Modern Sweden:

In fact, contemporary Sweden is much less socialist than many Americans realize. Since the early 1990s, when it suffered a painful financial crisis, the Scandinavian country has deregulated key industries (such as airlines, telecommunications, and electricity), lowered its overall tax burden, established universal school vouchers, partially privatized its pension system, abolished certain government monopolies, sold a number of state-owned enterprises (including the parent company of Absolut vodka), and trimmed public spending. Several years ago, it eliminated gift and inheritance taxes. The World Economic Forum now ranks Sweden as the second-most competitive economy on earth, behind only Switzerland. According to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom (compiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation), Sweden offers greater business freedom, trade freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, and property-rights protection than does the United States...

Yet certain aspects of the old Swedish model have proved stubbornly resistant to change. For example, the government-run health-care system remains plagued by long waiting times, and onerous labor regulations make it very difficult for companies to hire or fire workers. Labor-market rigidity has contributed to a yawning employment gap between natives and immigrants, which has retarded the process of integrating Swedish Muslims.