HELP! I need somebody!

Albeit recent tentative attempts at liberalisation by the divisive centre-right coalition government, hiring domestic help remains a controversial bone of contention in Swedish politics.

The antipathy towards domestic help is rooted in the Swedish interpretation of egalitarianism, where the relationship between help and employer is assumed to be oppressive and un-democratic.

The opposition percieves this type of contractual relationship to pull society at large back to the days of 19th-century master and servant proto-feudalism when set in the context of individual homes - although professional cleaning and similar services are considered unproblematic within the confines of institutions and corporations.

To ideologically discourage the use of domestic help, steep taxes on domestic labour was in the late 1960's put in place, which immediately created a very large underground market for low-skilled workers.

It's not really like this, is it?

During the 90's the parliament engaged in heated debates on how to address this black-market problem which became known as "The maid-debate" in which proponents of liberalisation generally were painted as unscrupulous cigar-smoking conservatives with little regard for humanistic values. Both status quo and black market was maintained.

During the following decade it was established that the domestic taxation policies pushed actual tax-revenue to the wrong end of the Laffer-curve, and that it would make fiscal sense to relax the prohibitive cost of domestic labour (70% of nothing is still nothing when capital is forced underground).

(At this point I would like to remind non-swedish readers that all this fuss basically comes down to whether people should be allowed to pay market-rates for a professional cleaner or not.)

As lowering labour-taxes would have been political suicide and pounced on as a dismantling of Swedish democracy itself, a subsidy system was introduced through which 50% of domestic labour costs could be claimed back when filing the annual tax-return.

Albeit administratively cumbersome and somewhat back-handed, the reform proved immensely popular, with legal home improvements surging as a result.

I have never seen so many new-built wooden patio decks as when
I visited post-reform Sweden!

To put things into perspective, this blogger has found the post claim-back monthly rates for 10 hours of professional domestic cleaning to clock in at around £350 which by most standards would be considered uncompetitively high. (If you know where to find a better deal, you know where the comments section is!)

Those coming out against the reform generally cite "subsidizing the rich" as a key argument. Practically, subsidies that reward certain sectors of the economy unfairly should indeed, in the opinion of this blog, be discarded in favour of a general and equal lowering of tax on labour. Loss of short-term labour-tax revenues can easily be mitigated with increased overall tax-returns from turning black markets white, and possibly by adjusted green taxes on consumption.

As the debate (if not a storm in a teacup, perhaps in a kettle) lingers, with the moral fibre of procurers of domestic labour in question, the epitome of the conflict might concern professional nannies, as I unwittingly came to experience when jollily asking around on where to find one.

If paying for housework in Sweden is understood as morally objectionable, then paying for an extra pair of hands to help out with the children is by some perceived as positively evil: if you love your children, you take care of them yourself at all times (although using friends, grandparents and council-run daycare is fine) - hire a helper and you should not have bothered starting a family in the first place.

In this context, reason-based arguments of personal circumstances are of little consequence and generally dismissed as irrelevant at best and improper at worst.

All this is made the more absurd considering Sweden's high unemployment figures for youth and the low-skilled. In the apparent discrepancy between ideological conviction and the practical socio-economic situation, it would seem ideology is besting the desperate need for a simple entry for low-skilled onto the taxable labour-market.

Instead much wealth has been squandered on job-coaches and expensive career-preparation programmes of frivolous utility. Thread lightly if you are to question this order of things!

In the UK, hiring help is completely unproblematic. There is no moral stigma attached to a process which during periods of the life of an ordinary family is practical and normal. We have had both a cleaner, a nanny and for a time a night-nurse to help us with our then new-born twins. A decent cleaner will in central London run you between £20 and £30 per week and we have had a wonderful relationship with our nanny who is supplementing her income to get through university. We ended up paying her around £100 per week and negotiated a flexible relationship that would work with both her schedule and ours on a week-by-week basis.

It should be duly noted that my wife also worked as a London nanny during the years in which she was completing her education - had it not been for the opportunity to do this the remaining options would have been going into debt or dropping out. The notion of "relative poverty" and the subsequent political desire to regulate everyone into becoming white-collar workers is as absurd as it is destructive. By making it difficult or impossible for the low-skilled and inexperienced to offer their services at competitive prices, income levels are not improved - instead it tells people "if you are less skilled than this, you can't work."

It needs to be established that doing domestic labour rarely is the final destination for most people, but rather a gateway to supplement income and gain first entry to the labour-market. The brilliant Polish handy-men who swamped London in 2005 have not only made the 2012 olympics at all possible, but they have also risen from DIY-cowboys to form large companies in the construction and infra-structure sectors, companies that now employ thousands of people and bring handsome tax-revenue for the HMRC.

