I would argue that the difference in lifestyle and wellbeing between the poorer citizens of North Korea vs South Korea / East Germany vs West Germany during their respective histories should at least raise the question of whether reducing inequality by taking more money from the rich, might have adverse consequences for both rich and poor citizens..? Paul Graham's essay on the subject is worth reading +/- refuting if you feel strongly about the topic: http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html
This makes no sense. North Korea and East Germany didn't do well because they stifled private enterprise. It has nothing to do with taking from the rich. Sweden has high tax rates and does perfectly fine.
So you accept that stifling private enterprise is economically harmful to an economy? How and why did they stifle free enterprise?
If 'free enterprise' has two potential outcomes,
1) 'lose money' (high probability) or
2) 'make lots of money (which then gets taken by the government) leaving you a little bit of money' (low probability)
wouldn't that also be 'stifling' to private enterprise? And therefore harmful to an economy?
Regarding Sweden, it makes more sense to compare things with their natural control groups if available. If you compare North Korea to South Korea, or East Germany to West Germany, you remove a lot of the cultural, geographic and other potentially confounding factors, so the differences in outcome between those pairs are more likely to be related to the policy differences.
