Sweden has around 43% tax/GDP
USA has around 25 % tax/GDP
If the difference amounts to the 'freedom' you are talking about, I have some news :
- The 25% tax rate you quote above is an average. If you have income from 'labor' you pay a higher rate. If you are rich, and you have income from 'capital' you pay a much lower rate.
There is also a very big difference between the states. Here in California we pay up to 13% state tax on top of federal tax.
- I understand you have universal health care in Sweden. Here in the US we don't. And costs are exploding. Health care insurance for a family here in California is now something like $2500/month. That's $30,000.- / year, thank you very much. If you earn minimum wage, you simply CANNOT AFFORD health insurance here in the US (at least not without Obamacare).
Health care is one area where 'capitalism' doesn't work, because in a free market nobody wants to insure a sick person.
- If you want to go to college here in the US, you are going to pay a lot. You sometimes can get a loan to pay for your education, but interest rates are very high, because the risks for insurers are quite high.
Education is another area where 'capitalism' does not work since nobody wants to lend money to students with a low chance of succeeding.
These are just some examples about your claims of 'freedom' in the US, which in real life do not exist for people that are not rich. And then we are not even talking about 'freedom of the press' where the US scores abysmal as I pointed out above (even below Burkina Faso, one of these "shit hole" countries).
On ALL these issues, the 'democratic socialism' of the Nordic countries beats the US big time, and it has the numbers to show it in terms of happiness of its population.