There has been none of the Swedish implied coercion in the professional relationship between us as employers and our help. Rates are negotiated in person and to a level that is sustainable and add value for both parties. In fact, we are still in touch with our nanny on a friendly basis and might well ask to bring her along with us on

our next long-term soujour in the states next spring.

As for nannies, I find the sanctimonious swedish stance quite unbecoming for a people so concerned with not being coercive, and it will have to suffice to say that equality does not mean sameness: an individual cannot second-guess the situation of a fellow citizen by sight and demand conformism on the mere assumption that what works for me should also work for you.

Sweden:

- High tax on labour and heavy-handed minimum-wage-laws keep the

unskilled from entering the labour market and gaining skills

- Sanctimonious and judgmental attitudes to non-conformist lifestyle choices

+ The back-handed claim-back scheme for domestic labour is a step in

the right direction

UK:

+ Easy to find and hire people

+ Non-judgemental attitude to individual lifestyle choices

+ Competitive labour market sees low-skilled and immigrants forming

companies and successfully integrating into the economy

Winner:

The UK wins hands down and makes Sweden feel like a highly-strung

christian version of the DDR.

Manners: A picnic in the graveyard

"Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you."

-Anthony Blanche, Brideshead Revisited

Harsh words on the English crafted by Evelyn Waugh. I will leave it for others to determine whether this might be accurate or not, but I will say this: The Swedes do not suffer from excessive charm. Listen to this sentence and how wrong it rings: "Oh, the Swedes! They are famous around the world for their flair and charming manners!"

Let it be understood that the Swedes do not intend to be rude. Quite on the contrary, they are quite a sensitive bunch who generally are very anxious to be morally perfect.

Having said this, the lack of social protocol and politeness can sometimes be quite staggering when one comes to Sweden from the UK.

When I arrived at the central station in Malmoe, Sweden, I decided to queue up for some fast food. The person in front of me, a well-dressed grown man, stepped up to the counter and stated "One cheeseburger". The waitress, without uttering a word, popped around the back and brought him one. "Forty-five crowns", she replied. He handed over the cash. No further words were uttered. There was no "Hello", no "I would like", no "Thank you" and certainly no "Please". In Sweden, none if this is required in day-to-day transactions, although a sole "Thank you" will often be used if the service has been adequate.

Sweden is a fiercely egalitarian and aggressively secularized country, and the current state of affairs is generally considered a freedom from structural oppression. The politeness of olden days were linked to social status and class and were thus abolished during the construction of "The People's Home" - the grand-scale social-engineering project undertaken during the early 20th century. The purpose of the People's home was to create and maintain equality throughout society - a concept which in Sweden gradually also came to mean sameness: A marginal tax which peaked at 83% ensured a redistributive economy where few were wealthy, and in a somewhat Orwellian newspeak-move, titles like "Herr" (Mr), "Fru" (Mrs.) and professional titles with social status were officially abolished in favour of the all-encompassing "Du" (You).

When I went to grade-school in the early 1980's, it had been decided that writing in script should no longer be taught. Instead, a new form of print-style letters, loosely tied together with bridges was to be taught. But a person who is not taught to write script will also have a hard time reading script, and many people in my generation still struggle with reading hand-written material that is older than the 1960's.

I believe politeness follows a similar pattern: once you dismantle the social protocol - even with the best of intentions - you inadvertently will also make people blind to social protocol everywhere.

I have many times been embarrassed by fellow Swedes who fail to distinguish the polite request "A glass of dry white wine, please" with the rude order "A glass of dry white wine" when at a restaurant in the English speaking world. The former adheres to social protocol, with the please being the key that indicates respectfulness towards the waiter whereas the latter is crude and commanding.

What really took the cake though, and what prompted this blog post, was a visit to the Malmoe-Festival. This is a generally harmless but much derided affair focused on serving subpar take-away food in a public square, and it enjoys a fair bit of popularity among the villagers in the Scania country-side who make it an exciting excursion into the city.

Adjacent to the square in which paper plates with woked elkmeat and langos are handed out lies the old cemetery. The cemetery is still in use, and it is the property of the church. As I was crossing the churchyard from the park to the square I noticed several large groups of people parked on and around graves, happily drinking lager on spread-out blankets, children playing and the distinct smell of kebabs in the air. Indeed, it would seem it is generally considered acceptable to have a picnic in a graveyard in modern day Sweden.

