Nordic Welfare Model
Comments debate the characteristics, success factors, and replicability of Scandinavian/Nordic countries' high-tax welfare states, capitalism, and social policies, often comparing them to the US and attributing outcomes to demographics, resources, and culture.
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The Scandinavian countries are all in essence "nanny states", great to live in if you are not too ambitious or entrepreneurial. Also because of low-population density and abundant natural resources, their experiments with regard to social-welfare have worked. Unfortunately, that model cannot be replicated in the rest of the world, let alone highly populous countries.
Nordic countries are pragmatically ethnocentric, mandatory military service, have state Churches and official state religions, popular Monarchies (Sweden's royal family is more popular in Sweden than the UK Monarchs in the UK), and people, in general, are nice but the furthest thing from 'PC' as we understand it. They are economically left-wing, but the culture is very closed.The very consideration of the 'Nordic Model' is almost absurd because it ignores the other 80
Finland, Norway, and Sweden are all capitalist countries. They just have better welfare institutions than the US.
Isn't the Nordic model only used in only 4 countries? Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway are also genetically and ethnically homogeneous and have a tiny fraction of the population of the USA.You live there, it works for you, but you don't see the differences in our locations which is why you keep pushing it. See- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6005734 Hey I'm glad it works and you
Probably some Scandanavian country, which has class structures but not as starkly as the US.
Population matters (31M vs 5M-9M). Besides Nordics have much freer markets and they do not confiscate private property like this.
Sweden isn't really "richer" than USA or most of Northern Europe either. Clearly instantiating a system like that in Rwanda would be a problem, but in context of developed countries it's mostly a matter of policy, culture and priorities.
Most of the points raised here about Iceland (my home country) and your so-called "socialism" apply equally well to Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Look them up in the happiness, education and economic statistics. They are multimillion populations that are doing quite nicely, "socialism" notwithstanding.
I live in a Scandinavian country, we don't look at all like what Sanders proposes. We have high taxes and lots of benefits from the state, but we also don't have many regulations preventing businesses to run their company as they wish and we have plenty of billionaires. Sanders would be far left in my country, not just left.
It's not even cultural, there are huge demographic, economic, and social differences between Finland and the US. I always find it ironic when people prop up the Nordic countries as utopian, but completely ignore the price of these "utopias". Nothing is ever free.