Timbro has received strong financial support from Stiftelsen Fritt Näringsliv (The Swedish Free Enterprise Foundation) and has therefore been able to pursue activities that have not always been financially profitable.

"That’s true; we haven’t needed to be commercial. But philanthropic activity is also a part of the market. There is sufficient capital within the trade unions and Social Democrats for them to be able to do the same thing. And we need competition.

Several Swedish think tanks need new partners. Our aim is to set the agenda. We want to lead the debate in the right direction. This is an absolutely vital part of our work. We are not lobbyists in the way that we want merely to change some small passage in the text of a Parliamentary Bill."

There are, of course, many prototypes in the US. Last year Stureakademien (Ed.: Timbro’s nursery) went to Washington DC to visit among others Cato, the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings In...