Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2016
2014: 8.42, Rank: 15, Personal Freedom: 9.37, Economic Freedom: 7.46, Democracy Index: 9.69
Territory in northern Europe, ruled since 1905 by the Konungariket Sverige
Sweden (Swedish: Sverige), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige), is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometers, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million of which 2.4 million has a foreign background. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometer. The highest concentration is in the southern half of the country.
Measures of Freedom
Level of Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of the World
2014: 7.46, Rank: 38
2014: 7.46, Rank: 38
Sweden | Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016
2016: Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 100, Political Rights: 1, Civil Liberties: 1
2016: Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 100, Political Rights: 1, Civil Liberties: 1
"More than 160,000 people—the vast majority fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq—applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015, placing severe pressure on the country's ability to process applications and accommodate new arrivals. Meanwhile, the 2014 agreement between the social-democratic government and center-right opposition on budget proposals, designed to curb the controversial right-wing Sweden Democrats party, was broken in October, expanding the Sweden Democrats' capacity to influence the response to the refugee crisis and other national policies."
Articles
How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden, by Per Bylund, Mises Daily, 31 May 2006
"Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. ... What we are now seeing ... is the perfectly logical consequence of the welfare state: when handing out benefits and thereby taking away the individual's responsibility ... a new kind of individual is created — the immature, irresponsible, and dependent."
The Sweden Myth, by Stefan Karlsson, Mises Daily, 7 Aug 2006
"... far-reaching free market reforms in the 1860s allowed Sweden to benefit from the spreading Industrial Revolution. ... during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sweden saw its economy rapidly industrializing, driven by the many Swedish inventors and entrepreneurs. ... In addition, there were countless non-inventing entrepreneurs during that period ..."
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sweden" as of 01 Oct 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.