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.
Sure, but everyone is capitalist. Even self proclaimed communists are mostly capitalist these days.
I don't think people who call us to "be more socialist like Sweden" are literally lobbying for Marxist Central Planners to take control of the means of production.
I am not sure what “everyone is a capitalist” means. Capitalism is an economic system, not a characteristic of an individual. And, yes, most Communist nations are more capitalist than socialist.
Your second point is well taken. It shows that they are clueless as to what socialism is. My guess is that if their desires are left unchecked, their ideas would lead to something approximating the Soviet economy. They just do not realize it. No amount of government is enough for them.
At this point Socialism is just a mythical utopian society where everyone is equal and no problems exist. It cannot exist, except as Communism. That is exactly why their definition is so sloppy. It is evasion.
Communism is an impossible mystical ideal, literally. Marx said he could not predict its concrete nature. The dialectic is supernatural and known by intuition,not sense-based reason. Todays communists are anti-ideological Pragmatists who want to get as close as possible to consistent, sustainable poverty. Thus the appeal to corrupt intellectuals, not workers.
Good example. Marx wrote many books on capitalism and how to foment revolution, but virtually nothing on what Communism actually is.
This reinforces my belief that ideologies are invented by very smart people with Anti-social disorder. The goal is inflicting the maximum havoc within society. The supposed goal is just “social camouflage” to get other people to participate in the havoc.
> I don't think people who call us to "be more socialist like Sweden" are literally lobbying for Marxist Central Planners to take control of the means of production.
The concept of a libertarian nation state is as oxymoronic as a thing can get. Sam Konkin was quite right on that topic, for all his other flaws. The idea of a political party calling itself Libertarian and wanting to have ongoing existence as libertarian and not as a vehicle for raves, festivals, and parties is silly, and was silly when David Nolan and Gail Lightfoot sat in David's living room with their friends and came up with it. I'm of the opinion that there was a lot of weed smoked that afternoon.
It is certainly the case that the Scandinavians understand that a vibrant and growing economy is essential to the financing of their social welfare policies. Do you think, Michael, there might be some way to pass that understanding to the American social democrats, Democrats, Republicans, and other political factions? It seems to have gotten lost in the conflict over who gets to run the gooferment.
You mean to encourage people like me to get people in politics to read?! Let alone read anything good? Um, well, gosh. That's a pretty tall order there.
Yes, notice that those on the Left have absolutely no interest in understanding how the Swedish social services programs actually work. If they really wanted to copy Sweden, there would be a huge literature on the subject in English.
But there is not, because they do not care. They just want to win an argument with people who know nothing about Sweden.
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.
This is an irrelevant argument. Every government in the world levies taxes, and the levying of taxes -- regardless of the willingness of the payees to part with their money -- is essential to maintaining the military, law enforcement, courts, and certain other collective-action problems that you just can't rely on goodwill to maintain.
The alternative to a society without any of these things is, at best, berberesque nomadism, where everyone is poor and clannish. For all its faults, it's not the worst thing in the world, but they're utterly powerless in the face of any organized modern militant group, including those that actually ARE the worst things in the world, like revolutionary socialists or revolutionary Islamists. If taxes are indeed theft, they're a theft I'm happy to live with when the best alternative is marrying my cousin, harvesting resources at the subsistence level, making babies until we're marrying our grandchildren off to our other grandchildren, and we either die or are executed by the "people's council" for "subversion" after our granddaughters are gangraped before our eyes by the terrorist vermin who stole everything from us.
> 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.
I mean, fucking every time you call out socialists who still have some ability to behave themselves in public, they say they just want to turn the US into Scandinavia. But if you look at the policies they really support -- the policies that cause socialists to go full salafi -- it's never anything like the policies they have in Scandinavia, which have the strongest physical and intellectual property rights on Earth; independent, rule-of-law-boud judiciaries; a plethora of robust, wealthy corporations; and freedoms of expression, movement, and conscience. They oppose every one of those things in theory and in practice. Militant socialists are just more open about it.
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.
I think your first point is really important. It is about social insurance, not redistribution. The actual impact on inequality is nowhere near as great as most people think.
Since profits are not guaranteed and most businesses fail within five years, social insurance is literally impossible. Govt can't loot a bankrupt business. What kind of social insurance exists in pre-capitalist economies w/virtually no production, technology or medicine? "Social insurance" is a street thief's lifestyle. Prior to capitalism,ie, for 300K years, average mortality was late teens to 30 years. What good is social insurance in primitive farming or hunting-gathering, those wet dreams of Leftists? OK, maybe the tribal witchdoctor doesnt charge for mindless raving and worthless powder thrown on the sick.
People like social insurance (because it's the only way to solve the underwriting problem for some goods like healthcare). Social insurance can be provided at various levels of GDP % (usually anywhere from 20%-50%).
