Nordic Countries Aren’t Socialist.
As the American left embraces a platform that continues to look more and more like a socialist’s dream, it is common for those on the right to counter with the example of Venezuela as the nightmare of socialism in reality. A common response from the left is that socialism (or democratic socialism) works just fine in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It is certainly true that Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark are notable economic successes.
What is false is that these countries are particularly socialist.
The Myth of Nordic Socialism.
The myth of Nordic socialism is partially created by a confusion between socialism, meaning government exerting control or ownership of businesses, and the welfare state in the form of government-provided social safety net programs. However, the left’s embrace of socialism is not merely a case of redefining a word. Simply look at the long-running affinity of leftists with socialist dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for proof that many on the left long for real socialism.
To the extent that the left wants to point to an example of successful socialism, not just generous welfare states, the Nordic countries are actually a poor case to cite. Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs.
First, it is worth noting that the Nordic countries were economic successes before they built their welfare states. Those productive economies, generating good incomes for their workers, allowed the governments to raise the tax revenue needed to pay for the social benefits. It was not the government benefits that created wealth, but wealth that allowed the luxury of such generous government programs.
Second, as evidence of the lack of government interference in business affairs, there is the fact that none of these countries have minimum wage laws. Unions are reasonably powerful in many industries and negotiate contracts, but the government does nothing to ensure any particular outcome from those negotiations. Workers are paid what they are worth, not based on the government’s perception of what is fair.
A third example of Nordic commitment to free markets can be found in Sweden which has complete school choice. The government provides families with vouchers for each child. These vouchers can be used to attend regular public schools, government-run charter schools, or private, for-profit schools. Clearly, the use of government funds to pay for private, for-profit schools is the opposite of socialism.
Economic Freedom Reigns
We can also confirm these isolated facts by looking at a comprehensive measure of capitalism relative to socialism. The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based, pro-free market think tank, compiles a worldwide ranking of countries called the Economic Freedom Index. Its website explains that its ranking
“is an effort to identify how closely the institutions and policies of a country correspond with a limited government ideal, where the government protects property rights and arranges for the provision of a limited set of ‘public goods’ such as national defense and access to money of sound value, but little beyond these core functions.” Clearly, a socialist country should perform poorly in any ranking based on these principles.
What we find, however, is that the Nordic countries rank quite high on this index of economic freedom. In fact, while Hong Kong and Singapore top the list and the United States ranks 12th, we can find the Nordic countries in quite respectable rankings. Denmark ranks 15, Finland 17, Norway 25, and Sweden 27. In terms of numerical scores, Sweden is only 5 percent lower than the U.S. For further comparison, South Korea and Japan, both considered fairly pro-free markets, rank 32 and 39, respectively.
Socialism can take the form of the government controlling or interfering with free markets, nationalizing industries, and subsidizing favored ones (green energy, anyone?). The Nordic countries don’t actually do much of those things. Yes, they offer government-paid healthcare, in some cases tuition-free university educations, and rather generous social safety nets, all financed with high taxes. However, it is possible to do these things without interfering in the private sector more than required. It is allowing businesses to be productive that produces the high corporate and personal incomes that support the tax collections making the government benefits feasible. The Nordic countries are smart enough not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
If the left insists on naming a system of generous government benefits combined with a free market democratic socialism, I cannot stop them.
That seems unnecessarily confusing since the government is actually running no industries other than education (and meddling somewhat in healthcare).
It certainly isn’t socialism. In fact, the only reason most such countries can afford those benefits is that their market economies are so productive they can cover the expense of the government’s generosity. Perhaps a better name for what the Nordic countries practice would be compassionate capitalism.
Jeffrey Dorfman, Ph.D. is a professor of economics at The University of Georgia and author of Ending the Era of the Free Lunch.
Position: Not Clearly Pro or Con to the question “Can Alternative Energy Effectively Replace Fossil Fuels?”
Reasoning: “For at least the last thirty years the alternative energy industry
has been claiming they are almost ready to be economically competitive with fossil fuel. Wind, solar, geothermal, and others keep begging for government subsidies to help them stay afloat until they can reach a size at which economies of scale kicks in, price per kilowatt hour drops, and then they can survive on their own. Now we are seeing this has been a blatant grab for taxpayer dollars and the subsidies were more about industry executives and shareholders getting rich than about reaching a green industry future.”
