<story><title>The World’s Most Innovative Economies</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-17/sweden-gains-south-korea-reigns-as-world-s-most-innovative-economies</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>OskarS</author><text>&amp;gt;The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“In the culture, people are super individualistic — this means that people have ideas and are very interested in pursuing them in this way in order to become wealthy,” said Henrekson.&lt;p&gt;This is very true, and a thing which is often misunderstood about the Swedish mindset. The sterotype of Swedes is frequently that we&amp;#x27;re a bunch of socialists who all believe that everyone should work for the collective good. That&amp;#x27;s totally wrong.&lt;p&gt;Sweden is perhaps one of the most individualistic countries in the world: we value the individual over the family or community, and we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities regardless of the circumstances of their birth. This is the reason we have the social safety net we have: it is a substitute for family and community and other more traditional support systems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kxyvr</author><text>As an American who lived in Scandinavia for a few years and spent a fair amount of time in Sweden, I will say that Jantelagen:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Law_of_Jante&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Law_of_Jante&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;takes some getting used to and has an affect on the business environment.  At this point, I do believe that someone can be just as effective in business in Scandinavia as other places like the U.S., but my first two years were difficult until I understood how to navigate these social norms.  Mostly, this is to say that, even beyond immigration and paperwork, I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s exactly simple for someone outside to move to Sweden to take advantage of these opportunities.  I think opportunity is there, but it takes some adapting to things like Jante&amp;#x27;s Law.</text></comment>
<story><title>The World’s Most Innovative Economies</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-17/sweden-gains-south-korea-reigns-as-world-s-most-innovative-economies</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>OskarS</author><text>&amp;gt;The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“In the culture, people are super individualistic — this means that people have ideas and are very interested in pursuing them in this way in order to become wealthy,” said Henrekson.&lt;p&gt;This is very true, and a thing which is often misunderstood about the Swedish mindset. The sterotype of Swedes is frequently that we&amp;#x27;re a bunch of socialists who all believe that everyone should work for the collective good. That&amp;#x27;s totally wrong.&lt;p&gt;Sweden is perhaps one of the most individualistic countries in the world: we value the individual over the family or community, and we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities regardless of the circumstances of their birth. This is the reason we have the social safety net we have: it is a substitute for family and community and other more traditional support systems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fornever</author><text>While I agree with your overall point I unfortunately don&amp;#x27;t think your characterization of Sweden is true anymore.&lt;p&gt;Your education prospects now depend on which school you go to, especially with blatant grade inflation. My friends are putting their kids in queue for elite elementary school the day after they are born. Even if you can make it to college the traditional route you&amp;#x27;ll have trouble finding an apartment and keeping your student benefits.&lt;p&gt;Healthcare is a complicated system of public funded private institutions that regularly and willingly violate the law on things like time before you get to see a specialist. I always used to like the Swedish healthcare system until I realized I&amp;#x27;ve always visited the same doctors that I knew.&lt;p&gt;Unemployment benefits doesn&amp;#x27;t apply (or atleast appeal) to former students or short contract workers these days. You have to go the welfare office and even they have no problem denying you means. You&amp;#x27;ll probably won&amp;#x27;t have much job security anyways since you&amp;#x27;ll be hired as a contractor.&lt;p&gt;Housing, especially in Stockholm, is a mess that won&amp;#x27;t be solved anytime soon. It makes the effects of everything worse. Commute time, work-life balance, even the weather.&lt;p&gt;I honestly think Sweden is one of the best countries in the world, but it&amp;#x27;s not a good deal anymore. If you got established ten years ago and could go to school before rampant youth unemployment, got an apartment before housing prices skyrocketed, know which doctors to go to, get a stable job where it makes sense to join the union etc. then it&amp;#x27;s great. You can study at university for seven years, some of them abroad, work for a few years, go on paternity leave for the better part of a year, move abroad for some time, then come back to your stable job again, leave your employer and get hired back as a consultant and if you don&amp;#x27;t find work go on unemployment. All this while you make a workers salary in housing appreciation, take vacations three times a year and get to use your parent country house in the summers.&lt;p&gt;Bottom line is that increasingly only the rich can afford to take advantage of the social safety net these days and I think it&amp;#x27;s starting to show even with things like startups. It was apparent very early that companies like Spotify, Klarna, Mojang etc. would be successful. I don&amp;#x27;t see many of these types of early successes anymore (but that might be my own ignorance of course).&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s increasingly nothing special about Sweden.</text></comment>