They hate welfare, which is continuous redistribution from one group to another with little hope of that ever changing.
As the Nordics imported a "welfare class" from the Middle East even their social insurance model has broken down. Much like happens in the USA with the same demographic issues (Nordic heavy Minneapolis became a welfare magnet for American blacks too).
> social insurance (because it's the only way to solve the underwriting problem for some goods like healthcare).
US med and med insurance is govt-controlled. A consistent capitalist economy would have more med progress, more competition, higher wages and lower prices. Capitalism has no underwriting problem. For altruists, mans independent mind is a problem to be solved w/a gun.
There are no "consistent capitalist economies" with universal health insurance.
But people desperately want to buy health insurance because its and important risk in their lives. And private insurance can't solve the underwriting problem in health insurance (it can solve it for currently healthy people over short periods especially if they can be broken into manageable large groups, but that's far from universal and doesn't even help you much if you end up with a pre-existing condition). Anyone who has looked at the history of health insurance knows this.
You can of course solve the underwriting problem without having something like the NHS, but your going to need some government to stabilize the risk pool.
"US med and med insurance is govt-controlled."
It sure is, but ironically "more socialist" medical systems might actually have less government interference in healthcare then we have.
Singapore provides universal health insurance and cutting edge medical care for 3% of GDP. It's "more socialist" in some ways, but overall dramatically more market based.
> private insurance can't solve the underwriting problem in health insurance
Your religious faith in socialism is noted. You even have an omniscient, omnipotent authority who, mystically, has the knowledge and power that man does not have.
> "US med and med insurance is govt-controlled."
Ie, you explicitly evade the effect of govt while claiming that the capitalism that you know does not exist is the cause of problems.
> Ironically "more socialist" medical systems might actually have less government
Contradictions are a failure to focus mind onto reality, not facts of reality. A house is a house, not both a house and not a house.
The freest med,in the US and Switzerland, produce the most med progress, that spreads freely, globally in med journals. There is free med in primitive tribal economies and yet,curiously, virtually no med. Medicine is a product of mans independent mind protected by individual rights,not a product of an ignorant bureaucrats gun stuck in the faces of trained doctors demanding obedience or death. Recall the destruction of biology in the SU when Stalin enforced Lysenko's inherited characteristics and banned Mendelian genetics because it was consistent w/Marxist envirionmentalist determinism.
Switzerland has universal healthcare. Purchase is compulsory and regulated. Insurers are required to provide this insurance to all without any underwriting.
The Swiss government provides subsidies for individuals whose incomes are not high enough to purchase this mandatory insurance.
In other words the Swiss government has mandated a national risk pool and not allowed insurers to try to carve up the risk pool via underwriting in order to gain an advantage over one another. That how the Swiss and every other universal healthcare system solves the problem.
Having established a universal national risk pool there are lots of ways to build a health system after that, many better then others. But once that action is taken it’s not “free market” anymore.
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.
"Ought is a moral idea. What is your moral context?"
I measure outcomes vs inputs and compare them to similar empirical contexts.
If a wide variety of similar first world actors can get similar health outcomes (I'm not just talking health of the population here, but practical availability and quality of similar medical care) while paying far less as a % of GDP then I feel that "America OUGHT to be able to get the same outcomes for far less" is an empirically sound statement.
Like how the two virtually identical large groceries in my town "ought" to be able to offer similar produce and similar prices. And in fact they basically do.
But if there was one grocery store that sold tomatoes at 3x the price and actually you couldn't even tell what the price was until you had already paid and if you lost your job you couldn't buy tomatoes anymore even if you have savings in the bank to pay...you would probably say the other grocery store was doing a better job and the shitty one OUGHT to be like the other one. And if a new manager came in and said "we are going to copy the management techniques of the rival grocery store that seems to get better results" and you called him a communist, I would just throw my hands up in the air and consider you a loon.
"Private underwriting can't solve that problem"
"Thus better private insurance could be produced and bought."
If you want to research past attempts to offer pre-existing condition insurance and their failure you are free to do so. There is a lot of literature and empirical examples.
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.
50% of GDP being government spending is certainly...something.
If its not Stalinism, its certainly not Libertarianism either.
True, but the topic of this article is not Libertarianism. You do not have to have a Libertarian government to be capitalist.
There are no Libertarian nations, but there are dozens of capitalist nations. And all the Scandinavian nations are capitalist.
Sure, but everyone is capitalist. Even self proclaimed communists are mostly capitalist these days.
I don't think people who call us to "be more socialist like Sweden" are literally lobbying for Marxist Central Planners to take control of the means of production.
I am not sure what “everyone is a capitalist” means. Capitalism is an economic system, not a characteristic of an individual. And, yes, most Communist nations are more capitalist than socialist.
