Whats wrong with "robust public benefits for citizens. Free education, housing, medicare, etc." I ask the question Whats wrong with these???. It does not seem to have effected the economic performance of many countries that have adopted comprehensive coverage in these areas. For you is it just an ideological problem pursued for the sake of ideology, much like the soviets used to do.
What's wrong with them is there is no such thing as "free" any of those. All of those things cost money. And as a rule it costs a lot more when totalitarian Big Brother government overpays for it in the most expensive and inefficient way possible.
Bush privatized the adminstration of the war in Iraq. And it has been one humdinger of an ineficient tax payer cannibalizing fiasco.
They are more of a homogeneous group of people that have good leadership. In America, there are too many underclass that would not make the cut due to the social structure. In spite of that under class, the other group so far managed to keep high income to feed that underclass, feed the prison population etc. Until the emergence of China...that is changing the dynamics of American capitalism and could do the same for the Scandinavian countries. The capitalism as we know it is dying in America..... that is why we are heading for a depression....
Ok, hold the phones...stop the presses...I found it at last! The most socialist nation in Europe is...Norway!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz9SHy7tQVU
Id rather the government own half my life energy than corporations own 100% of it. Those countries get over 10x the vacation time Americans get, they work shorter days while being more productive. The government puts strong consumer protections in place to keep the rich from preying upon and abusing the blue collar average Joes. And high tax rates with high worker paybacks prevents the kind of inflation that is destroying America's middle class. High taxes coupled with high entitlements ensure that no matter what new great technologies and advances in medical science come into the country, everyone can still afford it instead of it only being available for the top 1% of the rich. Hahaha Dubai! Dubai is literally a slave economy built entirely upon foreign labor. The native Dubai (the "Emirati") dont work. THEY DONT WORK. They live lives of complete laziness by attracting foreign laborers and then revoking their passports so they cant leave the country. Theyve also taken American investment money (and oil profits) and built a sham of a country, which is basically the equivalent to one of those fake Western movie sets where its all facade with nothing behind it. Their multi-billion dollar hotels are empty and falling apart. Theyre in the middle of the desert and cant keep up with their water purification demands. Raw sewage backs up into the system, youve literally got human shit flowing out of solid gold faucets. Dubai is the grandest and most glaring example of the failure of free market capitalism there is. It is a monument to excess and slavery. It might as well be Nero's Rome. A corporation may only be a group of individuals, but so is a government, and at least you get to VOTE for your government.
I am not trying to get people excited so if you have issues with that it is just an impression and not meant to rile people up. Its a good point Charon makes.
You have to remind yourself that you actually get something back for the tax you pay in the socialist nations of scandinavia. Like a free education which ranks higher than that of more capitalist nations. Like free healthcare. Like cheap and good daycare. etc. You can moan about taxes being high, but for most people it actually means life is cheaper.
Yeah, there is a widespread conflation between socialism and totalitarianism in the US mindset. Criticism of socialism almost always works by first eliding into a discussion of totalitarianism, and then complaining about that. Actual complaints about socialism as such are typically absent. In the serious version, there's some attempt made at establishing a slippery slope from socialism to totalitarianism, but this is rarely done. Mostly that step is just skipped entirely, and the equivalence taken for granted. Although there is a small minority of people who will complain about socialism directly, typically in terms of cumbersome bureaocracy and high taxes. And there are plenty of features of these Nordic countries that tend to get lionized for having good healthcare and education systems that rub Americans the wrong way: establishment of religion, byzantine bureaocracies for trivial, personal issues (like naming children), etc. It's fair to point out that one could adopt the approaches to health care, education, gender equality (check out the paternity leave policies in these countries!), etc. without adopting all of the other stuff. But that misses the point that strong socialism requires correspondingly strong social cohesion - we're talking about relatively small ethnic nation-states here. As a general rule of thumb, I'd propose that any country in which the establishment of religion is unthinkable is one in which the Nordic Model is unlikely to fly. Likewise, there are a lot of features of the Nordic Model that American advocates of socialism might not like so much (or be surprised to learn about): low trade barriers, very light regulation of product and financial markets, privatized pension and education systems (Sweden adopted a school voucher system nearly 20 years ago), low corporate taxes, etc. It is perhaps ironic that transitioning the US to more resemble Sweden would actually amount to throwing almost as much red meat to corporatist righties as to socialist lefties. But, then, perhaps that also tells us a lot about how the politics of such really work (obviating the urge to chalk the difference up to intelligence or maturity or whatever).