“Solar Industry Admits Green Energy Only Exists Thanks to Government Subsidies,” forbes.com,
“Socialist” Scandinavian Countries Skyrocket Up Lassiez-Faire Index
By Daniel J. Mitchell
My favorite publication every year is Economic Freedom of the World.
It’s filled with data on fiscal policy, regulatory policy, trade policy, monetary policy, and quality of governance for 162 jurisdictions, and it provides an unbiased way of gauging the degree to which they allow economic liberty.
It also allows readers to slice and dice data, which is very helpful for doing analysis.
For instance, as illustrated by this 2×2 matrix, I claimed in 2016 that nations with small fiscal burdens aren’t necessarily pro-free market (meaning they would belong in the top-right quadrant) and countries with large fiscal burdens aren’t necessarily in favor of intervention and planning (so they would belong in the lower-left quadrant).
But that matrix was speculative.
Which is why I downloaded the EFW dataset. I then removed the fiscal policy variable and created new rankings so I could see which nations relied most on unfettered markets.
As you can see, Singapore barely edges out Hong Kong for first place in this “Laissez-Faire Index,” with New Zealand in third place. In other words, the top three nations in the overall EFW rankings stay the same, though Hong Kong and Singapore trade places (in the far-right column, I compare each nation’s rank to its EFW score for overall economic liberty).
The most dramatic results are for some of the welfare states in Northern and Western Europe. Denmark jumps 12 spots to #4 and the Netherlands soaring
18 spots to #5. Other nations with big increases include Finland (up 14 spots to #8), Luxembourg (the world’s freest economy as recently as 1985, moves up 14 spots to #11), Sweden (up 30 spots to #13), Norway (up 11 spots to #14), and Belgium (up 32 spots to #20).Looking at this list, it’s easy to understand why the combination of big government and free markets is sometimes called the “Nordic Model” (defined by Wikipedia as “a comprehensive welfare state…on the economic foundations of free market capitalism”). And Japan could be considered an honorary member since it jumps 22 spots in the Laissez-Faire Index, up to #19.
I’ve argued that such nations compensate for the damage of high taxes
and big welfare states by being very market-oriented in other ways.
And the EFW data supports that assertion.
Though it’s worth noting that their large fiscal burdens do have a negative impact.
The British Isles are quite far north, but there are other countries in Europe that are even further north. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland are often known together as Scandinavia. Can you find these countries on the map? Some of them are quite a long way north of the British Isles. Since, as you learn it gets colder the closer you get to the North Pole, you can probably guess what the climate is like in Scandinavian countries.
It can be very, very cold in winter.
Because of this cold climate, it can be difficult for plants and animals to survive. They have to have ways of dealing with the snow and ice and freezing weather. If you were going out in the snow, you would put your coat on. In the same way, many animals in these northern European countries have thick fur all over to keep them warm. Trees and other plants also have to deal with not getting a lot of sunlight. Plants and animals need lots of special tricks to survive in these really cold places (and other climates, too), which you will learn more about in the Science chapter of What Your Year 2 Child Needs to Know.
It is not just plants and animals that have to be smart to survive in northern Scandinavia, but it is hard for the people who live there, too. It can be exciting in Britain when it sometimes snows in winter, but can you imagine what it would be like to have lots of snow for many months of the year? That is what it is like for some people in northern Scandinavia. It is important for them to keep warm and wear lots of clothes. It is also very dark in winter, and even dark all day and all night right in the middle of winter very far north in Scandinavia. However, those who live that far north might see the beautiful Northern Lights.
The northern parts of the Scandinavian countries are full of mountains, valleys and lakes. It is hard for people to live there, so most people in these countries live further south, where it is usually a bit warmer. The capital cities of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland are: Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen and Reykjav�k (in that order). These places are big, important and modern capital cities, and living there is very different from the cold, snowy northern areas.
It’s been almost a year since Denmark, Norway, and Finland locked down for the first time to curb the spread of COVID-19. Sweden chose a wholly different approach, opting out of shutting down schools and offices, mandatory uses of face-masks and closing down restaurants and bars. Now, as vaccines are being rolled out across the world, we are finally seeing the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. As we approach a time when we’ll be able to hug again, it’s time we ask how and why Sweden chose such a different path, and what the effects have been on its population, healthcare workers and society at-large.
In many ways, the Nordic countries are well-equipped to deal with external stressors such as a global pandemic. We have historically strong democracies with high levels of political participation and well-functioning welfare systems. Compared to other countries, gender-equality is high (although by no means perfect), and unemployment is low.
