Two historic countries, moving in opposite -- and unexpected --
directions. "Sweden" isn't the first word that normally crosses
our minds when we hear the expression "free market." But if
President Obama, Paul Krugman, Warren Buffett, and other
progressives want to find ways out of America's seemingly-
intractable economic crisis, they might consider looking to the
country once viewed as the very model of a modern Social
Democracy. They're likely to be surprised -- and probably
appalled -- by what they discover. For while America has opted
for more deficit-spending, bailouts, socialized medicine, easy
money, failed state-subsidized Solyndra-like green businesses,
"job-plans," and thus-far unsuccessful efforts to raise taxes,
Sweden has been quietly turning social democracy into a museum-
piece. No one will be surprised to learn that Sweden was among
the first European countries to create a modern welfare state.
Between 1911 and 1914, Karl Staaff's Liberal government
introduced some of Europe's first national pe