I have no interest in being a defender of conservative morality, and I suppose some might argue that it is a nice and progressive thing to bring life and activity to a sombre place like a graveyard - but what gets me is how bizarrely different the Swedish egalitarian secularism has made them compared to the rest of the world. Though they might construe themselves as the most advanced and modern of societies, it is my firm belief that continental Europe would consider this kind of behavior nothing less than extraordinarily vulgar hedonistic barbarism of the worst kind - religious or not.

It might be relevant for Swedes to consider that the moral high-ground they like to think they occupy might not be how they and their ideologies are perceived by their European peers. The Swedes might to some extent also be perceived as that bachelor cousin who's spent too much time alone in his cabin - who although still clever and well read has come out slightly... odd: "Yeah! Come on over for a BBQ, we are equals here! ..what? Yeah, it's in the graveyard like the last time, why?"

Murderous charm or not, in the UK, people are in general very respectful and polite. Even the teenage boys who work in high street retail-stores and look too stoned to direct you towards the exit will end every sentence directed at a customer with "Sir". Even in low-end restaurants like the "Cafe Rouge" franchise we went to at Gatwick airport still presented an all-smiling cast of french waiters and waitresses.

In the UK, generally, the better educated, the better the command of social protocol and appropriate politeness. What got me as a swede was how the english politeness also can be used as a weapon.

If you are making a complaint, no matter how abysmal the error you have encountered, if you use any colourful expletive to describe the situation: you lose. They will pounce on that "crap" or "bloody" you accidentally let slip in a heated moment, and make the discussion about your behavior rather than their mistake. There is no backtracking from this - you missed a beat in the polite rephrasing of the circumstances and have now lost face and credibility - and who can take a complaint seriously when the very credibility of the complainee is in question? Next please!

In dealing with professionals it has also become clear to me that English politeness in this context is nothing more than a veneer, a social lubricant devoid of any real emotion. Everything might be love and roses when you met your landlord and agreed to move out by the 12th, only to have them stab you in the back next week with the words "Although I do not remember the 12th in particular, I wanted to let you stay out of the goodness of my heart, but now I have grown tired of your fussing" - as you had not insisted on written contracts.

Always insist on written contracts. Legalese begins where politeness ends.

Sweden:

- The normative crudeness that slowly poisons the well of refinement

+ In Swedish politeness there often tends to be some real emotion involved

UK:

+ Good service, generally very sophisticated command of social protocol

- Politeness as a weapon, backstabbing and skullduggery

Winner:

I guess it is a tie, with some extra bonus points for the UK for finesse.

The Property Ladder and The Queue

The property market in Sweden and the UK are vastly different - a point vividly illustrated when trying to move between the two countries.

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Addendum 17-08-2011:
Sweden's most reputable daily newspaper ran an article today which illustrates the situation I am relating in this blog post. This quote from the article is the most striking example of the Swedish property market situation - where waiting has become currency:

"Do you understand that tenants who have invested decades of waiting time in public housing get upset?"

The original article (in Swedish) can be found here:

http://www.dn.se/sthlm/hon-kan-snuvas-pa-17-ar-i-bostadskon

A direct Google Translate to English - comprehendible although somewhat funny - can be found here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.se%2Fsthlm%2Fhon-kan-snuvas-pa-17-ar-i-bostadskon&act=url

_________________________________________________________________

Sweden has a long tradition of life-long renting, particularly in urban areas. Buying a flat was by many considered a slightly suspicious activity well into the eighties. It is in fact not possible to actually own a flat in Sweden at all under normal circumstances - you own a share in the company that owns the building and are thus granted the right to live in a certain flat and engage in light DIY. You are allowed to buy and sell these "accommodation-rights" as they are referred to, but are also required to pay a monthly fee to the holding company.

What you can and can't do in an accommodation-right is tightly regulated. You cannot buy to let. In most instances you actually need to prove that you are occupying the flat as your primary residence - as if that was any of their business.

One might wonder why anyone would choose to buy a flat in this climate? The reason is because of how heavy-handed rent-control has distorted the rental market.

There is no real market for estate-agents in the rental sector, while this may sound like a blessing, it is actually a curse. In Sweden strict rent-controls are in place - with the best of intentions - to try to maintain affordable housing for all income levels in the city centres. They have succeeded inasmuch as keeping the rents exceptionally low.

The knock-on-effect is dramatic: as rental prices became uncompetitive already in the 1970's construction of new rental units came to an abrupt halt - and even today only a trickle of new rental units come onto the market.

