Of the scandinavian countries, only Norway has money, Dragsted is danish.

The examples given are from Sweden, so I guess that's where they're from. I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country. Capitalism is very strong here, you're mostly free to invest capital in whatever you want with many ways to avoid taxes, just like in the USA, for example. There's higher taxes for the average, salaried person (though it's not at the highest levels compared with similar OECD countries[1]), but for investors, it's not so bad.

Also, salaries vary wildly between professions, lots of things, like rail lines, which are usually thought of as government concerns are privatized, neighbourhoods are more and more unequal (in Stockholm, you can go from a place where the humblest dettached house costs above 12 million SEK - around 1.3 million USD) to another where the starting price is more like 3 million SEK without travelling very far). It's definitely not "the same" everywhere (segregation based on ethnicity is crazy high, but that's another story).

So, I find it hard to consider Sweden to be anything like what you would associate with socialism (the only "socialist" thing in my opinion is the sales of alcohol - which is monopolized by the Government - but even that started opening up recently as they allow producers to started selling directly to the public from their production locations - like breweries).

[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-issue...

The book has some valid points when it states that the government has too much money and does not need to make the hard prioritizations.

It has however been heavily criticized. It seems like he had a point to prove and found numbers that fit with his view, and not a neutral description. He also seems to ignore that the trends he points to, also exists in other countries.

That said, he does raise some valid concerns. The number of employees in the public sector grows, even under conservative governments. Part of the reason is that Norway can afford it at the moment. Another reason is that the number of rules and regulations increases, and the government needs more people to enforce them.

The latter is mostly a political issue, and something that also happens in countries that are not wealthy. The author's solution is to reduce taxes and cut public spending.

The socialists’ rallying cry has long been, “Finally, it’s ordinary people’s time.” But in reality, ordinary people have seen their wealth steadily decline, while the state has only grown fatter and richer. The slogan should be more honest: “It’s the state’s time now.”

Now the state has more employees and will continue growing to attain more power, and thereby more voters. Having worse public services than 10 years ago while the spending has increased drastically is a bad sign.

That being said, it'll have to get drastically worse before ordinary people realize where their money went, and then it might shift