Bernie's right--America should be more like Sweden: but not in the way he thinks.

• Author: Norberg, Johan
• Position: Bernie Sanders and labor policy

BERNIE SANDERS THINKS the U.S. should look to Sweden and other Scandinavian countries to "learn what they have accomplished for their working people." The Vermont senator has said so repeatedly throughout his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, prompting GOP rival Marco Rubio to say, "I think Bernie Sanders is a good candidate for president--of Sweden."

As a native of Sweden, I must admit this makes me Feel the Bern a bit. Sanders is right: America would benefit hugely from modeling her economic and social policies after her Scandinavian sisters. But Sanders should be careful what he wishes for. When he asks for "trade policies that work for the working families of our nation and not just the CEOs of large, multi-national corporations," Social Democrats in Sweden would take this to mean trade liberalization--which would have the benefit of exposing monopolist fat cats to competition--not the protectionism that Sanders favors.

In fact, when President Barack Obama visited Sweden in 2013, the three big Swedish trade unions sent him a letter requesting a meeting. Their agenda: a discussion of "how to promote free trade." The chairman of the largest Social Democratic trade union scolded the American president for his insufficient commitment to the free flow of goods.

This reality will not endear my home country to American socialists, but it's better to be hated for the right reasons than to be loved for the wrong ones, as the saying goes. Being more like modern Sweden actually means deregulation, free trade, a national school voucher system, partially privatized pensions, no property tax, no inheritance tax, and much lower corporate taxes. Sorry to burst your bubble, Bernie.

Disco-Era Socialism

Sanders isn't completely deluded, of course. Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries have experimented with very big government and semi-socialist ideas. There's just one problem: That experiment coincided almost perfectly with the region's only sustained period of economic decline over the last 100 years.

Sanders' image of Scandinavia is just like the rest of his policies: stuck in the 1970s. Until that decade, Sweden and Denmark had grown much faster than other European countries and had become richer than most other countries on the planet, in large part by limiting government and embracing markets. (Norway is a special case, because oil and gas make up 22 percent of GDP, just a few percentage points below Venezuela. So unless Sanders' policy proposal is to strike oil, the Norwegian example is not relevant.)

During its laissez faire period, between 1850 and 1950, Swedish income per capita increased eightfold as the population doubled. Infant mortality fell from 15 to 2 percent, and life expectancy increased by a whopping 28 years. And all this happened before the welfare state was even a glint in the taxman's eye.

As late as 1970, total taxes as a percent of GDP in Denmark and Sweden were not just lower than in other European countries but lower than in the U.S.: 20 and 19 percent, respectively, vs. 24 percent in America.

It was at this point, when we Scandinavians had satisfied our thirst, that we thought that we could turn our backs to the well. We began to regulate. We increased taxes and beefed up the public sector. It's easy to see how foreigners observing the implementation of these unorthodox policies might confuse cause and effect. But those who think the semi-socialism made us rich would also probably look at a snapshot of Bill Gates and conclude that you become the world's...