One point worth adding is that Iceland has similar levels of equality to the rest of Scandinavia, but with much less social spending.
I believe that this is strong evidence that it is culture that creates equality and not social spending. Indeed, it was the egalitarian culture of Scandinavian societies culture that built the political justification for very large levels of social spending.
The region had very egalitarian Free Peasant societies during the Middle Ages. With the partial exception of Denmark, they lacked the highly unequal feudal order of most of Western Europe. This created a very egalitarian culture long before the Social Democrats ever existed.
Switzerland is another example of a Free Peasant society, and it also has low levels of inequality despite lower levels of social spending.
As someone who has lived in Denmark (which we all know is far more civilized than Sweden : ), I can attest to the Scandinavian nations being capitalist economies with an overlay of a Social Democratic welfare state.
Social Democracy depends on a vibrant capitalist economy to generate revenue to fund social programs. And the Scandinavian Social Democrats and labor unions know that. With the exception of the failed Socialist experiment in Sweden in the 1970s and 80s, they have been very capitalistic economies.
So if you like Scandinavia, you also like capitalism.
The US Congress would benefit greatly from copying Sweden’s fiscal rules framework, which consists of a surplus target, a spending limit, and a debt anchor. I wrote about this effective framework and how we might apply it in the US in an article titled “Needed: An Effective Fiscal Framework to Restrain Spending and Control Debt in the United States.”
This argument is so stupid. Everyone agrees the Nordic countries are great, progressives ignore how business-friendly they are and libertarians conveniently sidestep their immense social spending & labour protections. On and on it goes. It seems like nobody actually wants to copy the Nordic model in its entirety, they just want to highlight the bits of it that line up with their preexisting dogma.
Americans have a higher real Actual Individual Consumption or Adjusted Household Disposable Income (both PPP-adjusted measures account for taxes and transfers, like healthcare, education or cash/quasi-cash benefits) than Swedes. Both are the best national accounts measures of material well-being constructed by organisations like the World Bank and OECD. The OECD also produces a survey-based median disposable income data, and guess what: Americans rank highest for this too, so it is not just a matter of inequality. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
The World Happiness Report's latest report ranks the United States below the Nordic countries in happiness but above Germany and France. The latter are also large welfare states. Personally I am not a fan of the measure and it does not necessarily corroborate with other happiness measures produced by other organisations like Gallup. You can see a discussion on this here: https://geopolicraticus.wordpress.com/2020/10/04/happiness-a-tale-of-two-surveys/
Thank you for this. I'd happily have higher tax rates, fewer taxes, and stronger property rights. There's a lot we could copy from the Nordic countries that would benefit us, but it's completely ridiculous to call it socialism. Especially since you never see militant movements formed around creating Scandinavian social democracies. It's always a mad scramble for the abolition of private property and inequality, and it never produces anything but misery.
It's no secret that I am team free markets, which I guess is represented by the freemason Marx's term "capitalism" though not at all well. It's a little better in the "libertarian purity" test when Bryan asks if you have consented to be called an anarcho-capitalist, as that implies a free market systems without government, which is how God intended us to live. But that's as far as I got in Johan's commentary before I had to write this note pointing out: I knew that guy back when. Scott Sehon was my debate partner in his junior year in high school, my senior year. We went to Shawnee Mission East championship tournament and won the first place trophy. I still have the trophy among my things in Ohio. How amusing to see him here taking the wrong side of the discussion.
Whether Scandinavian countries are all that socialist is something of a red herring. For one thing, they didn't do nearly as much authoritarian idiocy as the USA in the covid-excused lockdowns and censorship festival. For another, red is the colour of socialism, and they still have a fishing fleet that hauls herring out of the sea, so it's appropriate. ;-)
I think Per Bylund might be a more authoritative resource on the topic of Swedish and Norwegian social welfare policies, tax structures, and room for entrepreneurs in their economies. I met Per in person at the 2002 world congress of what was then the International Society for Individual Liberty before we cleverly published Kerry Pearson and Ken Schoolland's "Philosophy of Liberty" video in Arabic and made Barack Obama so angry that he took to calling Daesh/ISIS by the name "ISIL" in his speeches. I suspect that if you ask him, Per may have deeply trenchant thoughts to offer.
Is Scott Sehon still on the faculty at Brown university? Was the last we spoke. I don't get along well with socialists and other communist filth, so our conversation was somewhat brief. Just as well.
1) Is the lesson that Sweden isn't socialist or that the USA is?
50% of GDP on government spending is certainly...something! It ain't libertarianism.
2) Sweden is about middle class people paying taxes to themselves.
3) They are generally a more efficient state at such redistribution, but probably because it's similar people paying taxes to similar people and high IQ in a small democracy.
Perhaps what people really want isn't higher gov spending % of GDP so much as better governance and a stronger society.
4) Like many countries, their healthcare system is a lot more efficient and cheaper than hodge hodge US model. Unlike the UK NHS nobody seems to complain about its quality or availability (the same could be said for Switzerland, Singapore, etc).
5) I drastically raised my evaluation of the Nordics after COVID.
6) Although the Swedes got surprised at first, the Nordics in general seem to be more Saileresque about immigration these days.
