Is the nordic model socialist or not? I was taught welfare state was a way of socialism...

is the nordic model socialist or not? I was taught welfare state was a way of socialism, but from what I have read it isn't. the 1st minister of norway told sanders to stop calling them socialists. yet, some icelandic user called iceland communist, which is also unrelated to the nordic model. so I don't know what to think anymore.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV
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it is just as much socialism as is Venezuela

...

democratic socialism, ie, they voted for high taxes and just high taxes to pay for some social security stuff

it's not the take your money and distribute it kind of socialism

Taxes are pointless if nobody works

See

>Former Prime minister Tage Erlander spoke on radio a year ago about the people's home and about how he visited his senile mother at a residential hospital outside of Karlstad. When he came to visit her she told him; I'm so happy here. Everyone is so nice to me and I get good care and nice food. But who is paying for all this? Is it you Tage? And Erlander said; no I'm not paying, you're paying for this yourself mother. You have paid for this your entire life. You have grown up in this society, you have taken care of the family all these years, you have been a good citizen. And you have the right to be taken care of when you get old and infirm, not because of charity, not because you have a thick wallet, but because you are a Swedish citizen. This is your society, our society. You have the same right to this as anyone else. That is the welfare state and it is our greatest pride!
Olof Palme, August 28, 1985, in debate with the leader of the opposition before 1985 years general election.

>so I don't know what to think anymore.
You could just look up all these terms in the dictionary instead of falling for the caricatures of politically illiterate retards. All Nordic states are social democratic and capitalist liberal democracies.

>caricatures of politically illiterate retards
Like this imbecile: >socialism is when the government does stuff
>socialism is social security
>socialism is high taxes

Lmao. Read a book.

Nordic model doesn't work so yeah I guess it is socialism after all

It's almost that there isn't a binary distinction, and things work gradually instead. Now where exactly we make the cutoff depends on definition

yeah, I have read that
but if socialism is the ownership of the means of production by the people what the fuck is communism?

and if the state owns companies, why wouldn't those companies be owned by the people given a democratic state?

>Nordic model doesn't work
>best countries in the world
>it doesnt work

No, these are clear-cut political terms with fixed definitions and people that are abusing them in bad faith are not changing that.

im not gonna reply to the finn because he doesn't deserve a reply so im just gonna say that he is probably a mommas boy who has never worked a day in his life

So, the Nordic model ideal?

>tiny ass population
>while exploiting the third world as much as you can

How are we exploiting brazil?

come up with an actual argument next time

>>tiny ass population
great argument
>>while exploiting the third world as much as you can
we are not america

Yes the nordic model is socialist, it has always included free market capitalism

So much this. Sweden realized this.

holy shit motherfuckers do you really believe your free gibs system would work in the US, Brazil, China or India?

>we don't have companies that exploit the minuscule wages or compete with non-existent industries of shithole countries

No, it's not. The aim of social democracy is saving capitalism from self-destruction by its worst excesses, not the establishment of socialism.

eurofucks don't realize some places of the world can't be crossed with a 5 hour car drive separating people even more by a heterogeneous culture

any raildroad, energy lines or pipe system will be 10x more expensive here than in your frozen cubicle islands because of the distance

It wouldn't work without sense of solidarity. You don't care when your fellow citzens in favelas starve to death or get murdered.

...

If there is private property on the means of production and class society, then it's not socialism. And if there's state property, it's not socialism, it's state capitalism.
Nordic model is still capitalist, no matter what brainlets say and no matter how wide is their welfare program.

The nordic model is one of the most capitalist systems there is, arguably more capitalist than the US since nordic countries often rank higher in terms of economic freedom.

excellent post

This guy gets it.
Based Russia.

It's a mixed market economy

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy

Poor people should have small families and rich people large families. Social policies which aim to reverse natures eternal order can only do harm to societies which implement them.

indeed. it's racism and culture heterogeneity I guess.
still not as bad as the US though.

Why do you feel like it needs a label?
It's right for some countries, and not for others.

It's same here with anti-Roma sentiment and post-1989 neoliberal brainwashing.

One day, we'll end up like your country

That's because in the US you have monopolies and companies so powerful that they employ anti-competitive practices while lobbying the government to distort the market to their benefit.

>one of the highest taxes in the world
>more capitalist than the US
>a bunch of state owned core companies
>more neoliberal than the us

you also don't have the US breathing down your neck fucking over your politics and trying to grab your oil companies

At least you admit to being jealous, and that is a step in the right direction!

what the fuck what kind of asshole are you?

