It’s nothing new for America’s pollyannaish, historically-and-economically illiterate left to jabber “why can’t we try Scandinavian-style ‘Democratic Socialism?’ What do they have that we don’t?”
The correct answer is “they have small countries – about the same population as Minnesota – with socially, ethnically and economically-homogenous societies (seriously – ethnic and social homogeneity is so ingrained in Scandinavian society, they have a word for it – Janteloven) with traditions of simultaneously-uplifting-and-suffocating communitarianism dating back hundreds of years”.
You could also add “…and a willingness to reassess how their sustainable their systems actually are in the real world“, which is something the American left flops at.
My Mitch, you make Scandinavia sound like a haven for you WHITE racist, hate filled white MEN. But the FACTS are not with you, and you have posted shit again.
Sweden has embraced millions of peace loving, progressive Muslim immigrants, who are not WHITE. Mosques are blooming everywhere and Volvos. Rap is hugely popular in Amsterdam as I know well, and yes, as is Chipotle.
My dear friend and colleague Penigma, knows Crown Princess Victoria personally, and has had many fact filled discussions interesting too with her. She is very supportive of Hillary and abortion, which is of course the right side of history in my extensive research of real facts.
And let us not forget that women’s health care providers are beloved among Scandinavia, providing much needed blastocyte removal ON DEMAND, and making men pay for it. As I have shown time and again, you and your Reichwing Nazi crap will never overcome smart fact based liberals, especially women.
I pray for the violent death of all white men and many, many abortions.
And you say Socialism doesn’t work? WRONG.
As my research has proved, and as I have shown facts. Yup, Socialism provides Sweden the highest standards of Socialist living on Earth. White capitalist men will soon be outnumbered and loving minority people will inherit everything. Deal.
I have to admit DG’s troll is quite good. It’s getting to the point where I might not be able to tell which is which without the screenname
you’re having too much fun today swiftee!
A few more things they have; North Sea oil to fund things, a history of selling iron ore to the Nazis (esp. Sweden), and a population that is willing to leave when things get economically tough.
The last one is a biggie; when you download your poor to the U.S. and elsewhere, the rest of the nation looks fairly prosperous even if it isn’t doing well. Lars is using the boat Sven sold him for cheap to get out of the country….
One other thing, to be nicer about the matter (it is beautiful up there after all), is that they’ve got a population that more or less believes in work for its own sake. That covers a host of economic sins, really. (see: Minnesota)
If The Bern becomes president and the Democrats get their free college for everyone, can I go back and get another degree? I am thinking a Gender Studies major would make my resume stand out. I also think that I would provide some good diversity for the grievance studies majors.
Was it National Review? Someone ran some numbers. Norwegians and Swedes living in Minnesota and North Dakota have a higher standard of living than those living in northern Europe. Their houses are much much larger, food cheaper (do you know what milk and cheese costs in Norway?), they test better after high school, energy costs are less….gas especially. So basically, if you want to improve the US, just make it more like Grand Forks or Alexandria.
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kel, I have no idea what you’re talkin’ ’bout. I been teaching English to newly arrived Tongan immigrants all day.
You are a lying sack of doggie poo, swiftee. My uncle lived on Tonga for a couple of years – ain’t nobody moving out of that paradise!
For all their homogeneity and hard work, Swedes in Europe do not enjoy a higher standard of living than most Americans. If Sweden became a state, they’d rank down around Alabama which, granted, at least it’s not Mississippi, but still isn’t saying much.
If I wanted an Alabama standard of living, I’d move to Alabama. I don’t need Bernie to bring their standard of living here.
https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states
JPA these are Tongan born, ethnic Tuvalu lesbians. They have endured much oppression, man. Have some sympathy!
“Tongan born, ethnic Tuvalu lesbians. They have endured much oppression, man.”
swiftee, whatever you do, skip the celebratory pig roast.
Well, they also did some real research and found that children end up doing better in school if they start later. Consequently, that’s the age at which their cumpulsory education begins.