Because higher education is tuition-free, the thresholds to enter universities are lower than in countries where getting an education might be dependent on your family’s wealth, or put you in life-long debt. Healthcare is available to everyone and is either free, or heavily subsidized by the state. Perhaps most important to pandemic regulations, Nordic citizens listen to what the government says.
Yet in spite of these similarities, when the coronavirus hit, there was one country that chose a wildly different path than the rest of the Nordic countries: Sweden.
At the time of writing this article, more than 12,500 people have died from the virus in Sweden, compared to Denmark’s 2,300 and Norway’s 607. Since many countries measure death rates differently, comparing numbers is a tricky business that should be done cautiously.
But the fact remains that Sweden’s numbers raise some justified eyebrows. Sweden’s (in)famous strategy has made the headlines of most major global news publications and the world has been scratching their heads trying to understand why Sweden opted for such a different path than its neighbors. Looking at the way Sweden is governed in comparison to the other Nordic countries, this dissimilarity starts to make more sense.
Let’s use Denmark as an example.
Although both countries are currently governed by the Social Democratic Party, fronted by Mette Frederiksen in Denmark and Stefan Löfven in Sweden, the two countries have different ways of governing.
The difference can partly be traced back to the role of public ministries. In Sweden, ministries are run independently and if a minister decides to actively govern the agencies, they would be accused of “ministerstyre,” which literally translates to “ministerial governance.” In fact, in Sweden “ministerstyre” is illegal and could lead to trial before The Committee on the Constitution. In Denmark the same word simply describes how the country’s ministries are governed, namely by the government’s ministers. In contrast to Sweden, Danish ministers wield far-reaching power and can direct the ministries at-will.
In terms of the pandemic, this means that in Sweden, ministers have not been able to control the details of what their departments are doing. Led by the now world-famous state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s measures have thus been largely based on what the Public Health Agency sees as being in the public’s best interest. In Denmark on the other hand, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and the Minister of Health and Elderly Affairs Magnus Heunicke have been shouldering the burden of steering Denmark through the pandemic, rather than their ministries.
In theory, not allowing ministerial governance ensures that specific decisions affecting society are made by experts within their field, and not by politicians, who might (let’s face it) not always know what’s best. But in combination with a deregulated market for health and elderly care, the lack of decisive political governance in Sweden has resulted in a power vacuum, where attribution of responsibility is being bounced around like a virtual hot potato between the government, the Public Health Authorities, the regions (who are in charge of the provision of health care), and the municipalities (who are in charge of the elderly care).
The conditions for the elderly population in Sweden has attracted global attention in particular. More than 12,500 people have died from COVID-19 in Sweden, and at one point in time, Sweden’s per capita death rate was the highest in Europe.
In Sweden, many of the private companies running the elderly care facilities have been accused of not paying their staff properly, having too many employees on hourly contracts (which means there’s a lot of people coming and going), and not providing their employees with adequate protective gear.
Controversies have also arisen as decisions about providing palliative care have been made without elderly patients ever seeing a doctor. In Denmark on the other hand, the death toll is lower, but the government has also faced harsh criticism for overreaching. It’s difficult to forget the millions of minks that were put to death, a decision that now has been deemed illegal.
Face masks or not? Closing schools or not? Rules and regulations, or relying on people following unenforced recommendations? In Sweden, the opinion of Anders Tegnell has consistently been to not recommend rolling out rules that are not based on conclusive scientific evidence. For example, the effectiveness of using face masks has been contested, and only the future will tell the effects on the economy of locking down whole countries.
Studies have already shown how women have lost out economically, professionally, and socially in a situation where children are kept at home.
But all the while politicians, epidemiologists, and armchair-experts on Twitter have been big mouthing the effects of this or that measure, the people working at the frontline, caring for the sick and the elderly, have been carrying the weight of the pandemic on their shoulders. And in the EU, 76% of care workers are women.
How did healthcare workers in both Denmark and Sweden experience these policy differences in real time? Julie Valentin Schepelern works as a nurse at Rigshospitalet’s infection clinic in Copenhagen. Moa Zickermann is a nurse at Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital in Stockholm. Both started working in 2020, facing coronavirus directly upon graduating.
