25/01/2005 4:29:52 pm
A Little Less Conversation? Yesterday evening, I spoke before some 170 people involved in the building industry about future prosperity and welfare services. More than half of them were not managing directors but politicians and civil servants. At the dinner afterwards I had a most interesting discussion with a local Social Democrat politician. He said that my kind of society with a small state, low taxes and private welfare services would be good for the rich and bad for the poor. Thus, he didn?t agree at all. A classic. So I told him the fact that out of 100 SEK that an average Swede pays in tax, only 20 SEK are resdistributed to somebody else. The other 80 SEK get back to the same person, as various public services and social security. Thus, if you let people keep most of the 80 SEK that anyway are not resdistributed to others, you can lower taxes radically. You could even raise the resdistributed 20 SEK to 25 or something - and still have vastly lower taxes. Then you get more money for the poor and the rest can purchase any welfare services they like. Replying to this, the Social Democrat simply said that I "want another kind of society" - implying still, despite these facts, that he had the moral high ground, that his society is better. Damn right I want another society. And that would be a society where we don?t only have more freedom but also better welfare - for all. The society of today is an enemy to those in need. Don?t use the poor to keep that system and thus to keep them in worse living standards than what could be possible!