Imagine, if you will, a massive migration of Swedes to St. Paul. Now, imagine the fun we could have watching the backlash against the jackbooted Democraps. Gubenor Mumbles would hide in his closet and Tommy Doo Doo would be calling in every favor he had to silence those immigrants.
Sorry! Compulsory education starts at age 7.
Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands support lower tax rates for capital gains. It’s rather disappointing that Bernie’s supporters are unaware that other developed countries tax capital gains at a lower rate and many don’t tax it at all.
Bikebubba wrote:
The last one is a biggie; when you download your poor to the U.S. and elsewhere, the rest of the nation looks fairly prosperous even if it isn’t doing well.
Didn’t work for Scotland!
I have had some fairly long, involved conversations about public policy with progressives (that were not acrimonious), and I am always surprised by their belief that social institutions can be easily exported or imported more-or-less intact. So we can improve American schools by making them like the Finnish schools, when the people of this country, aside from those in Duluth :), are nothing like the Finns.
If solving social problems was as easy as progressives believe, everyone would be in favor of progressive policy. People did not reject communism because they rejected Marx’s vision of the communist society:
in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wished, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.
They rejected it because where it has been tried, the result was poverty, starvation, and mass murder. The biggest barrier to the success of Marx’s vision, in the real world, is that people don’t want to die in misery.
It is not only Scandinavian countries which succeed with a HYBRID socialism/capitalism economy and society.
Although I’m sure you would prefer to ignore the other nations which are successful and large.
Canada would be one. Australia would be another. Both are larger than the USA. And both have populations larger than Minnesota. Other countries are larger in population than Minnesota, and make socialism works.
Your argument fails.
Joe Doakes wrote:
For all their homogeneity and hard work, Swedes in Europe do not enjoy a higher standard of living than most Americans.
A few years ago Krugman stirred up economic commentators by claiming that the economies of Europe were doing better than the US. This led to some interesting observations about the wealth of average Americans versus the wealth of average Europeans. As Joe Doakes says, even people in European countries that we consider wealthy (France), enjoy income levels about the same as the poorer parts of the US.
The effect is real, and not just a matter of greater income equality making Europeans appear less wealthy. Their homes are smaller. They own fewer automobiles. They have less accumulated wealth.
There is an effort to include intangible social benefits in an account of the wealth of the average European — better schools, less expensive health care, more job security, and government freebies.
The problem is that this is a hard number to calculate, and the number is usually calculated by the government, so the entity providing the product determines that value, and not the consumer.
What is more, European economic growth rates are abysmal. The difference between a European economy, growing at 2% per annum, and the typical American economy, growing at 3% per annum, gets very large on century time scales. In a century, the two percent growth economy will increase by a factor of eight. The three percent growth economy will increase by a factor of sixteen.
Correction, the USA is larger than Australia. However if you compare large geographic areas, with reasonably large populations, and factor in only those which are industrialized nations…….yeah, most of them are significantly socialist in some way shape or form. It is not ONLY the Scandinavian nations which outperform us in numerous metrics, including education and medical care costs and outcomes.
Again – the argument this choice of representative government succeeds, it is not unique to small nations with homogeneous racial population demographics.
DG,
And what do Canada and Oz have in common?
Relatively small populations that are much more homogenous than the US?
And both of them have rolled back considerable parts of their “socialist” agendas in recent years (although Canada seems set to repeat the mistakes of the seventies).
I may have arguments that fail, DG. You’ll have to do better than that to find one.
Australia is 92% white.
“It is not only Scandinavian countries which succeed with a HYBRID socialism/capitalism economy and society”
What the heck does she think live under in the US? “Unbridled capitalism?”
Most European countries have socialist systems that began with labor movements. We do not have that kind of system here. The socialism of the US does not come from the people, it comes from the educational and economic elite. This was the generation that took over the democratic party in 1968. This is when the ‘social activists’ took over the helm from labor leaders. I can remember those days. The hatred they felt towards what we’d call middle-class and working-class values — family, patriotism, religion — was visceral, and they weren’t shy about expressing it. Sanders was a prominent member of that cohort. So was Hillary Clinton.
