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Companies like Volvo, Eriksson, Ikea were created under the Swedish social democratic welfare state so I see no reason why Microsoft or Apple couldn't be created in that environment.
Remember that Nordic countries work with their corporations to create a better society. Sweden has a simple 22% flat corporate tax.
My impression is that it is a two-way street. By and large, the corporations do not spend huge amounts of money to reduce, privatize, or abolish safety net programs - which include universal health care and very generous parental leave - or trash public education.
There are some true right-wingers in sweden who sound just like US tea partiers, not sure whether they are gaining traction.
I'm always entertained by threads like this from American conservatives because they are always so brainwashed as to what socialism is. They have no clue.
First, I am a socialist. Socialism is a big tent just like Liberalism and Conservatism which contains many sub ideologies. Specifically, I'm a market socialist which means I believe that the overarching pillars of the economy should be publicly owned (i.e. energy, infrastructure, education, healthcare, security, etc.) while consumer goods ate completely privatized but favoring small businesses. Basically in my ideology, business are taxed based on their overall footprint on the economy. Small businesses would have no income tax, small local chains 5%, small regional chains 10%, large regional chains 15%, nationwide chains 25%, and multinational corporations 40%. This type of tax structure discourages consolidation while encouraging greater competition.
The Democratic Party is not socialist. At all. Their ideology is similar to the Liberal Party of Canada, the Liberal Democrats of the UK, the Free Democrats of Germany, MoDem of France, etc. Basically they are pure liberals which is a form of capitalism. Under the Liberal tent they fall under social liberals...i.e. trying to use a somewhat to slightly regulated free market to create equality. Similar to these other parties, they are very much pro big business but they try to encourage businesses to be more responsible with their money. In general they do not favor publicly owned entities.
Conservatives of course basically want a free for all in the business sector with everything privatized.
Once you understand these concepts, then it is worth continuing this discussion.
Companies like Volvo, Eriksson, Ikea were created under the Swedish social democratic welfare state so I see no reason why Microsoft or Apple couldn't be created in that environment.
I bet they exist because of help from government subsidies.
I used to work for a company with its home base in Sweeden, and they got government subsidies.
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