System Bolaget

Considering Sweden verges on socialism, it's not surprising that it's government has a monopoly on all liquor sales. The place is called "System Bolaget" which is a name that makes no sense at all and translates into "System Company". 1984.... anyone? anyone?

Of course, the government also has a monopoly on all sales of medicine... and by medicine, I don't even mean prescription pharmaceuticals. I'm talking aspirin, midol, probably even tums. The idea is: control everything. Save people from themselves, assume they don't have any common sense whatsoever and if left to their own means, normally productive members of society would throw themselves into the gutter with a big bottle of aspirin in one hand and cheap untaxed whiskey in the other. And, of course, the government gets a load of cash in the process, but that's not something we talk about. This is for the good of the people after all.

Let me demonstrate:

theres a thing on swedish msn where you can take a poll as to whether u like System Bolaget or not. one of the things says this:

"en av ideerna med att ha alkoholmonopol är att man kan sälja alkohol lite återhållsamt så att folk inte köper mer en de hade tänkt"

now what that's basically saying is that System Bolaget stops people from buying more alcohol than they had planned on buying because it is a little bit more controlled......... ummmmmmm.... and they can say that OUT LOUD? And people aren't rebelling?

OH, but according to Folkhälsouniversitet, alkohol consumption would go up by 3.5 Liters of vodka per person in sweden per year if there wasn't a monopoly. WHOA!!!!! i couldn't make this up if i tried. 3.5 Liters!!!

Swedes must be an unusually alcoholic breed.

I thought that perhaps this poll was occurring as some sort of change in political thought. Maybe, I thought, they are considering doing away with System Bolaget. So, when I finished my poll and entered my phone number I awaited my follow-up call, eager to give my opinion on the matter. What I received, though, was an automated message about how I obviously don't think it's important to have system bolaget but it's really good anyway, I should be grateful that it exists, and no matter what I think, it's impossible to do away with it anyway.

Thanks, System Bolaget. Thanks.