SWEDEN: The Waste of Nations

Section: Members Highlights / WTA Blog
18 March 2023 | Skattebetalarna / Sweden
Sweden

The Swedish Taxpayers Association, Skattebetalarna, has launched an international campaign against waste.
In 1776, Scottish thinker Adam Smith wrote the book The Wealth of Nations to explain why countries grow rich. The Waste of Nations is about the opposite – how countries waste money and become poor. This waste is not accidental and it cannot all be laid at the door of individuals, political parties, or interests. There are patterns and underlying mechanisms that are well documented in economic research. The Waste of Nations describes five different categories of waste: political posturing, pork barrel politics, crony capitalism, rent seeking and bureaucracy.  In practice, they are not mutually exclusive and in fact interact in different situations, together resulting in suboptimal use of taxpayers’ money
At wasteofnations.com you are encouraged to contribute examples of waste. Read the report here.