> 1) They are super, super aggressive when it comes to tax things. Cheating on taxes is worse than some major crimes! Yes. It is seen as freeloading. Which, in

> 1) They are super, super aggressive when it comes to tax things. Cheating on taxes is worse than some major crimes! Yes. It is seen as freeloading. Which, in fact, it is[1]. > 2) They are culturally anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial. That is simply ridiculous, unless you want to define a recognition that externalities are a thing as 'anti-business'. Or put another way, what exactly is it about the profit motive that transforms bad behavior into good behavior? (You may define 'bad behavior' differently, but that's a different question.) A friend who lives in Sweden, and has spent several years living in the U.S. put it well. Americans are weirdly uptight about sex, believing that public acknowledgment that humans like rutting at least as much as other animals somehow poisons the commons. Swedes are weirdly uptight about preservation of the commons itself. It isn't anti-business to recognize that commercial activities, like any other activities, effect others in potentially good and bad ways. Every first-world country does. Nordic countries generally value the social norms and structures they've built more than they value enabling the scraping every possible niche for profit. [1] You may not like the bundle of services provided, but the obligation exists. That's how government works, at least until someone builds that infinite-land machine. I'm really not in the mood for a rerun of Net.libertarians vs. Rousseau, so won't respond to that argument.