As a consequence this has frozen the market altogether - those who have a first-hand contract for a ridiculously cheap city centre flat can never give it up as they are practically unobtainable and represent an enormous locked-in value. In the bigger cities this has created a massive black market in which second- and even third-hand rental contracts illegally are being traded with juicy mark-ups.

For the landlords of properties with regulated and low-performing rents, it also means that they generally can triple the property value by selling off the rental units and turning the property into "accommodation-rights" instead.

The long-term consequence of the regulated rental market in Sweden has thus had the following results:

1) The creation of a black market in which rental contracts are traded at high prices.

2) Ten-year long queues for those trying to obtain legitimate first hand rental contracts in city centers.

3) A strong incentive for property owners to sell their properties and make them into accommodation-right properties where market rates apply and only well-capitalized individuals can buy.

Effectively, this policy has killed off renting in Sweden, and current projections show that there will largely not be any rental market whatsoever within a decade. Chalk another one up for central planning.

Friends of the Swedish model would argue that you can find rental properties provided you do your homework - call around among landlords, ask friends and friends of friends. In my view, this is a broken system. As a potential customer, I should not have to face artificial scarcity and have to work to find the product I am seeking - I should be courted by providers.

As I do not want to enter the property market in Sweden right now (according to The Economist it is estimated to be the second-most overvalued one in the world, with a 30% correction to be expected) we wanted to find a first-hand rental unit. The only practical way we could do this without having to queue for years was to find the the most expensive high-end flat possible - still a very competitive rate compared with anything you would find in London - but a rent that would make the heavily taxed Swedes shy away.

Even at this we were still number three in a queue to view the flat, with no option whatsoever to come in with a better offer to close the deal. The rent is fixed. You have to queue like the rest of the comrades.

To add insult to injury, the queue system is generally not based on a come-first basis (we were the first to jump at our flat - but were quickly downgraded to third place) but on how long you have been renting before and how long you have been registered in the queue-system. This traps people in the queue-system, and as nobody dares risk lose their place even if they would be financially capable of owning a home, the queues keep growing for popular properties - now sporting decade-long queues full of people who really are not seriously looking to move.

In the UK - and particularly London, the market rules supreme and as a consequence you have infinite options in terms of location, price level and configuration of flats. Of course prices are extortionate - they always hover just at the threshold of what any sane individual can cope with. The difference compared with Sweden struck me the other day when an old friend got in touch asking "what we were going to do with our old rental flat in London" as a relative of hers was looking for something in London.

If you are a Swede it is hard to understand how this question does not make sense in the UK, as any rental unit immediately is put back on the market and rented out again by estate agents - and also since in order to find a flat all that is required is a phone call to an estate agent. However, when your whole mindset is rooted in a rent-controlled economy plagued by artificially created scarcity, your gut instinct is to jump at any nepotist opportunity when somebody seems to be ready to finally make a move.

The big downside to the London rental market - aside from the prohibitive cost - is the ruth- and uselessness of estate agents. As a rentee, there is little security in making sure you have secured a flat until you literally have the keys in your hand.
We have moved a few times within London, and each time has presented new nightmares.

The first time we had agreed the deal with the estate agent, paid our deposit fee and given notice at our previous address only to be notified ten days before our move-in date to let us know that the property owner had "changed her mind" (read: got a better offer). I asked the agent "But you told us we had a done deal?" -"Yes, but then the deal came apart. I'm sorry."

We went back to our previous landlord and explained our situation and asked if we could stay a few months longer, to which she agreed although "reviewing the situation I will have to put the rent up £30 per week" which is London-pro-speak for "Aha, you are between a rock and a hard place - I will take you for what I can then!"

The next time we moved we decided to use a relocation agent to handle the estate agents. A relocation agent will sniff out good opportunities before they hit the websites, which gives you a competitive edge in finding good deals and properties. We stressed the need to have the contracts signed well before moving in this time - something the estate agent reluctantly agreed to after demanding a 6-month up front payment to make sure we were serious.

As I got my appointment in their office and signed the contracts, the clerk then took them away and stowed them in a drawer. I can only assume the blank look on my face was what led her to ask me "Can I help you with anything else?"

"Well, can you get someone to countersign the contracts so I can have a copy please?"

"We will sign the contract on the day you move in, Sir."

"...uh, so I just handed over ten grand to you in advance for the privilege of one-sidedly signing a completely non-binding contract?"

"Don't worry, it is a done deal."

Curtain.

