Friday, March 29, AD 2024 6:53am

Socialism and Facts: A Continuing Series

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 Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, 2015 speech at Harvard

 

 

 

Our new socialists point to Scandinavia and reveal they know little about Scandinavia and less about Socialism.

 

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Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, April 22, AD 2019 7:24am

Bravo.
Thanks for the lesson.
I’ll pass this forward.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, April 22, AD 2019 11:59am

Scandinavian “socialism” is subsidized by American consumerism.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, April 22, AD 2019 3:14pm

Maybe these videos would have more of an impact on Jorge Bergoglio than Quod Apostolici Muneris: https://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_28121878_quod-apostolici-muneris.html

Tom Byrne
Tom Byrne
Monday, April 22, AD 2019 3:30pm

Ernest:
No quite. Dr. Hanson, himself of Swedish extraction, once offered two points liberals ignore about those countries: that the Scandinavians are historically very frugal and very intolerant of political corruption. Robert Kaplan observed that in small countries like Sweden the bureaucrat is “the next-door neighbor”, not somebody hiding in a Deep State mandarinate. Scandinavian democracies evolved from small, but highly-centralized absolute monarchies, and command and control from the capital (even if democratically-engineered) is accepted. We just don’t work that way.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, April 22, AD 2019 4:09pm

The ratio of public expenditure to GDP in Scandinavia is about 0.51. It varies from place to place. There’s been a secular decline in this metric over the last generation in Sweden and fluctuation in the other places. In the U.S., this metric stands at 0.38, and has seen a mild upward trajectory (in transfers, not in employee compensation, public construction of purchases of equipment).

Not sure state-owned enterprises have ever been that consequential in Scandinavia, or economic planning.

A country like the U.S. with relatively high propensities to spend on the police and the military can get along passably with expenditures public sector compensation, plant, and equipment accounting for about 16% of GDP and the turnover of state enterprises accounting for another 1.5%. The question is how much redistribution is tolerable and under what terms and with what vehicles (vouchers, insurance, cash transfers). The problem with Fauxcohantas and Bernie is that they have no clear conception of what is enough.

xx

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, April 22, AD 2019 10:52pm

Prager U is good enough that we donate to them when our local parish does something like ignores the 40 days for life in preference for 40 days of more illegals, or subverts it to urge folks to go protest Trump. (Father did have some decency in telling folks to go support him at the El Paso ralley if he was doing a ‘good job,’ but he is a genuinely good guy though HORRIBLY misaimed and obviously suffering from it…seriously, if you’ve got a moment, pray for him)

For anybody worried, we don’t give nothing. We just give less, and specify it’s for building maintenance, or the seminary, or similar when we can. A workman is worth his wages…but also don’t want to pay for work we want going undone!

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Tuesday, April 23, AD 2019 12:48am

The scandinavian countries have very good public health and education systems. Their childcare assistance for mothers returning to work is excellent and their quality of early childhood education is amongst the best in the world. Some of the worlds biggest companies come out of there- LEGO, IKEA, Ericsson, Nokia, Assa Abbloy. Scandinavian nations success for looking after its people across the board, relies on their smaller population, low immigration, low unemployment and a strong free market. The best design and architectural ideas have come from the scandinavians because they are progressive free thinkers in terms of how people live and work.
True socialists countries do not produce any brands, products or legacy companies – USSR produced nothing, North Korea produce nothing, China has Huawei…that’s about it, Cuba produced nothing except misery. True socialist nations do not encourage independent thought or progression. True socialist nations, at many stages, could barely feed their own citizens. If you don’t have a free market you cannot survive as a country.
I don’t know what the left are thinking trying to push this unsuccessful system of government. It’s failed miserably time and time again.

I, for one, do not want live under a system where I have to rely on my government for my basic needs. And the person next to me has no incentive to work but to be forced to, by my ruling government.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, April 23, AD 2019 11:35am

I haven’t been able to get much of an explanation from Left-wingers about why the government of Finland collapsed March 9, 2019, directly as a result of the bankruptcy of the national healthcare system.

Is Finland still part of Scandinavia?

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Tuesday, April 23, AD 2019 11:40am

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