FYI, Brit salary stats from the daily fail:
MEDIAN GRADUATE STARTING SALARY BY SECTOR IN 2014-15
GRADUATE OCCUPATION SALARY
Law firm £37,000
Banking or financial services £31,250
Consulting or business services £28,500
IT & Telecommunication £28,500
Accountancy or professional service firm £28,000
Energy, water or utility company £26,750
Engineering or industrial company £25,750
Construction company or consultancy £25,500
Public sector £23,750
Teacher £23,000
Retail £21,500
Other £22,000
Source: Association of Graduate Recruiters
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3526002/Junior-doctors-strike-forcing-5-000-operations-cancelled.html#ixzz452JQMxJc
A British pound is worth $1.41 today. New doctors for the NHS make £22,636.
I don’t think that England is an especially cheap place to live.
DogSpittle does not know when to quit – if only she had a brain. She compares land masses and ignores the FACT that population of Canada is roughly 1/10th of the US and that more than 1/2 of entire population is sequestered in just three, that is 3, as in one, two, THREE, population centers.
Why is it that once DogSpittle’s wet nose is rubbed into a FACT of Sweden’s standard of living that of Alabama’s, she maintains that is the preferred model than what we have in other 48 states where standard of living is higher? It is as if she wants, desires, longs, for everybody to be miserable retches like herself. Why does she hate people and humanity so? Why is it she abhors the idea of striving to be the best and do better? I bet she treats dogs better she would me and you.
Bento Guzman, health care, including much needed abortion services are free in England. Of course doctors make less, duh.
Also, you say Australia is 92% white, which is WRONG. The facts are not with you, as usual. My research which has many sources much better than yours proved that the indigenous population, long subjugated by bigoted WHITE men have created prosperous, socialist communities, yup, led by strong women, in the outback. Scott Walker was humiliated last night, as Wisconsin overwhelmingly chose Bernie Sanders.
Mitch, I called Marge at the Australian government last night, and after carefully fact-checking your statements, you fail. Australia has completely taken guns away from bigoted white theocratic right wing nut jobs, and murder is virtually unknown.
All this whining, but as I’ve correctly pointed out, your arguments fail.
” I bet she treats dogs better she would me and you.”
oh come on JPA, imagine a loving caress from DG……(((shudder…)))
ok, that was a mistake
try imagine her saying something genuinely encouraging……(crickets)
ok I’m sorry it was a bad idea
Most European countries have socialist systems that began with labor movements. We do not have that kind of system here. The socialism of the US does not come from the people, it comes from the educational and economic elite.
It has more in common with the socialism of Bismarck – it wasn’t called socialism, but was statism, controlled by the “elites”.
First came Bismarck’s educational system. The bureaucratic control came later.
We don’t have the unbridled militarism – it’s impossible to explain to Americans the role that had under Bismarck – but except for that and the single strongman (and Kaiser), we’ve pretty much got the rest of it.
to paraphrase Voltaire
I will believe in the Republic when the last Leftist Rent Seeker is strangled with the guts of the Last Authoritarian Bureaucrat!
Canada and Australia? OK, for starters, while Canada does have nationalized health care–a huge benefit for a major employer here in Rochester MN, by the way–they’ve actually backed away from the degree of state control they’ve practiced, at least until recently. So has Australia. They’ve had “Liberal” prime ministers (center right in our tradition) for may years.
But let’s not let reality get in the way of Doggone’s arguments. It’s pure socialism, even when it’s not, and it’s a success, even when it’s not.
Is it me, or can we start drawing parallels between where US is headed and Weimar Republic?
The countries that have backed away from socialism have not done so because they have chosen freedom. They simply learned the lesson the statists have been learning — and forgetting — for a century. Central economic planning kills economic growth. The principle is well understood. Central planners cannot determine value as well as consumers. Investment by central planners yields low (or negative) returns. The Soviet Union had more degreed economists planning their economy than all the all the economists in the countries in the rest of the world combined. Why did the USSR fail? It went broke.
JPA: I’ve got a wheelbarrow, so I’ll be able to buy bread. Sigh.