The Swedes look to him like Disney creations - cute, tidy and courteous. He had gone looking for a socialist paradise, one with the prosperity of Wall Street without the chaos of Albania. And he found it. It's a welfare state from cradle to grave. Medical care is available to everyone at nominal cost, even to tourists.
Day care is available for all.
There's no poverty, no great wealth. But, O'Rourke concludes the system is broken. Their national debt is huge and their tax burden the highest in the developed world. Cuba seemed war-torn, gray, with holes in everything, paint peeling. Nobody seemed to have a job.