Today, Sweden has more than 400 public institutions from the police and the military, to the agency for gender equality and cultural analysis. While the welfare state is often better for the middle-class residents
> US system ...cost of healthcare to several times what it out [ought] to be.
Ought to be by evading higher taxes that lowers general production and increases general prices. You continue to evade govt in med and med insurance. In the non-Pragmatist long run, the attack on mans independent mind will destroy the metaphysically and historically unique prosperity of capitalism and its radical increase in health and longevity.
Ought is a moral idea. What is your moral context? Is it rational or mystical? US med and med insurance is govt supplied or regulated by force. Initiated force is immoral and impractical because it stops the mind from guiding ones life. There is no substitute for the mind.
>Private underwriting can't solve that problem
This is the 3rd time for this claim in this thread w/o proof.
>Before government solved the problem the solution was that we let sick people just die.
Before govt allegedly solved the problem, med science was less. Coincidences are not causes. And man has a moral right to his own life. Man is not a moral slave of man. Sacrifice is immoral and impractical. Morality is a guide to life, not to the saccrifice of life. Sacrifice is immoral.
> Before government solved the problem the solution was that we let sick people just die.
Before ccapitalism, longevity and health were less. Coincidences are not causes. Man is not a moral slave of man. Man is morally free of man. Man has rights (moral freedom in society) , not mystical "duties." Jesus and Hitler were wrong.
> But as we got wealthier people wanted to insure against that risk for themselves and their loved ones.
Thus better private insurance could be produced and bought.
> inherent and important human value
There are no mystical inherent values. There are no mystical values in reality. Values are objective, the product of mans independent focused mind for his life. Important to whom and for what?
> efficient system around it (as Switzerland, Singapore, Japan, Sweden, etc
Since when is bureaucracy efficient? Ancient Egypt? Again, the attack on mans independent mind will , in the long run, end 300 years of progressive capitalist prosperity. But, in the short run, have one more for the road. As 60s rocker Marianne Faithfull sang, "Weve been trying to get high without having to pay." Leftists want tribal culture. Rightists want the Dark Ages. Both w/late teens to 30 years mortality and virtually no med. You are part of this trend of increassing sacrifice that you evade.
Sweden has, so Ive read, less antitrust policy forcing business to compete according to the "perfect" competition of communist pseudo-economics rather than the experimenting, productive minds of businessmen guided by the market.
One point worth adding is that Iceland has similar levels of equality to the rest of Scandinavia, but with much less social spending.
I believe that this is strong evidence that it is culture that creates equality and not social spending. Indeed, it was the egalitarian culture of Scandinavian societies culture that built the political justification for very large levels of social spending.
The region had very egalitarian Free Peasant societies during the Middle Ages. With the partial exception of Denmark, they lacked the highly unequal feudal order of most of Western Europe. This created a very egalitarian culture long before the Social Democrats ever existed.
Switzerland is another example of a Free Peasant society, and it also has low levels of inequality despite lower levels of social spending.
As someone who has lived in Denmark (which we all know is far more civilized than Sweden : ), I can attest to the Scandinavian nations being capitalist economies with an overlay of a Social Democratic welfare state.
Social Democracy depends on a vibrant capitalist economy to generate revenue to fund social programs. And the Scandinavian Social Democrats and labor unions know that. With the exception of the failed Socialist experiment in Sweden in the 1970s and 80s, they have been very capitalistic economies.
So if you like Scandinavia, you also like capitalism.
Gotta save this for the next time a Berniebro (or sis) pops up with "ah but SWEDEN is socialist!"
The US Congress would benefit greatly from copying Sweden’s fiscal rules framework, which consists of a surplus target, a spending limit, and a debt anchor. I wrote about this effective framework and how we might apply it in the US in an article titled “Needed: An Effective Fiscal Framework to Restrain Spending and Control Debt in the United States.”
This argument is so stupid. Everyone agrees the Nordic countries are great, progressives ignore how business-friendly they are and libertarians conveniently sidestep their immense social spending & labour protections. On and on it goes. It seems like nobody actually wants to copy the Nordic model in its entirety, they just want to highlight the bits of it that line up with their preexisting dogma.
Americans have a higher real Actual Individual Consumption or Adjusted Household Disposable Income (both PPP-adjusted measures account for taxes and transfers, like healthcare, education or cash/quasi-cash benefits) than Swedes. Both are the best national accounts measures of material well-being constructed by organisations like the World Bank and OECD. The OECD also produces a survey-based median disposable income data, and guess what: Americans rank highest for this too, so it is not just a matter of inequality. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
The World Happiness Report's latest report ranks the United States below the Nordic countries in happiness but above Germany and France. The latter are also large welfare states. Personally I am not a fan of the measure and it does not necessarily corroborate with other happiness measures produced by other organisations like Gallup. You can see a discussion on this here: https://geopolicraticus.wordpress.com/2020/10/04/happiness-a-tale-of-two-surveys/
Thank you for this. I'd happily have higher tax rates, fewer taxes, and stronger property rights. There's a lot we could copy from the Nordic countries that would benefit us, but it's completely ridiculous to call it socialism. Especially since you never see militant movements formed around creating Scandinavian social democracies. It's always a mad scramble for the abolition of private property and inequality, and it never produces anything but misery.