Although the clinics at which they work do not work with coronavirus cases only, they are meeting the pandemic on the frontline every day. They are absorbing the shock waves that COVID-19 is sending throughout the whole health care system. Reallocation of resources, lack of clear instructions, and worry about not being able to provide patients the treatment they need has become part of their daily lives.
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We spoke with Swedish nurse Moa and Danish nurse Julie about how Sweden and Denmark’s varied approaches to coronavirus continues to shape their work:
Julie Valentin Schepelern
Danish nurse at Rigshospitalet
Moa Zickerman
Swedish nurse at Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital
Why did you decide to become a nurse?
JULIE
I didn’t think that I would actually become a nurse! My mom was a nurse, but I always thought that it wasn’t for me. She used to work with gastrointestinal patients. So she was involved with these surgeries where you go in through the mouth and down to the stomach to videotape the insides; I always thought it was disgusting. So I just put the idea of becoming a nurse out of my head. Then at some point I just pulled to it. I didn’t like the idea of sitting in an office and I really wanted to help take care of others.
I think I’m a pretty caring person, so it ended up feeling natural for me to go into that direction.
Two weeks after I graduated from nursing school this summer, I started working at the infectious disease clinic at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.
We deal with all sorts of infections, including coronavirus, but also sexually transmitted infections like HIV, infections in the back, brain abscesses, and tropical diseases.
MOA
I just wanted to work with people and do something that matters. Nursing felt like a good choice. During my education, I of course had my ups and downs. Sometimes I really felt like, “fuck, is this really what I want to do?” Not all areas of nursing were equally as interesting or fun to learn about, while I was super excited to learn about others.
My plan is to continue my education to become a midwife, but to do that I first need some work experience. I wanted to work with something that is related to that field, which is how I ended up at the children’s hospital. Now that I’ve started working, I love my job. Working with children is so much fun! They’re really amazing; they’re funny and so patient, you wouldn’t believe it. Many of them are very ill when they come to us, but they power through all the tests and examinations we have to do.
And the people I work with are also incredible.
We’re a group of young women, many of us are recent graduates, and we’ve become good friends. I’ve never enjoyed working this much at any other job.
What has it been like working with COVID-19?
JULIE
When coronavirus first came to Denmark and the hospitals were completely overflowing, I wasn’t working yet. But I heard from my colleagues that both of the floors that are part of the infection clinic were filled with coronavirus patients. I think this was because people assumed that us infection nurses, and people working at our clinic, would know how to deal with it, you know? COVID-19 is an infection, so let’s send them to the infection clinic!
The truth is, when coronavirus first came, no one knew how to deal with it. So no one knew exactly what protection to wear, or how to interact with the patients in a safe way. Everyone thought: “okay, they’ve got this.”
Then when we were hit by the second wave. They shut down one of our floors and took all the staff to work specifically with coronavirus patients. This obviously meant that there were less nurses working with our other patients. A couple of weeks ago, they reopened the floor again, staffed it with other nurses and started taking in additional coronavirus patients again. But now, luckily it’s been shut down again because there aren’t enough cases.
I think this reallocation of staff back and forth has been quite challenging, especially because it takes a lot of energy to deal with coronavirus patients. When they’re really sick, they need a lot of care, and you need to have a lot of energy and focus.
We’re used to having a few complicated or complex cases at the time. Around Christmas, out of 14 hospital beds, half of them were complex cases. We just didn’t have the staff to properly deal with that. Downsizing from two floors to one just really increased the work burden on all of us who were left to treat the patients on our floor.
This situation really sucks, and it has sometimes made me feel like I’m letting the patients down. We just can’t keep up, because we’re so understaffed. I love my job when I can actually spend some time with the patients.
When you are hospitalized at the infection clinic, you are only allowed one visitor, and if you have coronavirus, you are not even allowed one. So I think the patients start feeling lonely quite easily.
I can also imagine it’s been quite confusing for the patients, because the staff have been quite confused about the rules and regulations that change all the time.
One day it’s okay to do this thing but not that thing, and then the next it’s the other way around. And then we just have to say, “sorry, new restrictions again, the thing I told you was okay last night is apparently no longer okay now.”
Even though there’s been so many articles about nurses being stressed out dealing with the coronavirus, I think at least at my clinic, we’re doing a really good job. We’re keeping our heads high, we’re trying to maintain a light mood and stay positive.
Sometimes it’s not possible; we for sure have very bad days. But I still really like my job.
