Democratic socialists like Bolshevik Bernie Sanders and Karla Marx (AOC) can no longer point to Venezuela as a socialist model that works because it failed so miserably, so they now hold up Sweden, Denmark, and Norway as their preferred examples of democratic socialism that supposedly works. But there’s a big problem with using those Nordic countries as examples of the socialist utopias that America should emulate. Especially for Sweden as Johan Norberg points out in a Cato Institute Policy Report “Sweden’s Lessons for America“: Sweden is NOT socialist:
If Sanders and Ocasio‐Cortez really want to turn America into Sweden, what would that look like? For the United States, it would mean, for example:
1. More free trade
2. A more deregulated product market
3. No Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
4. The abolition of occupational licensing and minimum wage laws
5. The abolition of taxes on property, gifts, and inheritance
6. Even after the recent tax cut, America would still have to slightly reduce its corporate tax
7. America would need to reform Social Security from defined benefits to defined contributions and introduce private accounts
8. The US would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per‐pupil funding as public ones.
If this is socialism, call me comrade.
That sounds fine, but that's socialist democracy same as UK is supposed to be, so best bits of both, what I'm expecting is full on socialist more like China.