Sweden is infamous for having some of the highest taxes in the world, and yet the country’s tax agency is still one of Sweden’s most trusted institutions.
The Swedish attitude towards tax contrasts sharply with many countries where taxes can be a deeply divisive issue. We investigate what this says about Swedish society and how the popularity of the welfare state might survive growing challenges in the future.
Sweden has historically been ethnically close to homogeneous (until the 20th century, life in Scandinavia was hard, and few wanted to move there) and has a relatively flat social hierarchy, meaning that redistributive taxation to fund services is popular (after all, if everyone needs a specific service, having the government provide it through taxes is an economy of scale). America, meanwhile, was founded on racial slavery, which resulted in a racial hierarchy (i.e., the definition of who counts as “white” shifting over time), and there’s a non-negligible proportion of voters who would resent being taxed extra to help lift those below them in this hierarchy closer to their level.