It's no secret that I am team free markets, which I guess is represented by the freemason Marx's term "capitalism" though not at all well. It's a little better in the "libertarian purity" test when Bryan asks if you have consented to be called an anarcho-capitalist, as that implies a free market systems without government, which is how God intended us to live. But that's as far as I got in Johan's commentary before I had to write this note pointing out: I knew that guy back when. Scott Sehon was my debate partner in his junior year in high school, my senior year. We went to Shawnee Mission East championship tournament and won the first place trophy. I still have the trophy among my things in Ohio. How amusing to see him here taking the wrong side of the discussion.
Whether Scandinavian countries are all that socialist is something of a red herring. For one thing, they didn't do nearly as much authoritarian idiocy as the USA in the covid-excused lockdowns and censorship festival. For another, red is the colour of socialism, and they still have a fishing fleet that hauls herring out of the sea, so it's appropriate. ;-)
I think Per Bylund might be a more authoritative resource on the topic of Swedish and Norwegian social welfare policies, tax structures, and room for entrepreneurs in their economies. I met Per in person at the 2002 world congress of what was then the International Society for Individual Liberty before we cleverly published Kerry Pearson and Ken Schoolland's "Philosophy of Liberty" video in Arabic and made Barack Obama so angry that he took to calling Daesh/ISIS by the name "ISIL" in his speeches. I suspect that if you ask him, Per may have deeply trenchant thoughts to offer.
Is Scott Sehon still on the faculty at Brown university? Was the last we spoke. I don't get along well with socialists and other communist filth, so our conversation was somewhat brief. Just as well.
1) Is the lesson that Sweden isn't socialist or that the USA is?
50% of GDP on government spending is certainly...something! It ain't libertarianism.
2) Sweden is about middle class people paying taxes to themselves.
3) They are generally a more efficient state at such redistribution, but probably because it's similar people paying taxes to similar people and high IQ in a small democracy.
Perhaps what people really want isn't higher gov spending % of GDP so much as better governance and a stronger society.
4) Like many countries, their healthcare system is a lot more efficient and cheaper than hodge hodge US model. Unlike the UK NHS nobody seems to complain about its quality or availability (the same could be said for Switzerland, Singapore, etc).
5) I drastically raised my evaluation of the Nordics after COVID.
6) Although the Swedes got surprised at first, the Nordics in general seem to be more Saileresque about immigration these days.
Proto, E., & Oswald, A. J. (2017). National happiness and genetic distance: A cautious exploration. The Economic Journal, 127(604), 2127-2152.
https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/78179/7/WRAP_-r28novembergenesprotooswald20151.pdf
Today, Sweden has more than 400 public institutions from the police and the military, to the agency for gender equality and cultural analysis. While the welfare state is often better for the middle-class residents
> US system ...cost of healthcare to several times what it out [ought] to be.
Ought to be by evading higher taxes that lowers general production and increases general prices. You continue to evade govt in med and med insurance. In the non-Pragmatist long run, the attack on mans independent mind will destroy the metaphysically and historically unique prosperity of capitalism and its radical increase in health and longevity.
Ought is a moral idea. What is your moral context? Is it rational or mystical? US med and med insurance is govt supplied or regulated by force. Initiated force is immoral and impractical because it stops the mind from guiding ones life. There is no substitute for the mind.
>Private underwriting can't solve that problem
This is the 3rd time for this claim in this thread w/o proof.
>Before government solved the problem the solution was that we let sick people just die.
Before govt allegedly solved the problem, med science was less. Coincidences are not causes. And man has a moral right to his own life. Man is not a moral slave of man. Sacrifice is immoral and impractical. Morality is a guide to life, not to the saccrifice of life. Sacrifice is immoral.
> Before government solved the problem the solution was that we let sick people just die.
Before ccapitalism, longevity and health were less. Coincidences are not causes. Man is not a moral slave of man. Man is morally free of man. Man has rights (moral freedom in society) , not mystical "duties." Jesus and Hitler were wrong.
> But as we got wealthier people wanted to insure against that risk for themselves and their loved ones.
Thus better private insurance could be produced and bought.
> inherent and important human value
There are no mystical inherent values. There are no mystical values in reality. Values are objective, the product of mans independent focused mind for his life. Important to whom and for what?
> efficient system around it (as Switzerland, Singapore, Japan, Sweden, etc
Since when is bureaucracy efficient? Ancient Egypt? Again, the attack on mans independent mind will , in the long run, end 300 years of progressive capitalist prosperity. But, in the short run, have one more for the road. As 60s rocker Marianne Faithfull sang, "Weve been trying to get high without having to pay." Leftists want tribal culture. Rightists want the Dark Ages. Both w/late teens to 30 years mortality and virtually no med. You are part of this trend of increassing sacrifice that you evade.
Sweden has, so Ive read, less antitrust policy forcing business to compete according to the "perfect" competition of communist pseudo-economics rather than the experimenting, productive minds of businessmen guided by the market.