[cycomanic]

This is one of the fundamental things about Sweden which is really quite weird when you come from the outside. Much of Swedish society runs on "recommendations" (or norms as someone else put it), so technically you don't have to abide by them (i.e. under the thread of the government monopoly on violence, how we enforce laws), but everyone just does it anyway.

This was an interesting experience for me during COVID, where lots of other countries put lots of rules/laws in place, while Sweden just had "recommendations" (and lax ones at that). The way I understood it, it would have been even incredibly difficult/legally impossible for the government to impose some of the same restrictions as in other countries.

It's actually fascinating how well the Swedish society functions without these laws.