can afford services are unhappy slaves, that would impact service), etc.

> there's incredible efficiency in private institutions. I don't see any government in the world ever making a good 'Spotify'. Despite it's flaws, it's nice to have 'music when I want it'.

There's incredible efficiency in public institutions too, they just optimise for different things. One for money, the other for reach, impact, accountability. Despite it's flaws, it's nice to have healthcare when you need it without fear of bankruptcy.

[jollybean]

I'm baffled that anyone still believes governments provide truly efficient services in any capacity, for anything at all?

The only areas in which it's ostensibly 'more efficient' are where there are natural monopolies and market conditions that make it impossible to do otherwise, and so we accept socialized intervention.

In most cases, we only socialize 'when necessary' - not the other way around.

"There's incredible efficiency in public institutions too, they just optimise for different things. One for money, the other for reach, impact, accountability." - I can hardly believe anyone could think that. That's what they put on paper, generally not what they do.

Both public and private organizations are fighting for their own institutional survival and power - it's just the mechanisms of influence are different: one gets money from taxpayers with some kind of 'oversight' which is not necessarily responsive to needs, the other, lives or dies on whether or not the provide value to people for a given price (aside form private monopolies).

It takes a 'minimum of reflection' to realize this as we have unlimited practical evidence for it ... were this to be even remotely true, then everything would be socialized as a 'matter of scale and efficiency'. We would be inexorably pulled in that direction - and yet - basically few things are, except maybe Healthcare in the US, as one of those markets that 'requires more social intervention' but for which there is currently very little.

Which governments invent the iPhone? (or could ever?). Hint: it's not a technology, it's a product which requires a product/market orientation, the ability to shift nimbly in innumerable areas of specialty, that no government has ever exhibited any capacity for - except - during wartime. When did they develop Web Analytics? Networking equipment? Effective merchandising mix even for things like groceries which is what give us the amazing variety and quality of products and produce we have? Farming equipment, processes, resources? Search Engines? Automobiles? Music streaming service? Chip designs? Video Games? Superhero Films? Toys? Makeup? Clothing? IoT Products? Furniture, lighting, tools? Construction equipment? Giant supply chains for all of those? Distribution chains? Financial services for investment banking? Retail? Commercial?

This list is really long.

I mean, it all could be done by an elected committee, but in most cases, not nearly as well.

In 1920 - yes - I can kind of understand it; 'on paper' of we merely had the government take over all of the auto-manufacturing plants, we could theoretically reduce costs by 10% by clearing out management, and, reducing profit taking! Citizens Unite! ... but it would not have been good for the future.

After a century of experimentation with all of that, we have some good data.

The government of Canada, in 2022 can't get my Health Records online.

They have spent $800 Million (>10x over budget) on an in-house payroll service for their employees that does not work. That's a lot of money, and it's the tip of the iceberg.

Where is the inquiry?

Obviously governments are necessary for enforcing basic regulatory requirements all over the place as it would not be efficient for us to have private practice to do that, but it depends on the situation. (For example, I wonder if 'rating agencies' need either to be socialized or to have extra careful oversight?)

Some public services with natural monopolies (roads, energy transport) obviously must be socialized in some way, because we can't have 10 different competing electricity grids and/or 'toll roads everywhere'. But of course, government generally does not actually 'build roads' - they contract that out to competitive bids, hopefully with oversight. That would be absurd.

Case and Point for the 'Governments are Better' enthusiasts - in which countries are the roads actually built by government employees? And have a better situation overall? I'll bet nowhere, because it makes no sense at all - even in an industry that is 'very large' with ostensibly a lot of room for 'scale' ... private contractors do the actual road construction.

'Pure R&D' is generally impossible in private markets outside of companies that are 'swimming in profits' (aka Google, MSFT) and even then it's not very pure, which is why higher education has to be strongly associated with government.

Basic education, regulatory considerations, strategic investments of scale impossible by private markets alone (aka chip fabs), investments in markets which are political in nature (weapons systems, space systems, some large energy projects), in which there are other, existential considerations/inelastic situations that combine to warp outcomes (aka Healthcare) there have to be interventions.

In most but not all cases, we have socialization because of necessity not because there are advantages, and vast majority of currently private markets would not benefit from being socialized.

Finally ... maybe this is mostly moot - I'll bet (but I'm not sure, correct me if I'm wrong) that most of the extra taxation in Sweden goes mostly to redistribution type expense, aka paternity leave, retirement, welfare services etc. which are all very expensive, and that Gov. Sweden is probably not directly doing a lot of market oriented things anyhow. I mean, they're not making furniture, coffee, or Music services ...