Excessive public welfare is like taking the fishing-rod from a man who has satisfied his hunger, trade it for a fish, and then give the fish to a hungry man. VICTIM OF THE WELFARE STATE by Jack M. A. Olin © Jack M. A. Olin 2011. You may freely copy, print, distribute and transmit this work but not alter, transform or build upon it or charge recipients for copies. Jack Olin’a autobiography October 1998 Page 1 To the Swedish Government in commemoration of its deeds and omissions. Table of contents: 1. Social chauvinism in the Swedish welfare state: public lust for equality suppresses attempts to compensate physical disability by intellectual ability. 2. Autodidact within the system of education: it is logically impossible to teach somebody something that he already knows. 3. When membership of a students’ association is compulsory, why shall each university student have unlimited individual responsibility for the association’s debts? 4. If the law is construed to the letter, the civil servants’ temper and emotions rule the nation when instead it ought to be the legislator’s will that should do so. 5. Own research leads to cure of a serious disease: if I had accepted Swedish municipal medical care at the public charge, then I would have died a painful death. 6. A Swedish Cabinet decision: need for physical survival is not a sufficient excuse for a delayed doctor’s dissertation. The Cabinet does not recognise my sole right to interpret my own private goals. 7. A doctor plays God and alleges that his patient has no reason to exist: public hospital’s wilful extinction of the patient’s life helps authorities to collect a sharply higher death duty than what otherwise had been lawful. 8. Private property is confiscated by means of combined application of formally independent tax laws. Wealth tax and tax barriers produce an effective margin rate of 100% on income. 9. I sue the Bank of Sweden for constitutional fraud in the Cabinet Court, the country’s second highest court of law, but the Finance Ministry buys off the judge. 10. Still coerced to officially remain a Swedish resident, registered in order to secure the payment of future taxes that might come due just because of the registration. APPENDIX. The doctrine of social chauvinism: its essence and effects. EPILOGUE. NOTES. Jack Olin’s autobiography October 1998 Page 2 1. Social chauvinism in the Swedish welfare state: public lust for equality suppresses attempts to compensate physical disability by intellectual ability. hen this is written in the summer of 1992, although entirely by compulsion I am still registered as a Swedish resident. Actually, it looks like the country's government would prefer to keep me as a kind of Whostage. With the exception for my material conditions of living, which are fairly good, my situation bears close resemblance to that of an intellectual Soviet dissident before the days of Mr. Gorbachev's rule. There are two reasons to that state of affairs. First, the Swedish press never accepts any of my contributions; will it be on the conducted politics in the country or on my own problems. Second, the Cabinet's main concern does not seem to be justice, but silencing of discussion and intimidation of disbelievers in the idea of 'the Swedish model'. In the sequel, I intend to give the latter concept a proper footing as a doctrine or, rather, anti-doctrine. I will also bestow a more descriptive name upon it, 'social chauvinism'. Shortly before this was written, the Swedish Cabinet dismissed my request for the right of decision on matters that concerned my own property. The Cabinet also denied me permission to try to qualify for the doctor's degree, permission to leave the nation's social security programme, permission to buy non-narcotic drugs for my own private use without a doctor's prescription, indemnification for proven economic damage that the government had inflicted upon me, permission to be considered an emigrant, and even permission to resign my Swedish citizenship. I had not asked for a decree on the last issue, but merely mentioned it as a necessary condition for one of three submitted examples on how to redress my suffered idealistic wrongs. In order to make those daring decisions, the Ministry of Justice, the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Social Affairs, 1 and the Ministry of Culture all co-operated with the Prime Minister's Office. Moreover, when I questioned the 2 atrocious principle of reversed burden of proof, the Attorney General referred to the Constitution. It looked like he expected to be taken into that constitutional protection which instead I needed. In accordance with their zeal in the service the politicians and bureaucrats actually dealt with my affairs as if equality still were a dogma, fairness and honour the result of negotiations, and the reality a definition. Anyway, this book is written mainly for unusual people living under usual circumstances. Unlike most popular novels, it is not written for usual individuals who want to confront their fantasy with unusual events. People honouring established values are likely to build up a feeling of animosity against the author, rather than sympathy for him. They may think that this book confirms that a person will be punished in one way or another if he refuses to adapt himself to the present standards of the society, which is precisely what he deserves. On the contrary, that reader will probably understand the book better, who is inclined to ask questions of the kind "If a society really has this or that goal, do the persons who are in power act wisely if they take this or that decision? Or are the decisions correct, but not the goals?" Sallust wrote that when we record the virtue or glory of famous men, the reader will readily accept whatever he considers that he might have done himself; anything which exceeds these bounds of possibility he will look upon as untrue. Nevertheless, even if the contents of this book would be disbelieved although true, the reader's way of thinking may be stimulated to embrace a wider scope and multitude of ideas than before. Following Voltaire, we have reason to say that if a politician or an official finds unpleasant truths in what we write, he would be well advised to keep the following conclusions in his mind. Thus, he should remember that as a public person he owes the public accountancy for his acts; that it is for that price he buys his dignity; that history is a witness and not a 3 carpenter, and that the only way to make people speak well of us is to do good. As in all autobiographies, I must introduce myself. I could have waited until later, but that had only been a sign of modesty that were false: otherwise, this book would never have been written. Still I would have rationalised myself out of these memoirs if I had been able to do so. The reader has no reason to be interested in me, and the only excuse for my presence in my own autobiography is that I may be considered an instrument for revelation of public corruption and greed in my native country. If the citizens were free, some individuals might do things that could harm them. Therefore they need to be protected, some public decision-makers presume. For safety's sake, as well as of egalitarian reasons, the rest of the people have to be protected too. By aid of this political ideology it is possible to vindicate that security is imposed on the citizens from the cradle to the grave. However, the involuntary security goal can not be attained unless the authorities have information enough, and the citizens are 4 most objectionably looked after. Loyalty is not to be expected from those who are ready to become slaves. In Jack Olin’s autobiography October 1998 Page 3 order to find the facts behind even the smallest secrets, in an extreme welfare state the officials therefore irradiate the affairs of private people like more or less opaque pieces of glass. Figuratively spoken, when they thereby come upon a splinter of a mirror, the picture they see will certainly not be appreciated. I was born in Sweden on the 31st of July 1942, and my mother maintained incorrectly that she did not know who had fathered me. Thus, my birth certificate contains the note: “father unknown”. I had no brothers and sisters, and my early days were spent in a small apartment in Stockholm, the nation's capital. My natural father was not interested in me because he was married to another woman, and my mother was too proud to accept contributions from him to our subsistence. When she was working, I was cared for by her own nanny, then aged and supposed to be retired. The old lady helped us for only a symbolic salary. She could afford to do that, because after leaving her previous employment, she had married a wealthy man who died just a couple of years later. Anyway, my mother decided to call me Jack Manuel August, and my last name was her maiden name, Broberg. Since I was born during the war and we might have needed to abandon Sweden, I was given both an English and a Spanish first name. My third first name was inherited from my grandfather. During the next five years a name really did identify a person, because citizen registration numbers were not imposed on the Swedish people until in 1947.