Perhaps related: Sweden is one of the very few European countries that never had serfdom. Swedish peasants were of course dirt poor, but they were free citizens

Perhaps related: Sweden is one of the very few European countries that never had serfdom. Swedish peasants were of course dirt poor, but they were free citizens, and had 1/4 of the voting power in the ancient version of parliament¹. The reason I've heard for this is that most of the country was (and is) forest. Enough forest that you can hide from, and/or ambush, anyone coming to mess with you. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksdag_of_the_Estates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksdag_of_the_Estates