7 ms·

Former Scandinavia resident here (Oslo). There are some very strong reasons why this works in the region and not elsewhere. 1) The country has a small and clo

Former Scandinavia resident here (Oslo). There are some very strong reasons why this works in the region and not elsewhere. 1) The country has a small and closely connected population. Policy makers have a very close dialogue with their populace. It helps ensure that people see the benefit of their taxes. 2) They’re socially and similarly well educated and adjusted. When people are raised with similar values, it’s much easier for them to come to consensus, in this example, on how to spend tax revenue. 3) The wealthy upper class don’t need much salary, they’re already rich and taxed more on capital gains. So a 70% income tax actually helps protect their place in society. The ‘Sweden has it, we should too’ is really weak honestly. We can learn a lot from them but ours is a very different situation.

fxfan 8y ago
In other words, it can be partially attributed to aristotle's philia
jayd16 8y ago
It doesn't really follow that tax policy should be different because a diverse population disagrees more. With the exception of point 3 (which actually does apply to the US as well) you could make this argument about any policy.
- charlesism 8y ago
  If anything, it puts the cart before the horse. Economic inequality increases tribalism.
- roenxi 8y ago
  > you could make this argument about any policy It is completely reasonable to say that good policy for 10 million people is different from good policy for 100 million people. Not all effects caused by increasing population scale in the same way. Economic geography is a very interesting subject and certainly admits the possibility for small, high-skill nations to be able to enjoy a localised prosperity that doesn't scale very well. > It doesn't really follow that tax policy should be different because a diverse population disagrees more I don't follow what you mean with that. A divided polity will produce a very different set of policy than a united polity. There is no convincing science, theory or philosophy setting what taxes should be. Taxes are what they are, and we've seen arguably successful societies at a wide range of tax levels. A small united polity will clearly be more successful at using government to achieve their aims than a large and disparate population.
  - jayd16 8y ago
    Its not that the argument is impossible. The issue is that it's just a hypothetical with no backing presented as fact. Some policies cannot scale from 10 million to 100 million, but some can. No work is put into proving that this particular policy cannot scale.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > It doesn't really follow that tax policy should be different because a diverse population disagrees more. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that people are more okay with giving the government more control of their money in societies where people tend to be similarly situated and have similar values.
  - hoaw 8y ago
    I wouldn't overestimate homogeneity as a reason for the Swedish welfare state. The strong Swedish state probably goes back to the nationalization, and later decreased influence, of the Swedish church. That standing was later used by the Social Democrats (among others) to reform Sweden to a welfare state. Today, as those ideas are becoming less popular it is relatively apparent that Swedes don't give a shit about each other more than anyone else. The political parties can't even form a government since the last election.
  - jayd16 8y ago
    It's not impossible but its just conjecture presented as fact.
eschaton 8y ago
This sounds like a variant of “it works in a homogeneous society,” which has long been a right-wing dogwhistle.
- mogadsheu 8y ago
  Point two could be considered such, but not the others
- cpr 8y ago
  Right-wing? Odd, I thought it was just a simple fact of human nature that people naturally enjoying being with those of their same race, culture, and background. That doesn't mean they can't accept others and learn to work with them. Diversity and multiculturalism have been over-used as bludgeons by the left for decades.
  - davvolun 8y ago
    "It's just a simple fact of human nature" is, of course, the other right-wing dogwhistle. "It's just a simple fact that there are only two genders" "It's just a simple fact that white people and black people don't get along" "It's just a simple fact that the white man was given the burden of caring for the rest of the world" If your argument can be used to justify oppressing non-cis genders today as well as it could be used to justify oppressing African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement or earlier, I don't know that I consider it a strong argument.
    - cpr 8y ago
      Gender is a man-made construct. There are only two biological sexes.
      - davvolun 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite
charlesism 8y ago
Something is wrong with your argument because America used to have higher tax-rates, and the economy worked better for most Americans.
- whamlastxmas 8y ago
  I support much higher tax rates but you can't argue there's much causality between the high tax rates we had and how high the quality of living was at the time. It was a tremendously different era in a ton of ways.
  - charlesism 8y ago
    It was a tremendously different era in a ton of ways. I disagree it was "tremendous", but it is a fruitless argument. There is an endless number of differences and similarities we could trade with each other.
- rayiner 8y ago
  America never had tax rates like Sweden's. There were nominal tax rates that were very high, but they kicked in so high almost nobody paid them: https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-percent-tax-rate https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-pe....
  - charlesism 8y ago
    Did you take the article to mean that everyone in Sweden pays 70%?
    - rayiner 8y ago
      By comparison, yes. Sweden's top tax bracket kicks in at just 1.5x the average income. The 69% tax bracket kicked in at $38,000 in 1955, about 8x the average income. As the article I linked to explains, deductions were much more extensive back then too. The result is that the average tax rate on say the 1% has actually not dropped that much: https://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myth.html https://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myt.... It was 40-45% in the 1950s and 1960s, and has fluctuated between 30-40% since the late 1980s.
davvolun 8y ago
So, what...U.S. should stop at around 62% upper marginal tax rate? There's a huge difference between 70% and the current U.S. marginal rate of 37% for over $500k. Argue homogeneity, small, relatively rich population all you want, we're talking about nearly double the tax rate!

