Posted on 06/23/2024 6:24:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Bernie Sanders has single-handedly brought the term “democratic socialism” into the contemporary American political lexicon and shaken millions of Millennials out of their apathy towards politics. Even if he does not win the Democratic nomination, his impact on American politics will be evident for years to come.
Sanders has convinced a great number of people that things have been going very badly for the great majority of people in the United States, for a very long time. His solution? America must embrace “democratic socialism,” a socioeconomic system that seemingly works very well in the Scandinavian countries, like Sweden, which are, by some measures, better off than the United States.
Democratic socialism purports to combine majority rule with state control of the means of production. However, the Scandinavian countries are not good examples of democratic socialism in action because they aren’t socialist.
In the Scandinavian countries, like all other developed nations, the means of production are primarily owned by private individuals, not the community or the government, and resources are allocated to their respective uses by the market, not government or community planning.
While it is true that the Scandinavian countries provide things like a generous social safety net and universal health care, an extensive welfare state is not the same thing as socialism. What Sanders and his supporters confuse as socialism is actually social democracy, a system in which the government aims to promote the public welfare through heavy taxation and spending, within the framework of a capitalist economy. This is what the Scandinavians practice.
In response to Americans frequently referring to his country as socialist, the prime minister of Denmark recently remarked in a lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government,
I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.
The Scandinavians embrace a brand of free-market capitalism that exists in conjunction with a large welfare state, known as the “Nordic Model,” which includes many policies that democratic socialists would likely abhor.
For example, democratic socialists are generally opponents of global capitalism and free trade, but the Scandinavian countries have fully embraced these things. The Economist magazine describes the Scandinavian countries as “stout free-traders who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic companies.” Perhaps this is why Denmark, Norway, and Sweden rank among the most globalized countries in the entire world. These countries all also rank in the top 10 easiest countries to do business in.
How do supporters of Bernie Sanders feel about the minimum wage? You will find no such government-imposed floors on labor in Sweden, Norway, or Denmark. Instead, minimum wages are decided by collective-bargaining agreements between unions and employers; they typically vary on an occupational or industrial basis. Union-imposed wages lock out the least skilled and do their own damage to an economy, but such a decentralized system is still arguably a much better way of doing things than having the central government set a one-size-fits-all wage policy that covers every occupation nationwide.
It is clear that the Scandinavian countries are not in fact archetypes of successful democratic socialism.
In a move that would be considered radically pro-capitalist by young Americans who #FeelTheBern, Sweden adopted a universal school choice system in the 1990s that is nearly identical to the system proposed by libertarian economist Milton Friedman his 1955 essay, “The Role of Government in Education.”
In practice, the Swedish system involves local governments allowing families to use public funds, in the form of vouchers, to finance their child’s education at a private school, including schools run by the dreaded for-profit corporation.
Far from being a failure, as the socialists thought it would be, Sweden’s reforms were a considerable success. According to a study published by the Institute for the Study of Labor, the expansion of private schooling and competition brought about by the Swedish free-market educational reforms “improved average educational performance both at the end of compulsory school and in the long run in terms of high school grades, university attendance, and years of schooling.”
Overall, it is clear that the Scandinavian countries are not in fact archetypes of successful democratic socialism. Sanders has convinced a great deal of people that socialism is something it is not, and he has used the Scandinavian countries to prove its efficacy while ignoring the many ways they deviate, sometimes dramatically, from what Sanders himself advocates.
More here:
When Spyker bought the troubled car company, Saab the Swedish government didn’t interfere, when Saab went bankrupt they didn’t interfere and when the Chinese have bought it they didn’t interfere.
This is just one of the ways in which Sweden just isn’t as socialist or left-wing or even modern day liberal as many seem to think.
The country has no national minimum wage, no inheritance tax, capital and certainly corporate taxes are lower than in the US, in fact, the tax system as a whole is less progressive than that of the US or UK. It just isn’t what many seem to think it is.
yes
with low corporate tax rates
and VERY HIGH individual tax rates
Good post, thank you.
All in they pay 50% more in taxes.
We pay 15% fed and 15% state and local of our GDP.
according to this link they pay 44%.
https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-norway.pdf
The thing to understand about the ‘Socialist Model’ for Scandinavian countries is that it can ONLY work in a homogeneous society - meaning ONE ethnic group. The reason for that is community pressure will force lazy people to actually work, and so when they are out of work, for example, they will be pressured to find a job by family and friends, regardless of how good the ‘benefits’ are when not working.
But once you bring in new groups, then people will start to game the system, and the system breaks down. To put it another way, in Europe, a Muslim is considered a SELLOUT if that person chooses to work, rather than collect freebies - as collecting freebies is looked at as making the White Man work for them.
So the whole system breaks down, as we’re seeing over in Europe. Back here in the US, we’ve always had blacks, but the moment we adopted a somewhat socialist model regarding ‘benefits’, blacks were the first ones to game the system and stop working (not all, of course, but a disproportionate amount). Now they have a lot of company thanks to LGB.
Bernie has a completely different understanding of what socialism is than a lot of us do. Basically, he thinks socialism is a welfare state. No. Socialism is when the government owns or controls the means of production.
The US govt is the largest: employer, landlord, tenant, borrower, lender, consumer and obv control the means to production in every significant industry via libraries of regulations and armies of regulators.
Govt union pension funds are among the largest holders of “privately” held stock.
Beyond our obv multi cultural US being an immensely successful socialist nation-excellent point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP
going by government spending as a % of gdp then sweden is a fair bit more socialist than the US.
But imho this is mitigated a fair bit by the US practice of issuing “unfunded mandates” to the private sector. The US is certainly more socialist than it seems.
yup
The only good think the Scandinavian countries have given the world is hot women. Aside from that, they really aren’t much.
Truth.
We pay in another 15.3% for SS and Medicare...
Somehow, at about the same tax rate as us, they can afford to throw in free healthcare.
Interesting article...
Eventually every system breaks down due to the do nothing’s and corrupt. To many of them are the “leaders” who are do nothing’s and corrupt.
universal health care in socialist countries means you will be killed as you cost too much.
It helps that 5% of every one of my HC bills goes towards their free HC.
We come up with 45% of all new: drugs, procedures and equipment ever year.
Europe added together is in t he single digits.
For it we have the highest survival rates for the 12 most common forms of cancer et al.
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