Your second point is well taken. It shows that they are clueless as to what socialism is. My guess is that if their desires are left unchecked, their ideas would lead to something approximating the Soviet economy. They just do not realize it. No amount of government is enough for them.
At this point Socialism is just a mythical utopian society where everyone is equal and no problems exist. It cannot exist, except as Communism. That is exactly why their definition is so sloppy. It is evasion.
Communism is an impossible mystical ideal, literally. Marx said he could not predict its concrete nature. The dialectic is supernatural and known by intuition,not sense-based reason. Todays communists are anti-ideological Pragmatists who want to get as close as possible to consistent, sustainable poverty. Thus the appeal to corrupt intellectuals, not workers.
Good example. Marx wrote many books on capitalism and how to foment revolution, but virtually nothing on what Communism actually is.
This reinforces my belief that ideologies are invented by very smart people with Anti-social disorder. The goal is inflicting the maximum havoc within society. The supposed goal is just “social camouflage” to get other people to participate in the havoc.
> I don't think people who call us to "be more socialist like Sweden" are literally lobbying for Marxist Central Planners to take control of the means of production.
Agreed, but they do have wet dreams about it.
The concept of a libertarian nation state is as oxymoronic as a thing can get. Sam Konkin was quite right on that topic, for all his other flaws. The idea of a political party calling itself Libertarian and wanting to have ongoing existence as libertarian and not as a vehicle for raves, festivals, and parties is silly, and was silly when David Nolan and Gail Lightfoot sat in David's living room with their friends and came up with it. I'm of the opinion that there was a lot of weed smoked that afternoon.
It is certainly the case that the Scandinavians understand that a vibrant and growing economy is essential to the financing of their social welfare policies. Do you think, Michael, there might be some way to pass that understanding to the American social democrats, Democrats, Republicans, and other political factions? It seems to have gotten lost in the conflict over who gets to run the gooferment.
I wish I knew. Read my Substack column, perhaps? : )
You mean to encourage people like me to get people in politics to read?! Let alone read anything good? Um, well, gosh. That's a pretty tall order there.
Gotta save this for the next time a Berniebro (or sis) pops up with "ah but SWEDEN is socialist!"
Yes, notice that those on the Left have absolutely no interest in understanding how the Swedish social services programs actually work. If they really wanted to copy Sweden, there would be a huge literature on the subject in English.
But there is not, because they do not care. They just want to win an argument with people who know nothing about Sweden.
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.”
Interesting article. Amazing that supposedly "socialist" Sweden has balanced budget enforcement, while "ultra-capitalist" USA cannot do so.
Which model do you prefer for balancing the budget: Switzerland's or Sweden's?
My preferred model would be a constitutional amendment limiting federal spending to 15% of GDP and capping federal revenue at 16% of GDP.
Its higher than I would like as a libertarian, but I could deal with it, I guess.
Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to peaceably acquire and use property, produce, trade, and pursue profit.
> Restrain Spending and Control Debt in the United States.
Are you one of them long-haired, dope-smoking raddyculls?!
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.
> I'd happily have higher tax rates...and stronger property rights
Since taxes are theft from property, you must mean slap-happy.
This is an irrelevant argument. Every government in the world levies taxes, and the levying of taxes -- regardless of the willingness of the payees to part with their money -- is essential to maintaining the military, law enforcement, courts, and certain other collective-action problems that you just can't rely on goodwill to maintain.
The alternative to a society without any of these things is, at best, berberesque nomadism, where everyone is poor and clannish. For all its faults, it's not the worst thing in the world, but they're utterly powerless in the face of any organized modern militant group, including those that actually ARE the worst things in the world, like revolutionary socialists or revolutionary Islamists. If taxes are indeed theft, they're a theft I'm happy to live with when the best alternative is marrying my cousin, harvesting resources at the subsistence level, making babies until we're marrying our grandchildren off to our other grandchildren, and we either die or are executed by the "people's council" for "subversion" after our granddaughters are gangraped before our eyes by the terrorist vermin who stole everything from us.
> 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.
?
I mean, fucking every time you call out socialists who still have some ability to behave themselves in public, they say they just want to turn the US into Scandinavia. But if you look at the policies they really support -- the policies that cause socialists to go full salafi -- it's never anything like the policies they have in Scandinavia, which have the strongest physical and intellectual property rights on Earth; independent, rule-of-law-boud judiciaries; a plethora of robust, wealthy corporations; and freedoms of expression, movement, and conscience. They oppose every one of those things in theory and in practice. Militant socialists are just more open about it.
Ayn Rands Atlas shrugged agrees w/you more than you do.
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.
I think your first point is really important. It is about social insurance, not redistribution. The actual impact on inequality is nowhere near as great as most people think.