I still would rather live here but just because I have good education and my family isn't poor and people here aren't fucking autists and the women are actually good looking and not cunts

No. Socialism seeks the abolition of capitalism, anything short of that is not socialism. Nordic countries have an extensive welfare system and a relatively large public sector, that's it. Capitalism isn't the same as non-intervention in the economy.

Bingo. Crony capitalism is pretty bad here. I'm not even a libertarian or anything but I tend to agree that free markets improve things the most when they're allowed to work as they were meant to.

I do think there are some aspects of it which other countries could benefit from but I agree it's stupid to just make policies a carbon copy of more successful countries.

Corporate taxes are extremely high here to the point where a lot of US businesses have relocated to Europe. Our tax structure in general is just a trainwreck desu.

Also why do free-market think tanks rate the Nordics as competitive or even higher than the US in terms of economic freedom?

Sorry, I can't sympathize with you, as I can't relate to your shitty situation

VERY good post

they dont even have high taxes
Ireland has higher taxes and our social services are shite compared to theirs
think they just have really good institutions and infrastructure

>they dont even have high taxes

you need a high level of social trust for it to work, which we got. only shitholes got a low level of social trust

maybe im wrong but this what a student erasmus student told me
if he worked he would pay 30% in income tax. Here we pay 20% on first rate and 42% on second. Its literally not worth my time ever doing overtime because nearly half is taxed, and then theres still PRSI
and we get shitty services from it, at least if you are paying as much as us you get some good stuff for it

>they dont even have high taxes

>they dont even have high taxes
>if he worked he would pay 30%
The lowest tax rate in Denmark is literally 38% + 8%.

Social democracy is not the same thing as socialism. Nordic countries have the best conditions for doing business in Europe, they have very low barriers to free trade and their product market is the least regulated on the continent.

>Also why do free-market think tanks rate the Nordics as competitive or even higher than the US in terms of economic freedom?

because they are
their taxes are high as shit and lower than yours

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

you are at the bottom, they are at the top

thats still almost the same as here and you have more to show for it
we dont even get free university anymore

46% is the average tax rate in Denmark.

where the fuck are your taxes going

the shitty underclass that needs to die

Communism is a stateless, classless, global society. Socialism is a transitory state that doesn't exclude the existence of a state; this is the source of the "not real communism" meme as people confuse the rule of a communist party with the existence of communism.

read a book, nigger.

It's capitalism with a lot of socialistic add-ons

>thats still almost the same as here

Under socialism, the workers control the means of production either directly or through their representatives. Under communism, nobody owns the means of production, because a communist society is by definition the one in which there is no scarcity of resources, and if there is no scarcity, than there is no point in such concepts as “property” and “ownership”.

Considering how differently people understand the term socialism - for someone the term is equated with totalitarianism and one party state, for someone the term describes any arrangement in which he's required to pay taxes, for someone it's the dictionary definition (which is to be frank not attainable in real life anyway) - I'd say the question is kinda pointless. In fact I consider it a tragedy of language when a term is abused and misinterpreted so violently, and often on purpose in effort to gain or press advantage in rhetorical pissing contests, that it loses informational value and becomes just another catalyst for conflict and misunderstanding.

Nordic countries are democratic countries with market economy and developed welfare state.

Until recently, I didn’t know that the Czech Republic has a lower level of income inequality than all Nordic countries except for Iceland. That’s pretty impressive.

>2010
check now lad

>That’s pretty impressive
Envy keeps the wages more or less the same. Who wants to earn a lot needs to start enterprising and needs to be lucky as hell.

Yeah, it's true that our economy is pretty egalitarian. What's a shame is that the actually richest are exempt from this - most of the egalitarianism comes from taxing the upper middle class.

By any economic metric they are the most socialist countries except for outright communist dictatorships.

But all of this is propaganda. They are "socialist" or not depending on what agenda you want to spin.

Are you daft, mate?

stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV

>Also why do free-market think tanks rate the Nordics as competitive or even higher than the US in terms of economic freedom?

Propaganda. They came up with a bullshit metric that is literally just the number of lines of regulation that each country has. Then they say Sweden is more free market because it has less regulation. Obviously it's just a bullshit nonsensical metric.

Are you pulling my leg, or are you this uninformed?
For every source you find that rates Ireland as having heavier taxation than Denmark, I'll find you 5 saying the opposite.

Tell that to someone who has to read all those lines and ensure his company's business complies with them.

Nordic countries actually have the lowest amount of market regulations on the European continent, they just have high taxes and strong labour unions.

>strong labour unions
It surprised me when I found out this wasn't the norm outside of Denmark.

>By any economic metric they are the most socialist countries except for outright communist dictatorships.

