A long-forgotten dystopian novel by Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has been produced as a play and is drawing sellout crowds in Stockholm.

The novel, written when Reinfeldt was 28, is set in the future (2013) after Social Democrats have been running Sweden for 20 years. The story is a Randian dystopia of makers and moochers, except they’re called the Fools and the Sleeping Brains.

The Fools work themselves to death paying for the welfare state while the Sleeping Brains sit in front of their televisions all day on the Fools’ dime.

The purpose is self-evident from this comment by dramatist Johanna Emanuellsson, who “felt it was incredibly important to make this work accessible to the Swedish public ahead of next year’s elections.”

But producer Amanda Almerén Persson likes to think she is assisting the public to see the PM’s uncensored political views.

“It’s easy to assume we are on the other side of the political divide, but this isn’t placard theatre, we are not trying to make the text ironic,” the producer explained. “We’re giving this text an honest to god chance. It’s not often that rightwing politics finds its way onto the stage.”

The only part that’s not easy to understand is the sellout audiences. Consider this analogy — if George W. Bush had written an sf novel and his opponents made it into a play, Democrats would not be flocking to the stage version.

So should I conclude that Reinfeldt’s story is actually entertaining?

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]