The most socialist country in Europe? That's hard to tell. I've heard of people claiming Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Holland, Bulgaria, etc. In Europe, almost every nation (including the U.K.) is much more socialist than the U.S. Universal healthcare is a key example. We Americans would also hate, among other things, their big-brother social-neighborhood-anonymous-reporting security cameras. Around the world, there are other examples of socialism. Most obvious are North Korea and Cuba. Even though their standards of living are poor, they virtually share all the same basic socialist principles with European socialism.
i;m pretty sure that it was right wing extremists that gave it a bad name. north korea, and Cuba make it work even better, and if it wasnt for genocidal sanctions, and embargos placed on real socialist countries by the parasitical west, then they'd be even better
Scandinavians also "find their own way" and make their own way. They are heavily taxed because they have free education including university and free health care. They also pay into unions that ensures they don't end up homeless or without basic necessities if they are out of work but that pay in comes from working not from being on welfare. In addition to this they also do have welfare for the indigent or the very old and sick. If you tried to interfere with their welfare state they would react with as much hostility as Americans would if you tried and give them free health care. If you traveled to any of those countries you would immediately notice that they live very very well and have excellent infrastructure. They have a mixed economy capitalism mixed with socialism. Such a system wouldn't work here because there is an almost instinctive aversion to anything socialist or communal, you have all been raised to think of it negatively. Also Scandinavians are largely homogenous, they are very tribal, Americans on the other hand don't have that same feeling about each other, they tend to partition themselves into groups and resent feeling they have to support anyone else, an attitude of "Why should I have to pay for those people?" etc. The only time there was a conservative challenge to the social welfare state in Denmark for example was when it came to the influx of foreign immigrants, then they resented having to pay for their muslim immigrants and changed their laws so its more difficult for those groups to access the full benefit of the system, they didn't want foreigners choosing Denmark for its liberal welfare.
OVERVIEW The scandinavian economies have performed strongly over the past 15 years, leading many to believe that the nordic model defies economic theory – which suggests that bigger government means lower growth and/or a lower level of income. This report shows that one of the primary reasons for the recent strong performance of the scandinavian economies has been a retreat of government – in terms of public spending, taxation and product market regulation. Over the 15 years prior to the 2008 great recession public spending fell by more than 20 percentage points of gDP in sweden.The smallest fall in the share of public spending in gDP was in Denmark, where it still managed to fall by 10 percentage points. These are stunning figures. The reductions in public spending suggest the private sector was being crowded-in, thereby raising productivity and output growth. The reduction in the size of the state in sweden may have added one to two percentage points to the long-term potential growth rate. The comparable figures for the other scandinavian economies are 0.9 to 1.8 in Finland, 0.7 to 1.4 in norway and 0.5 to 0.9 percentage points in Denmark. The fiscal performance of the four leading scandinavian economies, both prior to and during the great recession, has been outstanding. The headline budget deficits for all four economies peaked below three percent of gDP – compared with 11 percent of gDP in the US and the UK. The underlying budget balance – adjusting for the economic cycle – remained in surplus in three of the scandinavian economies and was only slightly negative in norway. The comparable Us and UK deficits were nearly nine percent of gDP. much of this success can be attributed to pro-market reforms, such as the introduction of fiscal rules, following the early 1990s scandinavian economic crisis. "Over the past decade and in the wake of the great recession, the nordic model has come under increasing focus as a result of its favourable growth performance. At the 2011 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, scandinavian business and political leaders came together to promote a new report, The Nordic Way – Shared Norms for the New Reality that claimed to explain their competitive edge (WEF 2011). According to The Nordic Way, the scandinavian economies have been able to combine a successful formula of radical individualism, social trust and a tightly knit welfare safety net, without undermining competitiveness. reports such as this have added to the nordic lustre that the scandinavian economies are somehow unique and are not replicated anywhere else." The GreAt Recession – debt