Lmao. You must be some pampered suburbanite spouting your rich daddy's opinions while never having opened a book on political theory.

I know all about that, but the metric is still bullshit.

First of all Sweden is just a much smaller player with their hands in fewer baskets. Obviously they regulate less shit because they engage in less activities.

Secondly there is a difference between being a dominant market player and being an upstart. The US dominates in a lot of markets and that requires entirely different sets of regulations.

This, we dont even have a minimum wage, ...bernie.

Psst... don't tell any of the centre right politicians that have got on board, but the welfare state is literally what socialists in the 19th and 20th centuries were fighting for

>This, we dont even have a minimum wage
This is used to be the case here as well but our unions go to weak over the last few decades that they implemented a minimum wage.

>By any economic metric they are the most socialist countries except for outright communist dictatorships.

If you want to prove me wrong, point out a metric where this is not true. I challenge you.

Because there is no labour market that doesn't come with a collective agreement. This is more socialist, not less.

Considering how destructive unions can be, it's no wonder

I sincerely doubt that to be the case. For one, as member of EU, Sweden automatically has to keep its regulation comprehensively in line with the EU standard. Besides, just because it is itself a smaller economy doesn't mean its legal system can be less robust.

What are you basing your impression on anyway?

I wouldn't know. I've only ever had positive experiences with them.
I think it's cool that a minimum wage isn't really needed.

You don’t need a minimum wage if you already have extremely powerful unions.

From what I understand, their unions are structured in a different manner, that limits the abuse by the union leaders. It is almost a parallel democratic system.

>Considering how destructive unions can be, it's no wonder
Yes. I'm still nostalgic about the days when children were free to work in coal mines and make an honest living for themselves.

I don't know about rest of Europe, but over here and presumably in a lot of remaining former soviet bloc, anything that is even tangentially related to "labour", i.e. labour protection, labour unions, working class or manual labour carries a taint of communism and totalitarianism.

Have a look at American unions and how they basically create entry barriers for people who want to enter the field

Unions are the reason Detroit is the way it is.

niggers are the reason Detroit is the way it is, mate.

Why do you think auto industry abandoned Detroit? It wasn't niggers.

retarded argument. Germany is the world's leading auto exporter and also has strong unions. America is a third-world country and you can't use it as a fair example.

Here we have a tax curve. If you earn under X amount you pay 30% on your salary however your employer must also pay 30% of your original salary in taxes because of the general payroll tax.

So if you earn 30 000kr/month

The total salary is 40 000kr from your employer's point of view but they pay 10 000kr of that in taxes because of general payroll tax.

Then you get 30 000kr but pay 30% in taxes which leave you with around 20 000kr after taxes.

And you we pay 25% VAT on most things.

And if you earn over amount X you will end up paying a lot higher taxes on the money you earn after X amount.

My dad used to earn around 200 000kr/month before he retired.

Original salary would be 260 000kr.

The employer have to pay 60 000kr in taxes because of general payroll tax.

200 000kr is the salary he see.

Then he had to pay 30% of that for the first 35000kr. For the remaining 165 000kr he had to pay above 60%.

So in the end he would only end up with around 80 000kr while the cost for the employer were 260 000kr.

These numbers aren't very accurate but they give you somewhat of a picture how fucking high the taxes are.

>inb4 reddit spacing

cringe

They also mechanized and robotized a lot and invested in Eastern Europe. Škoda is basically a different brand of Volkswagen. You can also look into the medieval ages when guilds controlled what little industry there was and made sure the prices stayed high. Strong unions kept unchecked can eventually kill off the industry.

I heard the author of Pippi Longstockings had to pay like 103% of her income back in the day.

Yea, she had to pay both the employment fee as well as taxes since she was self employed and back then you didn't start pay higher taxes after X amount but just from the original amount. Shit was crazy but that incident made sure that shit like that wouldn't happen again.

Doesnt matter, if its socialist or left wing in general its against god and its destined to fail.

He's talking about corp taxes, and he's right. We have one of the most liberal ecomomies in the world. But we also have a social welfare system which we share with taxes from our own pockets. While our businesses thrives with a liberal economy, we thrive too in a welfare secure society which we happily pay for with our own money. When businesses are thriving, our income go up, and it's working quite well.

The Nordic model is social-liberal.
Anyone who says it's socialist does not know the meaning of that word.

This: It isn't socialism, nor is it democratic socialism. The Nordic states are social democracies, as they still operate on a free market economy with private control of the means of production. Likewise, despite his claims, Bernie Sanders is a social democrat rather than a democratic socialist.

Really, the Wikipedia pages on all of these terms are actually quite and surprisingly good. If you're confused then just check them out.