These days all of it has been privatized, which has made it more expensive and not nearly as reliable.

Even government institutions, like the tax office have gone seriously downhill lately. You used to be able to go there and get professional help in reasonable time. These days it's a joke in comparison. There isn't even a tax office anymore, it's been lumped together with the unemployment office and God knows what and staffed with immigrants just of the bus who don't know shit about anything.

You used to be able to ask the police for help and expect to get it, politely; these days I'm more afraid of cops than criminals to be honest.

I could go on and on.

I moved to Sweden 2 months ago (from Seattle, where I grew up) but over the last decade I’ve lived in Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok, and Reykjavik. The government here feels most similar to the US, worse in some ways. Paperwork is like a hobby and doing it slowly is almost glorified.

I love it in many ways, but it’s baffling that I still don’t have a government ID, and am months away from getting a bank account. (Which would block me from getting a paycheck if I wasn’t high enough to at my company to get an exception and wire to my U.S./EU accounts. But for most relocated employees, they just don’t get paid for the first few months). The HR here says this is something they can’t change because it’s legal requirements from the government? But they just shrug and say that’s the Swedish way it works because it’s been working. And now I’m too embarrassed to hire the people I need to until I have good workarounds for these processes (there are many more issues).

As a Swede with history of what used to be good, and what’s working in other places, what would it take to get Sweden to correct these aspects of the way things are run?

The free healthcare and elderly care used to be quite fast and humane. The very professional healthcare is still available for those with serious illnesses, but it's very difficult getting an appointment for more benign problems, dentist appointments, etc. The elderly care has changed so it's now almost a luxury to be accepted to the (still quite expensive) public retirement homes, that are burdened with huge waiting lists nowadays. Most elderly people have to resort to treatment at home, staffed by young or otherwise fairly low skilled carers who spend very little time with their clients. We are talking mere minutes per visit, mainly to hand out pills and serve food. Those carers often spend as much time on TikTok in their cars as they are interacting with clients. This sounds like hyperbole but is based on my own experience as a carer, as a neighbor to those receiving this care, and as someone with multiple people in my close family having worked as carers.

It is very difficult to phone the police to report a low-severity crime - ongoing or not - such as for example fraud, noise violations or reckless driving. You are not supposed to dial the emergency number if the crime in question is not in danger of hurting anyone. So how would we report vandalism for example? We wait on the phone for up to two hours only to hang up before we get the chance to even report the crime. This affects the statistics. Any criminals are long gone if we reach the police at all. This is caused by an overwhelmed law enforcement and is how children mostly get away with torching cars as a service for criminal older teenagers.

Schools have degraded immensely for some reason. This is not an immigration problem although I believe that may play a part in some parts of the country. The biggest issue is what can only be described as some sort of ADHD pandemic, where classrooms are disorderly to the point where kids are offered over-ear hearing protection to be able to focus when their classmates are making too much noise. When I went to school in the 90s, we had our fair share of fights, students that were acting out and teachers that couldn't be bothered. But it was nothing like it is today, and I don't really know who to blame. I think the teachers are doing their best, I think most parents are engaged and want the best for their kids, and I think most kids see the problem themselves. But even the best schools have these problems. My kids go to a fairly high profile school with unusually strict policies that are actually enforced, but they've still had alcohol and drugs in school, thefts, violent acts and a general environment that is making it difficult for the kids to learn. I suspect older teachers are more successful than their younger colleagues but that is merely anecdotal.

20-30 years ago our mostly social democratic parents used to complain that Sweden was slowly "turning into the USA" (meaning: a society where the rich prosper while the poor suffer), and now it's really starting to feel like that to me as well. Our society has been getting very cold lately and I'm not sure this is where I want to grow old anymore. Not that there are any alternatives, really. The free healthcare and education is still awesome when you need it and most of us can't imagine where to relocate to, because we are after all used to a fairly well functioning society. I would be quite happy if we went back to where we were 40 years ago.

Freedom of speech (and negative freedoms in general).