MOA
I wasn’t that worried about it when I started working this summer. It was a bit of a limbo between the spring and whatever was coming next; people were still questioning if a second wave was coming. So I got to start gently. Of course it took time getting used to all the protective gear with both masks and visors, and many of us have gotten wounds and headaches from them. I’m constantly out of breath because I’m always breathing in my own expelled air. But you get used to that as well. It’s just become part of my job and my uniform.
What happened as the second wave rolled in is that we had to send personnel to other departments, which affected our work a lot. Everyone had to take extra shifts, we were completely over-run and had way too many patients for the amount of staff.
For about three weeks, every day was more or less chaos: everyone was overworked, we didn’t have any time, and everyone was feeling terrible.
Now things have started to improve.
What worries me is the uptick of patients with something called MIS-C, or Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, which has been linked to coronavirus. The kids who come to the clinic with this syndrome are very, very ill. It’s been said for a long time that kids aren’t that affected by coronavirus, and it’s true that the infection itself is usually quite mild. But then a couple of weeks later they come to us with high fever and rashes, and their whole bodies are swollen and aching. When we run tests we can see that their organs are attacking themselves and start to fail.
This spring, we didn’t even know about this long term effect of the virus, but thankfully we do now. When we get patients like this, we now know what to look for, so we test them for antibodies. We’re also very good at treating MIS-C, so in Sweden, I think all children have recovered. I don’t know what the situation is like in the rest of the world. If these children don’t get the treatment they need, they can die. It’s that bad.
Facing these children and their parents can be challenging. Not a lot of people know about what MIS-C is because it hasn’t been talked about a lot. So of course people worry and get confused. And when it comes to the kids, they just want their parents close, and instead they are faced with a bunch of strangers wearing full protective gear who want to run tests on them.
I was treating this little guy; for the first couple of days, all he did was scream. He couldn’t sleep, everything was hurting, and he had a constant high fever. Then after the treatment kicked in, I saw him walking around in the corridor, he was smiling and he was so happy, and I just felt like, “Wow! You screamed at me for a whole week, and now you’re happy! What a difference!” Nothing beats that feeling.
What would make your job as a nurse easier right now?
JULIE
One of the biggest topics right now is that nurses should get paid better, and we absolutely should. The nurses who have signed up to deal exclusively with coronavirus have received a bit of extra money, but this is not something we’re getting at the infection clinic, even though we also deal with coronavirus patients.
I guess that’s because the government thinks that if you’ve chosen to work at the infection clinic, there’s always the chance you’ll get infected by something, so dealing with coronavirus is not something out of the ordinary. We picked this job, so we don’t get that pay boost.
Money is not why I chose this job. If I wanted a high salary, I would have done something else. Instead, I’d say that what would help us as nurses is to have more staff.
If there were more nurses, we would have time not only to treat people, but also to care for them. I wanted to become a nurse to give people care, but now I feel like I don’t have time for that at all.
Sweden and Denmark chose different ways of navigating the pandemic, but the stories coming from healthcare workers and nurses are remarkably similar. No doubt there will be countless studies, reports, and commissions working to figure out which measures were effective, which were superfluous, and most importantly; what to do when the next pandemic hits.
The frontline needs to be better staffed, and the people working to fight the virus need more stable working conditions and a significant pay raise. As a society, we need to rise to the occasion and support those who are supporting us.
Find out about the differences in how Sweden and Denmark approached the #MeToo movement.
MOA
Generally speaking, we are under-staffed. We have to get people in from staffing agencies, which is not always the best solution. We’ve just started a section specifically for kids with MIS-C, so hopefully that will make it easier for the patients and for us nurses.
Having a stable staff situation would be great, but I think lack of personnel is not necessarily a COVID-only problem.
Having to send staff to other clinics has definitely not helped our situation.
Daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths, rolling 7-day average, Oct 31, 2021 (ourworldindata.org)
Denmark COVID: 387,783 Cases and 2,714 Deaths – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
Finland COVID: 157,531 Cases and 1,158 Deaths – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
Iceland COVID: 13,492 Cases and 33 Deaths – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
Norway COVID: 207,280 Cases and 900 Deaths – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
Sweden COVID: 1,171,512 Cases and 14,991 Deaths – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
COVID Live Update: 247,549,612 Cases and 5,016,924 Deaths from the Coronavirus – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
DENMARK … SWEDEN … NORWAY … ICELAND … FINLAND
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