Do you know the Nordic countries are some of the most capitalistic countries in the world?

I refer to a comment I made a few days ago on another thread:

” . . . ideological think-tanks (who often risibly describe themselves as non-partisan) putting out pseudo-research that looks authoritative to laypersons.”

“A lot of online “discourse” ends up revolving around arguing the merits of the information being pumped out by those very think-tanks and advocacy groups.”

The Economic Freedom Index is produced by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

The other ‘Economic Freedom of the World’ index is produced by the Fraser Institute, a right-libertarian think-tank.

These are not impartial sources. These indices are not pieces of scientific research based on verifiable data, good definitions and testable hypotheses. They are worthless ideological garbage produced by partisan propagandists, crudely and conveniently correlating some most of the most prosperous nations with being “more capitalist”, with the subtext of capitalism being “the best”—even when they absolutely do not fit their own standards and definitions for having the most “economic freedom”.

Norway and Denmark have about two of the largest public sectors of any country in the world.

All the Nordic nations have about the highest trade union membership in the world.

Sweden had the best part of a century of uninterrupted social democratic governance, and still has a large public sector.

Finland basically abolished its private education system.

Denmark, Sweden, and Finland are about the highest in the world for public spending, and about some of the most highly taxed economies in the world.

It is not that the Nordic nations are more or less capitalist. Almost the entire world is capitalist. When taking nations that manage their capitalist economies, the Nordic nations have done generally better not because of more “economic freedom”, but because of doing mostly the complete opposite of what think-tanks like Heritage and Fraser would prescribe as being “more capitalist”.

How do you measure how capitalistic a country is? the Nordic countries have less income variation than the U.S., socialized medicine and some of them pay for college tuition.

I actually agree that most countries have capitalism. I just have a problem with throwing around any of these words, capitalism, socialism, because people think in such black and white terms and think one excludes the other. Using the terms socialism in the US actually hinders the cause for more equality and more safety for all. Being anti-capitalist is not being pro equality, wanting guardrails on capitalism is what gives everyone a chance. That’s my opinion anyway.

Nordic countries just keep capitalism on the rails much better than other countries do. That article called the US a mixed-market economy, but that’s a more appropriate description for the Nordic countries if you asked me.

@JLeslie It’s basically this meme

Capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive though. You can’t have an owner class exploiting workers, land and resources for personal gain, which is what capitalism is, and an economy controlled by workers (without an owner class) for everyone’s benefit, which is what socialism is.

What people colloquially mean by “socialism”, and “mixed economy”, are just things like social security, and some income redistribution and progressive taxation, which is only ever ameliorative.

I think the scope of significantly ameliorating the inequality and exploitation inherent to capitalism through democratic means, particularly in a country like the US, regardless of what terms you want to use, is very remote.

The meme is good.

Yep. Sweden was always cited as a Socialism success. Except they aren’t socialist. They were doing well with capitalism though their growth was so-so. Then in came the Socialists to save the day. It almost ruined the country. The people finally got rid of the Socialists and they are highly capitalistic now. This is a great video about how all this happened. It’s a bit long (almost an hour) but a lot of good information.

“Then in came the Socialists to save the day. It almost ruined the country.”

When was this supposed near ruination and by which socialists exactly? When did the people get rid of them?

@Kropotkin Watch the video I linked. It tells the whole sordid tale.

@seawulf575 It’s a long video. I watched some of it. Maybe you can give me the relevant timestamp or section. Thank you in advance.

@Kropotkin 14:12 starts the discussion of how the market economy helped Sweden greatly. 16:15 starts the description of Socialism kicking in. It then goes on to describe the downfall of Sweden economically and how that came to a head in the 1990’s. At about 35:00 they finally get out of the Socialism model.

Many of their current efforts are market driven. Schools, healthcare, etc are all privatized. The government does still give some funding to these groups, but the government does this based on a contract basis. Taxes are dropped, the government is loosening the grip on controlling everything, and their society is flourishing.

@seawulf575 Out of curiosity. Do you think the video you watched was a non-partisan and accurate appraisal of Sweden’s economic and political history?

I agree that the issue is how countries handle their capitalism. Some are handling it badly.

@Kropotkin Non-partisan and accurate? That is a weird question. Can the stuff in that video be verified? Yep. But what I am finding interesting is that I made a statement and gave the video as a citation. You, as a devout Socialist/Communist, didn’t like the comment and tried to challenge me, even though you didn’t watch the video. When pushed, you said it was too long and asked for time stamps. When given those, you now are trying to say it was partisan. In other words, a Swede made a film about his homeland, complete with history. He gave the good, he gave the bad. His story doesn’t fit your belief so you want so desperately to say it is a lie, but you really can’t. So you want to say it is biased.

Say what you want, but I haven’t seen you post any citation to back up your claims, except of course a meme. That’s valuable.

@seawulf575 All I wanted was a year or time frame for when Sweden had socialists in government during this period of near ruination.

Answering this didn’t need a near hour long video, which by the way, didn’t even give me the answer. All it needed was some numbers for the years, and the name of the socialist group/party.

It didn’t need “go watch this hour long video made by a production company that does classical liberal documentaries, presented by this research fellow from the Cato Institute”.

@Kropotkin Yes, that video didn’t give you all the information you wanted…except it basically did. It told the years that things happened, when decisions were made, what the impacts were, etc. It told you who the key players in all the decline and subsequent rebirth were. But hey, you don’t want to watch it, you just want to argue from a position of ignorance…as usual.

@seawulf575 No it doesn’t. You’re now lying and wasting my time.

Despite the utterly partisan nature of the documentary, which glosses over and misrepresents about four decades of social democratic governance from 1932 to 1976, at no point is it claimed that socialists took over and nearly ruined the country.

The reason I know that this claim of yours can’t even be true, is because I know that socialists have never been in power in Sweden.

The second reason I know it can’t be true, is that at no point during the 70s or 80s was Sweden near ruin. Sweden was throughout this time one of the most prosperous countries in the world, with some of the highest and most enviable standards of living in the world, with some of the lowest levels inequality, highest taxes, and highest public spending.

And even despite the affects of neoliberalism, Sweden still ranks among the most taxed countries in the world with levels of public spending and a welfare system that if ever implemented in the USA, would make American conservatives like you think they’ve been taken over by intergalactic communist aliens.

And still you haven’t watched the video. You are speaking from a point of ignorance. And yes, Sweden still has high taxes and they still have social welfare programs. But had you actually watched this video you would have seen that almost none of them are run by the government. They are privately owned. Oops. The government pays them but has very little to do with the programs themselves. Example: if a company wants to open a school, they have to submit a detailed plan for how they are going to run their school. It is reviewed with the government and if it is okay, they implement it. It is more like bidding for a contract than governmental ownership.

But really, why am I explaining? I’ve given you the information. You have refused to use the information because it pokes a hole in your beliefs. So trying to tell you the information will also be useless.

Goa ahead and bask in your ignorance.

@seawulf575 And still no year and name of these “socialists” that supposedly took over and nearly ruined Sweden.

Your inability to answer the simplest question makes you really special.

@seawulf575 You do realise Sweden is just one country? The OP was about Nordic countries.

I’m well aware of Sweden’s swing to neoliberalism since the 90s and their adoption of nonsense like public-private partnerships and private outsourcing. That’s been happening almost everywhere to varying degrees.

You’re not informing me of anything. You are avoiding answering the really simple question I posed you which now feels like an aeon ago. Of course, I know why you can’t answer it, because your claim was total bollocks.