Sweden:

+ Nobody will try to con you out of your contract

+ Generally high quality properties where both plumbing and heating work

- Very few available rental properties due to rent control

- The humiliating queue-system

UK:

+ Loads of properties on the market

+ Opportinity to make deals and haggle

- Use- and ruthless estate agents

- The generally decrepit state of properties. Even modern refurbished ones tend to be held together by gaffa tape and old newspaper under the plaster.

Winner:

The UK wins, as most people can find a property that works for them fairly easily, and in the end this is the most important thing. I will happily deal with scoundrels if I do not have to suffer the impracticality and humiliation of having to queue.

Sweden Revisited - mission statement

As I am writing this, I am overlooking the traffic going up and down Bayswater road. Mostly double-decker buses, but also many cabs and people on bicycles who are rushing late for work though the gates of Kensington Gardens.

It is a great view looking west, towards the lush and opulent Holland Park - to the south over Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, north over Bayswater and Hamstead Heath in the distance and East with the towers of the City glimmering though the fog. I will surely miss this view, as after ten years in London I am partly relocating back to Sweden.

Our current plan of action is to spend somewhere between five and six months in Sweden, and share the rest of the year between the US and the UK. I will still be operating my businesses from London, and I will most likely be spending quite a bit of time here as well.

The purpose of this little blog will be to share my experience of returning to Sweden with both Swedish and English friends. As I have more Swedish friends with a command of the English language than vice versa I have chosen to write in English.

I will not only share my experiences, but I will also review and compare the two countries to one another. How are we treated by people, the government and corporations in these two countries? What are we allowed to and required to do and not do? What obstacles and benefits come with living in the UK versus living in Sweden?

At the end of the year I will evaluate the pros and cons of each country and make a decision on where to live more permanently.

The past decade has surely changed me a great deal, but the United Kingdom and Sweden as countries have changed greatly too.

When I arrived in Clapham South on the 2nd of September 2002 you could get a vegetable pilau at Safeway for 69p. Blair had not yet moved English forces into Iraq, and The 7/7 bombings were yet several years off in the future. The English pound was tremendously over-valued and Gordon Brown was exclaiming "the End of Boom and Bust".

When I left Sweden you were still not allowed to buy painkillers in corner shops, few had heard of Stieg Larsson, and Wallander was not yet an international export. The Swedish economy was puttering along with little sign of growth, with the Krona still bobbing up around at an undervaluation of around 20% due to clumsy trade barriers and a long-standing deficit-problem.

Clearly an expensive time to relocate as I converted my life savings into just over four grand and moved into a sublet in a Council Estate near Balham.

* * *

As we have not yet moved into the lovely new Swedish flat (I will be maintaining accommodation in London too) my first comparison between the UK and Sweden will concern getting passports for our two girls.

UK:

My wife Jaana spent better part of two weeks collecting and filling out paperwork. She went to the post office twice to collect the appropriate forms, brought over a friend with "Good Standing in the Community" to attest to the validity of the four photographs we had taken of each girl. I got in touch with my accountant and had the last six years of tax return sent over. She then spoke to no less than THREE government officials to ensure everything was complete and filled out correctly before waiting 3 weeks for an appointment at the passport authority only to be told an additional six forms from two separate branches of government were also required. Each of these forms could take up to 3 months to receive, and then a new appointment at the passport authority needed to be made.

Our clerk could only apologize as to why the government officials we had conferred with earlier had been unaware of these additional six forms - as the matter is "complex". We could be given no guarantee that the application would be complete even after complying with this additional 4-month ordeal, though it would "Probably - most likely go though".

Sweden:

In Sweden, the first thing the government requires from an individual is get assigned an "Identity number" which is kept by the Tax authority. This is what would be considered infringement of personal integrity in the UK, and it is symptomatic that it is held by the tax Authority - which in breach of EU law has been granted the power to administer legal punishment without a trial.

The upside of this perversion is the incentive to quickly expand the tax base by getting more people into the system, and although we initially were told we would have to wait 8 weeks to get the Identity Numbers as all the Swedes go on vacation at the same time (more on this absurdity later) we eventually managed to acquire taxable status for our infants in less than two weeks.

Once the identity numbers were cleared the process of getting temporary travel passports were expediently dealt with in a matter of hours.

UK:

+ The ability to fast-track your passport application by paying an extra fee

- The inability to tell you how to fill out your application

Sweden:

+ Friendly and efficient service once the Identity numbers had been established

- The idea of a complete shut-down of civilization during the summer months labelled "The Industrial Vacation"

Winner:

Sweden beats the UK in terms of bureaucratic efficiency hands down.