The US was not an economic power until after the Civil War, or in other words, roughly only the last two decades of the 1800s, which coincided with major techno

The US was not an economic power until after the Civil War, or in other words, roughly only the last two decades of the 1800s, which coincided with major technological advances such as the development of the steamship and the cotton gin. The first two decades of the 1900s coincided with a major bust cycle which did not end until after the passage of the first income tax. The US had marginal tax rates as high as 90% during the post-WWII boom. During the boom of the 1990s, tax rates were higher than they were during the Reagan or Bush II eras. Sweden, at roughly 9.5 million people, is smaller than most major US cities, let alone metropolitan areas. It simply does not have the sort of expenses that a large nation must deal with. Further, as others have noted, Sweden's industrial base was not damaged in WWII, allowing it to avoid the type of spending that most other European nations had to deal with. Ireland's boom resulted in an even larger bust. The key driver of the boom was reduced regulations which led to rampant overspeculation by financial institutions (i.e., essentially the same thing that happened with the U.S. mortgage market). Estonia's economic boom is the result of the discovery and exploitation of massive oil shale reserves. Unlike most oil-producing nations, Estonia is not requiring extractors to compensate, clean up, or otherwise mitigate the environmental damage. Singapore has increased taxes several times since 2003, with minimal effects to its growing GDP. Hong Kong has also increased taxes regularly, to pay for vastly expanded government services.