Bernie’s Big Lie – Socialist Sweden

George Rebane

Sen Bernie Sanders’ lies are too many to count, but one that he keeps repeating successfully to the nation’s light thinkers involves the myth of Scandinavian socialism.  This is the kind of socialism that Bernie wants to incorporate in the United States, and he continues to use Sweden as the posterchild of how socialism can be made to work successfully.  Either he is butt stupid or evil as he spreads the lies about Swedish socialism.  Let’s be kind and put Bernie with the butt stupid crowd, that includes the Dem candidates clown car and Team AOC, as they were characterized by Will Rogers’ “It ain’t what you know that worries me, it’s what you know that ain’t so.’

Sweden was a model and wealthy capitalist democracy before 1960, having gone through two world wars as a neutral selling their wares to the highest bidders.  Along with the other Nordics, Sweden then tried socialism to redistribute its remarkable wealth and earn votes for its leftwing politicians, and that failed miserably over the next two decades.  As a result, each pulled back toward marked capitalism after enjoying the tender mercies of socialism.  Sweden led the way after having doubled public spending from 31% to 60% in the 1960-80 interval.  And then the real problems started piling on which ended with unemployment surging and budget deficits of 11% of GDP in the late 80s (that’s like almost $3T annually in the US).  The country literally went broke as the wealthy, the producers and entrepreneurs jumped ship.  The pullback to sanity started in 1991 and has been going on ever since.  And that has been the best kept secret of our progressives and their lamestream lackeys (witness its effect on our local liberal commenters).

Swedish historian and author, Johan Norberg (also senior fellow at the Cato Institute) lays out the history of this wise retrenchment to sanity in his ‘Sweden’s Lessons for America’.  Norberg reports that -

Sooner or later, American socialists always return to Sweden and other Nordic countries. There’s a good reason for that. For some reason, the countries that socialists originally tout always end up with bread lines and labor camps. But there’s always Sweden: decent, well‐​functioning, nonthreatening, and with impeccable democratic credentials. … There is just one problem: 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, more free trade and a more deregulated product market, no Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the abolition of occupational licensing and minimum wage laws. The United States would also have to abolish taxes on property, gifts, and inheritance. And even after the recent tax cut, America would still have to slightly reduce its corporate tax. Americans would need to reform Social Security from defined benefits to defined contributions and introduce private accounts. They would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per‐​pupil funding as public ones.

Comments

[scenes]

I'm aware of Sweden stepping back from the public spending precipice, but it would be interesting to compare the regulatory load in different countries. It's a harder thing to measure but would give more insight into the real degree of socialism in a country.

After all, you don't have to own a thing to control it.

As usual, the lesson I take from places like Scandinavia is that high-functioning monocultures produce the best outcomes. You could probably replace the Swedish government with a constitutional monarchy and expect largely the same result. It's only socialism/communism that seems guaranteed to fail, and perhaps it's not purely due to economics issues.

[George Rebane]

scenes 1228pm - "... you don't have to own a thing to control it." Actually, many of us have a more operational definition of ownership - you own something ONLY to the extent that you can dispose of it as you will.

[Bill Tozer]

“And even after the recent tax cut, America would still have to slightly reduce its corporate tax. Americans would need to reform Social Security from defined benefits to defined contributions and introduce private accounts. They would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per‐​pupil funding as public ones.”

Oh my, that would never never fly here...especially that line, “They would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per‐​pupil funding as public ones.”

That would destroy the Dem Power base in CA and the demonstrators would be in the hundreds of thousands. Unfair to teachers! Unfair to the unions! Not unfair to our kids, but screw them!

And Denmark has the land mass of Maryland.

[Walt]

Sweden stood as the world’s fourth wealthiest country nearly five decades ago. Its taxes were lower than most western countries, including the United States. The economy was deregulated, and public spending was hardly above 10 percent gross domestic product (GDP).

But Sweden was soon teetering on the brink of collapse from its experiment with socialism.

“Free markets and small government made Sweden rich,” said Swedish economist and Cato Institute fellow Johan Norberg. “The experiment with socialism crashed us.”

What it all boiled down to.....
“The problem with these policies is that they began to erode the foundations for a successful society,”

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/25/socialism-didnt-work-in-sweden-and-it-wont-work-in-america/

And importing a Muslim culture that hated them was such a good idea.