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Comment by marginalia_nu | Hacker News Reader

I have a theory that countries that fought the powers that be in one of the many revolutions have a fundamentally different relationship to their institutions than countries that never did (like Sweden).

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> I have a theory that countries that fought the powers that be in one of the many revolutions have a fundamentally different relationship to their institutions than countries that never did (like Sweden).

That's a very interesting theory. Sweden's laws didn't develop in a vacuum, no doubt also being influence by both British and French thinkers, and perhaps also Germans. Bordering Denmark-Norway also had very liberal press laws, and during the 1770's the most liberal in the entire world.

So, you could just as easily say that it is rather because of the liberal laws that major revolutions and oppression of the people were avoided in these countries (while there were certainly disputes in regards to general national hegemony, but then we're taking one nation-state versus another, and not so much the state versus the people).

There's still a difference, the Swedish population was allowed enough liberties as to not start chopping off heads. This makes the power balance quite different. It's freedom on the terms of the powers that be, not a freedom that anyone died for, a freedom that can be reasoned about and where compromises can be made.

Ditto. In my whereabouts regime changed 5-10 times since 1900 depending on how you count. With several fight-for-freedom with different vectors. 1800s was more stable, but dotted with uprisings. No stone was left unturned. Multiple times.

The result? General notion is the government is jackasses and fuck authority in general. Which is vastly different from trust-the-government feeling in, for example, Sweden. This was (and still is, decades later) the biggest cultural shock to me.

Sweden may also be a bit of an outlier in that it has a fairly young collective sense of identity, essentially rebuilding from scratch in the mid-late 19th century well into the 20th century, recovering from the century of poverty, squalor, and collective shame that followed the failed imperial ambitions of Charles XII; like really, it's a past most people would rather not dwell on.

Dunno what's a good analogy. It's like Japan, except the a-bombs fell during the Edo period and the entire country was like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsx2vdn7gpY for 150 years.

I seriously doubt this. How can an entire people be responsible for what its king decides to do? Moreover, there's always been a strong bond between Scandinavian despite living under different rulers and conditions. But fair enough, counties were more marginalized 1000 years ago, and as such they could act in a more insular way, though that isn't particularly unique to Sweden.

It's not really about the wars, but rather the unimaginable shithole Sweden turned into as a consequence of the war spending. It really can't be overstated how bad things were in Sweden in most of the 18th and 19th century.

As far as I know, this is largely a myth. Compared to most other European countries, Sweden and Scandinavia weren't really doing too bad, but when you compare the conditions in Europe to the relative freedom you could attain in the New World, many did of course decide to leave. I'm happy if you have examples to the contrary, though, or can show how Sweden was a lot worse off than, say, Preussia or other nations of that time.

True that, it also shows in their privacy laws

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