The Myth of Scandinavian Socialism.

[Mise]

I sorta assumed everyone knew that these weren't socialist countries. Just really cool sane countries.

Yeah, exactly.

We all know that SE, DK, etc liberalised their labour markets and made business creation (and destruction) hella easy. And for me, this is close to the ideal: Free markets, but with a strong welfare state.

I absolutely oppose socialism, and that's why I like the Nordic countries.


P.S. for people criticising the Heritage Foundation rankings, it's very much a right wing organisation, committed to free markets. Rankings, therefore, are based on loose business regulation / not much red tape or beaurocracy, confidence in the courts, consistency in legislation, strength of property rights protection/enforcement, liberalised labour markets, independence of the central bank and its commitment to low inflation, etc etc. When they say that Canada is "more economically free" than the USA, what they mean, then, is that based on the tax and regulatory environment alone, you'd rather set up a new business in Canada than the USA. It doesn't depend solely on the level of personal income tax, for example.

It's just a "liberal"/"free market" ranking. Which makes it perfectly suited for this thread.

You can see the list and criteria here: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

 

[Leoreth]

Sure, but it would've been nice if the OP had mentioned his (source's) understanding of economic freedom and why it is the relevant metric in this context.

 

[Evie]

As I said, their definition is decidedly not that used by most people when talking about "economically free".

It's a fair definition, and to an extent I think it's more legitimate than the common one, but it's not the common one.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, you're right that it's contrary to what most people think of as "economically free". I wasn't criticising you for criticising the ranking, I was just explaining why I think it's a good ranking to use for this thread

 

[Angst]

Denmark has greater business freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom while having comparable property rights and trade freedom scores to the U.S.

In many ways, Scandinavian countries are more "laissez faire" than the United States.

You're assuming leftists want a controlled economy (which many don't) and I think you're hilarious to assume my country is laissez faire. All of the liberties you're describing are the goals of a healthy economy. Noone is so idiotic that he would assume Denmark is communist - rather, we have a mixed economy with inspiration from both classical liberalism and socialism called "social liberalism" where the goal is to provide wealth, freedom and happiness to the population.

All you're really doing here is arguing for the Scandinavian model.

Here is one more thing of interest to everyone interested in living standards in Scandinavian countries vs. the US. First, according to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the CIA World Factbook, the USA has a higher GDP per capita than any Scandinavian nation with the exception of Norway. Norway has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, right after free market paradises such as Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, and oil rich nations such as Qatar and Kuwait.

And how is the massive wealth of the economy then distributed? How much more well off are the lower class of the US compared to Denmark? Are they benefited by the system of their society? With such an insurmountable higher GDP, they must have access to support in times of need such as a friendly police, monitary welfare and healthcare.

Although Norway's GDP per capita seems to be boosted by huge oil and natural gas production, do Norwegians actually enjoy higher living standards than Americans? I dare say that they don't. A quick look around worldsalaries.org shows that:

1. Americans enjoy higher average disposable (after tax) AND gross (before tax) income than Norwegians do.

2. Americans enjoy a significantly lower cost of living than do Norwegians (1.00 vs. 1.487).

Here (url: http://www.ssb.no/en/fnr/main.html) is another source of Norwegian disposable income. As you see, average household disposable income is 176503 NOK, which is approximately $29,373. Note that the USA has a per capita disposable income of about $21,500. Since the average US household consists of two wage earners, it follows that US household disposable income is higher than Norwegian household disposable income.

Uh, when is $21,000 higher than $29,000? Am I missing something?

 

[Leoreth]

Uh, when is $21,000 higher than $29,000? Am I missing something?

Household income vs. per capita income.

 

[Mise]

What if Norway has < 1.38 wage earners per household? Would put Norway ahead of the US in per capita disposable income...

IOW, apples and oranges. Or maybe apples and apple trees?

 

[eduhum]

All this talk remembers me about the swedish economic collapse in the early 1990s, which prove the well known phrase: 'Socialism can be good until you run up of other people's money"
Then, the right-winged party was elected and fix the problems in its way

 

[Angst]

Rightwinged parties ftw.

The right-wingers in Denmark did not manage well during the economic downturn. They froze a slowing housing market and cut in our education and healthcare, reforming both to the worse. :/ And it was back before the crack, when Denmark had plenty of funding...

 

[Traitorfish]

Right-wing parties ftw.

Right-wing parties ftw.

Right-wing parties ftw.

Right-wing parties ftw.

 

[Angst]

To be fair, people that argue for right winged paradises usually argue for more personal freedom and no... Well... Totalitarianism, so it seems like a strawman, but that Darth Vader picture is pretty awesome, so I'll shut it.

 

[Crezth]

Well, they argue for more personal freedom for themselves. Everyone else? They'd just as soon lock them up for selling weird green herbs.

 

[Cutlass]

Right-wing parties ftw.

Right-wing parties ftw.

Right-wing parties ftw.

Right-wing parties ftw.

Why do autocrats tend to military uniforms?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I have yet to see a right-wing government that manages to fix the economy and balance the budget in the long term (one-time money influx from privatizations doesn't count) without killing lot's of people in the process.

 

[Tee Kay]

Why do autocrats tend to military uniforms?

Gotta be one with the foundation of your authority.

 

[Crezth]

Does Chiang Kai-shek count?

He said without killing lots of people in the process.

 

[Angst]

Why do autocrats tend to military uniforms?

Ethos. Invokes a sense of authority, discipline and strength. An autocrat ideally needs to be a very powerful individual to manage his country, and a military uniform emits the sense of power and ability. Don't mess with the soldier and all.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Yep, in most cases the uniform is needed to someway get a more imposing look since these guys tend to be short and ugly, in other cases it is a life support system.

 

[Verbose]

Household income vs. per capita income.

Here you go: GDP/capita in PPS (100 the EU average):
Norway 189
The US 148

If it's any consolation:
Denmark 125
Sweden 126

From here:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tec00114&plugin=1

 

[GoodSarmatian]

GDP is utterly irrelevant for comparing similar nations. Even income loses it's meaning because it doesn't consider fees for public services, healthcare costs, college tuitions etc...
Americans might get higher salaries when they leave college, but Danes and Swedes won't have that amount of debt when they graduate, and they don't need to save up as much for their children's education.