Since profits are not guaranteed and most businesses fail within five years, social insurance is literally impossible. Govt can't loot a bankrupt business. What kind of social insurance exists in pre-capitalist economies w/virtually no production, technology or medicine? "Social insurance" is a street thief's lifestyle. Prior to capitalism,ie, for 300K years, average mortality was late teens to 30 years. What good is social insurance in primitive farming or hunting-gathering, those wet dreams of Leftists? OK, maybe the tribal witchdoctor doesnt charge for mindless raving and worthless powder thrown on the sick.
Correct.
People like social insurance (because it's the only way to solve the underwriting problem for some goods like healthcare). Social insurance can be provided at various levels of GDP % (usually anywhere from 20%-50%).
They hate welfare, which is continuous redistribution from one group to another with little hope of that ever changing.
As the Nordics imported a "welfare class" from the Middle East even their social insurance model has broken down. Much like happens in the USA with the same demographic issues (Nordic heavy Minneapolis became a welfare magnet for American blacks too).
> social insurance (because it's the only way to solve the underwriting problem for some goods like healthcare).
US med and med insurance is govt-controlled. A consistent capitalist economy would have more med progress, more competition, higher wages and lower prices. Capitalism has no underwriting problem. For altruists, mans independent mind is a problem to be solved w/a gun.
There are no "consistent capitalist economies" with universal health insurance.
But people desperately want to buy health insurance because its and important risk in their lives. And private insurance can't solve the underwriting problem in health insurance (it can solve it for currently healthy people over short periods especially if they can be broken into manageable large groups, but that's far from universal and doesn't even help you much if you end up with a pre-existing condition). Anyone who has looked at the history of health insurance knows this.
You can of course solve the underwriting problem without having something like the NHS, but your going to need some government to stabilize the risk pool.
"US med and med insurance is govt-controlled."
It sure is, but ironically "more socialist" medical systems might actually have less government interference in healthcare then we have.
Singapore provides universal health insurance and cutting edge medical care for 3% of GDP. It's "more socialist" in some ways, but overall dramatically more market based.
> private insurance can't solve the underwriting problem in health insurance
Your religious faith in socialism is noted. You even have an omniscient, omnipotent authority who, mystically, has the knowledge and power that man does not have.
> "US med and med insurance is govt-controlled."
Ie, you explicitly evade the effect of govt while claiming that the capitalism that you know does not exist is the cause of problems.
> Ironically "more socialist" medical systems might actually have less government
Contradictions are a failure to focus mind onto reality, not facts of reality. A house is a house, not both a house and not a house.
The freest med,in the US and Switzerland, produce the most med progress, that spreads freely, globally in med journals. There is free med in primitive tribal economies and yet,curiously, virtually no med. Medicine is a product of mans independent mind protected by individual rights,not a product of an ignorant bureaucrats gun stuck in the faces of trained doctors demanding obedience or death. Recall the destruction of biology in the SU when Stalin enforced Lysenko's inherited characteristics and banned Mendelian genetics because it was consistent w/Marxist envirionmentalist determinism.
Switzerland has universal healthcare. Purchase is compulsory and regulated. Insurers are required to provide this insurance to all without any underwriting.
The Swiss government provides subsidies for individuals whose incomes are not high enough to purchase this mandatory insurance.
In other words the Swiss government has mandated a national risk pool and not allowed insurers to try to carve up the risk pool via underwriting in order to gain an advantage over one another. That how the Swiss and every other universal healthcare system solves the problem.
Having established a universal national risk pool there are lots of ways to build a health system after that, many better then others. But once that action is taken it’s not “free market” anymore.
> American blacks
...educated in the worst Leftist schools to be mindless, resentful and speak Ebonics.
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.
"Ought is a moral idea. What is your moral context?"
I measure outcomes vs inputs and compare them to similar empirical contexts.
If a wide variety of similar first world actors can get similar health outcomes (I'm not just talking health of the population here, but practical availability and quality of similar medical care) while paying far less as a % of GDP then I feel that "America OUGHT to be able to get the same outcomes for far less" is an empirically sound statement.
Like how the two virtually identical large groceries in my town "ought" to be able to offer similar produce and similar prices. And in fact they basically do.
But if there was one grocery store that sold tomatoes at 3x the price and actually you couldn't even tell what the price was until you had already paid and if you lost your job you couldn't buy tomatoes anymore even if you have savings in the bank to pay...you would probably say the other grocery store was doing a better job and the shitty one OUGHT to be like the other one. And if a new manager came in and said "we are going to copy the management techniques of the rival grocery store that seems to get better results" and you called him a communist, I would just throw my hands up in the air and consider you a loon.
"Private underwriting can't solve that problem"
"Thus better private insurance could be produced and bought."
If you want to research past attempts to offer pre-existing condition insurance and their failure you are free to do so. There is a lot of literature and empirical examples.
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.