Aug 14, 2026 · 6 min · 5 segments
Steve Forbes breaks down the truth of what happened when socialism was tried out in Sweden, and explains why the Scandinavian nation learned its lesson the hard way and moved decisively away from the…
Steve ForbesHost
Socialists are seeking control of the Democrat Party and making progress there, and they hope to get control of the entire country soon.
To reassure voters, they routinely hold up Sweden as proof that generous socialism and prosperity can coexist.
That image, though, is decades out of date, as noted historian Rainer Zitelmann points out in his eye-opening, path-breaking documentary called What Sweden Got Right.
In fact, a strong case can be made that Sweden today is more capitalist than the U.S.
It ranks 10th in the world for economic freedom, ahead of the United States and Britain.
The interesting thing is that Sweden only got there after a near-catastrophic descent into welfare socialism that started in the 1960s.
Previous to the 1960s, Sweden's largely free-market policies made it a vibrant, very prosperous country.
Spending as a proportion of GDP surged to an astronomical 70%, about twice what the U.S. is today.
Zitelmann pointed to a welfare system that had grown so generous that it discouraged work altogether.
Its economy became lethargic and its socialist excesses increasingly unsupportable.
The bursting of a massive real estate bubble in the early 1990s made painfully clear that Sweden's socialist economy was unsustainable.
Commercial occupancy rates fell, asset prices collapsed, and the country's largest banks faced insolvency.
Socialists are seeking control of the Democrat Party and making progress there, and they hope to get control of the entire country soon.
To reassure voters, they routinely hold up Sweden as proof that generous socialism and prosperity can coexist.
That image, though, is decades out of date, as noted historian Rainer Zitelmann points out in his eye-opening, path-breaking documentary called What Sweden Got Right.
In fact, a strong case can be made that Sweden today is more capitalist than the U.S.
It ranks 10th in the world for economic freedom, ahead of the United States and Britain.
The interesting thing is that Sweden only got there after a near-catastrophic descent into welfare socialism that started in the 1960s.
Previous to the 1960s, Sweden's largely free-market policies made it a vibrant, very prosperous country.
Spending as a proportion of GDP surged to an astronomical 70%, about twice what the U.S. is today.
Zitelmann pointed to a welfare system that had grown so generous that it discouraged work altogether.
Its economy became lethargic and its socialist excesses increasingly unsupportable.
The bursting of a massive real estate bubble in the early 1990s made painfully clear that Sweden's socialist economy was unsustainable.
Commercial occupancy rates fell, asset prices collapsed, and the country's largest banks faced insolvency.
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