fxfan 8y ago

In other words, it can be partially attributed to aristotle's philia

jayd16 8y ago

It doesn't really follow that tax policy should be different because a diverse population disagrees more. With the exception of point 3 (which actually does apply to the US as well) you could make this argument about any policy.

charlesism 8y ago
If anything, it puts the cart before the horse. Economic inequality increases tribalism.
roenxi 8y ago
> you could make this argument about any policy It is completely reasonable to say that good policy for 10 million people is different from good policy for 100 million people. Not all effects caused by increasing population scale in the same way. Economic geography is a very interesting subject and certainly admits the possibility for small, high-skill nations to be able to enjoy a localised prosperity that doesn't scale very well. > It doesn't really follow that tax policy should be different because a diverse population disagrees more I don't follow what you mean with that. A divided polity will produce a very different set of policy than a united polity. There is no convincing science, theory or philosophy setting what taxes should be. Taxes are what they are, and we've seen arguably successful societies at a wide range of tax levels. A small united polity will clearly be more successful at using government to achieve their aims than a large and disparate population.
- jayd16 8y ago
  Its not that the argument is impossible. The issue is that it's just a hypothetical with no backing presented as fact. Some policies cannot scale from 10 million to 100 million, but some can. No work is put into proving that this particular policy cannot scale.
rayiner 8y ago
> It doesn't really follow that tax policy should be different because a diverse population disagrees more. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that people are more okay with giving the government more control of their money in societies where people tend to be similarly situated and have similar values.
- hoaw 8y ago
  I wouldn't overestimate homogeneity as a reason for the Swedish welfare state. The strong Swedish state probably goes back to the nationalization, and later decreased influence, of the Swedish church. That standing was later used by the Social Democrats (among others) to reform Sweden to a welfare state. Today, as those ideas are becoming less popular it is relatively apparent that Swedes don't give a shit about each other more than anyone else. The political parties can't even form a government since the last election.
- jayd16 8y ago
  It's not impossible but its just conjecture presented as fact.

eschaton 8y ago

This sounds like a variant of “it works in a homogeneous society,” which has long been a right-wing dogwhistle.

mogadsheu 8y ago
Point two could be considered such, but not the others
cpr 8y ago
Right-wing? Odd, I thought it was just a simple fact of human nature that people naturally enjoying being with those of their same race, culture, and background. That doesn't mean they can't accept others and learn to work with them. Diversity and multiculturalism have been over-used as bludgeons by the left for decades.
- davvolun 8y ago
  "It's just a simple fact of human nature" is, of course, the other right-wing dogwhistle. "It's just a simple fact that there are only two genders" "It's just a simple fact that white people and black people don't get along" "It's just a simple fact that the white man was given the burden of caring for the rest of the world" If your argument can be used to justify oppressing non-cis genders today as well as it could be used to justify oppressing African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement or earlier, I don't know that I consider it a strong argument.
  - cpr 8y ago
    Gender is a man-made construct. There are only two biological sexes.
    - davvolun 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite

charlesism 8y ago

Something is wrong with your argument because America used to have higher tax-rates, and the economy worked better for most Americans.

whamlastxmas 8y ago
I support much higher tax rates but you can't argue there's much causality between the high tax rates we had and how high the quality of living was at the time. It was a tremendously different era in a ton of ways.
- charlesism 8y ago
  It was a tremendously different era in a ton of ways. I disagree it was "tremendous", but it is a fruitless argument. There is an endless number of differences and similarities we could trade with each other.
rayiner 8y ago
America never had tax rates like Sweden's. There were nominal tax rates that were very high, but they kicked in so high almost nobody paid them: https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-percent-tax-rate https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-pe....
- charlesism 8y ago
  Did you take the article to mean that everyone in Sweden pays 70%?
  - rayiner 8y ago
    By comparison, yes. Sweden's top tax bracket kicks in at just 1.5x the average income. The 69% tax bracket kicked in at $38,000 in 1955, about 8x the average income. As the article I linked to explains, deductions were much more extensive back then too. The result is that the average tax rate on say the 1% has actually not dropped that much: https://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myth.html https://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myt.... It was 40-45% in the 1950s and 1960s, and has fluctuated between 30-40% since the late 1980s.

davvolun 8y ago

So, what...U.S. should stop at around 62% upper marginal tax rate? There's a huge difference between 70% and the current U.S. marginal rate of 37% for over $500k. Argue homogeneity, small, relatively rich population all you want, we're talking about nearly double the tax rate!