Mencius Moldbugman

Alcohol in Sweden is purchased at a brutalist dystopian store that seems like it was taken from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”. It’s a government monopoly called “System Bolaget” or "The System" for short. A name straight from a Soviet dystopian novel for sure.

Sweden’s nanny state doesn't think that it’s population can handle the normal sale of alcohol. Presumably because due to the darkness and everything closing at 5pm the Swedes would just spend their evenings drinking themselves to death with lack of anything else to do.

The government strictly regulates the sale of alcohol. All alcohol, with the exception of light beers with an alcohol content of less than 3.5%, can only be sold in one of the state sponsored off licenses delightfully known as The System.

The System is the alcohol store equivalent of America’s DMV. These shops make it as difficult as possible to purchase alcohol - a deliberate government policy (you can look all this up). Opening hours are 11am till 4pm and they don't even open on a Sunday.

Hence you can only really buy alcohol on a Saturday (unless you take a day off work) and it shows: there were huge lines of people stood outside The System when I went on Saturday like peasants queueing for potato’s during the final days of the USSR.

There are no promotions, no deals, nothing. All alcohol is kept behind glass cases and has a number printed beside it. You then have to remember the number, go to the counter, and tell them for example "I would like a bottle of 1765 and a can of 88427" which they then give you.

Supermarkets and other stores in Sweden are also weirdly socialist and fucked up. You have to do the cashier's work for them. I first discovered this when I went to an Asian supermarket to buy some noodles for self-catering since I couldn’t even afford a modest Swedish restaurant

The cashier threw a fit at me for just putting my basket on the check out conveyor belt and shouted at me to take everything out. At first I thought this was just a crazy autist, but it turns out that there is a set protocol to how you are supposed to behave at a Swedish cashier.