Is the Welfare State poisoning Sweden's national character?

[Lenny]

Those “Depressed” Hell’s Angels — and Other Tales of Woe from Sweden

The Swedish people are among the healthiest in the world, according to the World Health Organization. But they also rank at the top in a second category: 13 percent of working age Swedes live on disability payments-- the highest proportion in the world. The Wall Street Journal tried to explain this conundrum in a front page article last week.

In part, it’s because Swedes can’t say no to an ever-expanding array of welfare programs. Today, those (supposedly) unable to work because of disabling illnesses receive 80 percent of their salary, up to a maximum of about $3,735 per month. This benefit can continue for years.

On top of generous benefits, Swedes are also finding new medical labels for a host of what used to be considered life’s ordinary travails. Some of these new illnesses are in the allergy department. Hundreds of Swedes, for example, have been diagnosed as allergic to electricity. But newly-minted psychological conditions account for most of the boom. Over 20 percent of the population now complains of various anxiety syndromes.

As a result, problems are cropping up all over.

Take the Hell’s Angels biker gang in Stockholm. Seventy percent are on extended sick benefits because a doctor certified them as suffering from depression. During the month-long World Cup soccer finals in 2002, sick leave benefits among Swedish men soared a whopping 55 percent.

The problem is not confined to a few high-profile scandals. Sweden’s budget for disability benefits has gone through the roof, requiring ever-higher taxes on a population already struggling to cope with an aging work force. And the problem couldn’t have come at a worse time. Sweden, and Europe generally “are finding themselves increasingly unable to compete with lower-cost countries in the new global economy.

What’s the worst thing about Sweden’s all-encompassing government security blanket? Its effect on the character of the Swedish people:


Assar Lindbeck, one of Sweden’s best-known economists, says the lenient welfare state has changed the country over the past generation. In place of the old Protestant work ethic, it has become acceptable to feel unable to work and to live on benefits, he says. “I would not call it cheating,’ Prof. Lindbeck says. “I would call it a drift in attitudes and social norms.’

By being so accommodating, the Swedish system has encouraged Swedes to treat life’s tribulations as clinical issues requiring sick leave, posits Anna Hedborg, a former Social Democrat cabinet minister: “As time has passed, we have medicalized all sorts of problems.’

The next time that Congress or the Minnesota Legislature proposes a big ticket program or benefit increase for some group claiming distress, we should require our law-makers to read up on human nature’s inherent flaws.

Chapter One in this reading assignment? The sorry state of Sweden.

http://kerstenblog.startribune.com/kerstenblog/?p=176


...What do you think?

[Absinthe]

Well, I come from a country were exactly the opposite is true: no welfare at all, public health facilities compare to those of the 3rld World, also mothers are not only not given incentives but they receive absolutely no protection/support from the State.
They can be fired at any time even during pregnancy and there is no law to protect them.

That been said, our people is dying out due to low birth rates (who came blame them?) and also dying out due to bad health services.
If you don't have the money to pay a private hospital or bribe the doctor and the hospital staff, you're surely in for some unpleasant surprises.

Sweden went to the other extreme, and hands out benefits indiscriminately... Yes I think benefits and social welfare are important and should exist, but not to the point of abusing them. Apply stricter rules as to who gets them and prevent those who are cabable of working from getting benefits.

[SuuT]

Here's the deal. Scandinavian welfare states - Sweden in particular - are in constant capitulation to any group that cries out that they are being discriminated against - typically non-ethnic (non-Racial nordics) Swedes. I did not until late consider this a problem, in so far as I undertand the motive of secular Scandinavians, in general; which is to say that as quickly as they (aliens) will be assisted, they can - and will - be booted-out, so long as the threat to indigenous Nordic values remains, and increases, to the point of detriament to Lagum.


What the posted article - per usual - fails to state is the Racial composition/Ethnic composition of those seeking free shit.


What I think is that despite the seemingly never ending wellsping of Swedish criticism from outlanders (and more generally, Scandinavian/Nordisk), Lagum (best translated to 'modesty' in English, IMO) will win the day.

In other words, and as implied: just as quick as a Swede (and Scandinavians, more generally) is (are) willing to allow aliens into their respective midsts - they can - and will - be ejected.



Give it 2 or 3 years. - Not all Vikingr went avikiing.

[Solwyn]

I remember reading an article written by a Norwegian journalist a few years ago, but damnit, I can't remember his name. What he said, in a nutshell, was that the welfare systems of the Scandinavian countries, plus Canada, were in the state that they were because of incompatible cultures. Basically, they worked for a while because everyone in the country was of the similar stock and their work ethic meant that they would only use the system if they had to. With the onslaught of open immigration over the past few decades and the push for multiculturalism, the journalist argued that our social safety nets were being compromised by people who saw them as a gravy train, and that this attitude has trickled down into larger society.

One of the points he made was that we no longer just take in immigrants from compatible cultures, but that we take them from anywhere and this is detrimental to our infrastructure in the long run. Another point was that when you look at who is coming in, we are not getting the best from those countries, we are getting the one who were at the bottom of the totem pole in their homeland. Instead of using the opportunities available to them to do better, many just recreate the same hellhole they left behind.

Two years ago the Canadian Minister of Immigration said in a press conference that multiculturalism did not work at all. Funny, LOL, how that 30 second soundbyte never travelled very far.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution, other than closing our borders, which would not fly with the public. That may change, though, if enough of us keep getting caught in the crossfire between all the damned gangs that spring up where these populations flourish.

[Absinthe]

Basically, they worked for a while because everyone in the country was of the similar stock and their work ethic meant that they would only use the system if they had to.

Hallelujah!! Now that's a voice of reason, innit? :)

[SuuT]

I remember reading an article written by a Norwegian journalist a few years ago, but damnit, I can't remember his name. What he said, in a nutshell, was that the welfare systems of the Scandinavian countries, plus Canada, were in the state that they were because of incompatible cultures. Basically, they worked for a while because everyone in the country was of the similar stock and their work ethic meant that they would only use the system if they had to. With the onslaught of open immigration over the past few decades and the push for multiculturalism, the journalist argued that our social safety nets were being compromised by people who saw them as a gravy train, and that this attitude has trickled down into larger society.

One of the points he made was that we no longer just take in immigrants from compatible cultures, but that we take them from anywhere and this is detrimental to our infrastructure in the long run. Another point was that when you look at who is coming in, we are not getting the best from those countries, we are getting the one who were at the bottom of the totem pole in their homeland. Instead of using the opportunities available to them to do better, many just recreate the same hellhole they left behind.

Two years ago the Canadian Minister of Immigration said in a press conference that multiculturalism did not work at all. Funny, LOL, how that 30 second soundbyte never travelled very far.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution, other than closing our borders, which would not fly with the public. That may change, though, if enough of us keep getting caught in the crossfire between all the damned gangs that spring up where these populations flourish.


You are absolutely correct. However, it must be take to mind that Scandianavian countries have long been 'Asylum' states - Sweden, particularly. One need only look at the demographics of Sweden since the Occupation of Iraq for proof of this (many of whom are leaving on their own accord, not so incidentally...)

Again, and to - perhaps - punctuate the matter more thouroughly: there is no greater will to compomise than in Sweden (with the possible, and irreversible, exception of France). HOWEVER (and, gods willing, more Scandianavians will chime-in here....{!}), the Scandinavian will to compromise is so utterly differential to all others as to to be the exception to the rule. Which, again, is to say that it is based ona tolerant modesty.



And I believe (I may be wrong) that the Norwegian journalist you speak of is named Sigurd Hansen.