RE: Everyone wants to bring up Venezuela but not Denmark, Norway or the other relatively successful socialistic states around the world.
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The belief that the Scandinavian countries are socialistic in the sense Cornel West, Bernie Sanders and their ilk want America to become is a MYTH.
They are FAR from being Venezuelan.
Let’s get this straight: Social Democracy Is Not Democratic Socialism
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 healthcare, an extensive welfare state is not the same thing as socialism.
What guys like Bernie 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.
FURTHERMORE, 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.
Oh yeah, 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.
What about EDUCATION?
Yeah, what about it? 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.
Tell that to socialist sympathizers like New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio.
So, enough about bringing up the Scandinavians.
Remember this, and it is worth repeating -— SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IS NOT DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM.
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have actually achieved a very modified version of socialism that works, with the consent of their people. All three nations understand that capitalism is what sustains their society and oddly are very pro capitalism. All three have a social welfare state. This state is paid by very high taxes on the public not the corporations. The corporate tax today in these three nations is much the same as in the USA. They realize if they tax their corporations to the point of not being competitive, their economies would collapse.
However, they have a Muslim problem that may collapse them.
Any form of government that uses the words ‘’social’’ or ‘’socialist’’ is a totalitarian form of government that in the end enslaves a people in one way or another. Socialism is a fraud, an often murderous one as history has shown time and again. It’s works so well people build rafts out of inner tubes and garbage to get away from it.
Excellent rebuttal.