And deficit The nordic model’s fiscal performance through the great recession and subsequent recovery has been astonishing – when compared to the oECD and euro area. Table 2.1 shows oECD statistics for the general government financial balance over the 2008-2010 period. Across the oECD, budget deficits rose to an average 8.2 percent of gDP in 2009, with the UsA and the UK recording peak budget deficits of 11.3 and 10.8 percent of gDP, respectively. In stark contrast sweden recorded a peak budget deficit of just 0.9 percent of gDP and Finland and Denmark both reached their highest deficits at around 2.9 percent of gDP.4 Analysis of the underlying budget balance, adjusting for the economic cycle and other one-offs, shows that across the nordic economies fiscal policy was kept tight through the recession. While the underlying budget deficit rose to 6.4 percent of gDP across the oECD, the nordic story was very different. In sweden the underlying balance showed a surplus, which increased to 2.6 percent of gDP. In Finland and Denmark the underlying balances fell as a proportion of gDP, but remained in surplus (see: Table 2.2). The fiscal conservatism of the nordic model is further illustrated by ImF projections for general government debt.5 In sweden gross public debt is projected to decline from 37 percent of gDP in 2011 to just 22.8 percent of gDP in 2016. The comparable g7 figures are 114.9 percent and 122.5 percent respectively. http://www.li.com/attachments/Economics_Scandinavia_2011_WEB.pdf
It doesn't suggest that, in general. There's a best level of government, in economic theory - the observed patterns of event suggest that level is considerably larger than the US norm. Their government did not shrink - their GDP grew. So an initial heavy burden of taxation and government influence led to a burgeoning GDP, in every one of those countries. In particular, their industry does not have the burden of health care on its balance sheets. Regulation of banking and the like, imposition of government rules (on anyone, for any reason) is not held to be "pro-market", in the US.
Note that said "best level" varies depending on a country's geography, state of development, level of social solidarity, neighborhood, etc. Possibly - although the fact that Scandanavia does well with a much larger government doesn't necessarily imply that the US should have the same level. No, their government actually shrank: they eliminated some programs, and privatized others. The government there fundamentally does less things for people now than it did in the late 1980's/early 1990's. They've also reduced the compulsory military service stuff during that time period as well. Although, the point is more that government stopped growing faster than the rest of the economy, and instead grew more slowly. No, that's got the economic history of the region backwards. They big growth in this stuff occurred between WWII and 1990 (they started with government spending/gdp similar to the USA). During that period, government spending outpaced gdp growth, and eventually this led to problematic deficits and strangled growth, and so crisis. Then they instituted some reforms and have kept spending growth at or slightly below GDP growth since - and now the growth and deficits have improved. It does seem to be the case that they found a size of government that was "too big" by the 1980's, and course-corrected. Also note that the heavy tax burden never went away - it was the deficits that got reduced, not the taxes (which are still among the world's highest). All of which is to say that you're dieing on the wrong hill here. The fact that Sweden managed to reach the point of excess is just that. The real meat in lucy's post is that the current size of government there - which the free-market, Laffer-curve crowd is trumpetting as a vindication of their ideology - is still drastically larger than the US government. So if I were you, I'd simply pocket the applause they're directing at Sweden's government size, and then suggest we go ahead and copy their formula - which would mean a dramatic increase in social spending. There is nothing in this narrative of Scandanavia to suggest that the USA ought to slash spending - exactly the opposite - so if people are blithe enough to argue that Sweden backing off from 60% of GDP down to 50% of GDP implies that the USA ought to go below 30%, they're pretty much walking into a trap. This also makes Swedish workers more mobile, and offers them more opportunities to take entrepreneurial risks, to boot.
What doesn't suggest what in general? The paper was written by Graeme Leach who is the Chief Economist and Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors. The paper was written for the UK Legatum Institute, not to be confused with the Legatum at MIT. The Legatum group is a public policy think tank. I didn't add one word of my own in the text, so again I want to know what it is the paper "doesn't suggest"? Or what you thought I was suggesting? Its an overview of a report on Scandinavian economies. Are you suggesting that the paper is contradicting its own findings? LOL! I'm sure Mr. Leach would be fascinated.