Sweden has some of the world's highest taxes, so why is the taxman so popular with the Swedes?

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.

  • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    62·
    7 months ago

    Yes, it’s also bizarre. I live in a very left leaning area… people are generally for things like this… but no in their school districts, because they don’t want their undeserving neighbors to ‘get a handout’ while they are ‘hard working’. People seem to get offended by the notion that we’d all be better off… because then nobody ‘wins’.

    It’s monkey-brain thinking taking over. People are all for progress… until they feel it affects them in some personal way and they are ‘getting theirs’.

    • dumpsterlid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      7 months ago

      It’s monkey-brain thinking taking over

      This is far more needlessly cruel than nature, monkeys are highly evolved for an extraordinarily challenging, diverse landscape with many threats and opportunities. They are not primitive enough to have their minds broken by cancerous ideologies that make them behave against the survival of themselves and their species.

      What we are talking about is not primitive behavior, it is a hostile contagion composed of ideas rather than bacteria or viruses.