But it's impossible to believe that better social health has nothing to do with the Norwegian state using its economic control to provide everyone with generous health care, high wages, shorter working hours, and other such goodies, while the more private, capitalist U. Awful scene on the orange line. It was twisted and bloody. Skin came off. Just as upsetting she begged no one call an ambulance.
The fact is, when it comes to building a decent place to live, Norway is completely blowing America out of the water. So while conservatives have been pointedly ignoring the most obvious and relevant piece of evidence in their spittle-flecked tirades against socialism, Norwegians can and do point to the United States as an example of what happens when you let capitalism run wild — and with a great deal more justice.
Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer Opinion. I'm talking about Norway. On a snapshot of other quality-of-life measures, Norway boasts: A life expectancy of An infant mortality rate of two per 1, live births. A murder rate of 0. An incarceration rate of 74 per , More From Kim and Julia Howe of the Heritage Foundation did last year. In an essay that was published last year, Jeffrey Dorfman, an economist at the University of Georgia, argued that leftists who promote the Scandinavia model tend to conflate socialism with a generous welfare state.
A fully socialized economy would be just as unfeasible as a fully privatized one. Socialism, as the term has evolved in mainstream usage, does not mean a total absence of markets, just as capitalism does not imply a total absence of public ownership and regulations.
Democratic socialism simply means a democracy leaning toward the leftward bound of the private-public ownership spectrum. Democratic socialism simply means a democracy leaning toward the leftward bound of the private-public ownership spectrum—an economy in which the government controls major corporations, while the people in turn control the government, securing de facto popular control of the economy.
The government functions as an intermediary, managing state corporations on behalf of the people. The greater the control the government exerts over the economy, and the greater the control the people exert over the government, the better the democratic socialist label fits.
The Norwegian government in particular controls the levers of the economy through ownership of major industries and financial institutions. It did not achieve this control through forced nationalization but through stock acquisitions on the open market. These investments, predominantly in hydropower and energy-intensive industries, were heavily financed by German war reparations, and to a lesser degree by the U.
Marshall Plan. A second round of acquisitions began with the discovery of petroleum on the Norwegian continental shelf. A final round of acquisitions arose from the Norwegian banking crisis of to As trust in the banking system recovered, public ownership was steadily scaled down until the current arrangement of roughly one-third public, two-thirds private ownership was established.
While the U. It currently holds about 40 percent of the stocks traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The public benefits of partially socialized industrial and financial sectors extend beyond dividends and veto power. The same can be said of financial institutions, whose gambling resulted in the Great Recession. When boards of directors hire CEOs, they instruct them to maximize shareholder value. For private shareholders, value mostly boils down to short-term return on their investments.
Privately owned banks are thus encouraged to take on major long-term risk for the sake of maximizing short-term profits. And such over-leveraging is the reason that the U. A s the midterm elections approach, the campaign season has come with its fair share of surprises.
But that phenomenon is a lot less surprising now than it was just a few months ago, thanks to political newcomers with DSA ties. The DSA has endorsed 62 candidates for local, state and federal office, most famously Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a year-old who defeated a term incumbent in the Democratic primary to represent the Bronx and Queens, and Julia Salazar, 27, who won a New York State Senate Democratic primary.
And even though Sex and the City actor and activist Cynthia Nixon lost the Democratic primary for Governor of New York to Andrew Cuomo, she too succeeded in raising awareness for democratic socialism. If candidates like Ocasio-Cortez and Salazar prove victorious in November, that trend is likely to continue. The term generally refers to collectively-owned businesses and forms of government, in which workers and government entities have more control over the means of production and distribution of goods, versus the private ownership and free market that drives capitalism.
They generally support ideas such as labor reform and pro-union policies, tuition-free public universities and trade schools, universal healthcare, federal jobs programs, fair taxation that closes loopholes that the wealthiest citizens have found, and using taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for social welfare programs.
Of course the Democratic Socialists of America website has a whole page on this very question , as do the campaign websites for Ocasio-Cortez and Salazar , as well as that of Senator Bernie Sanders, another prominent democratic socialist.
The DSA is the latest incarnation of a long-running socialist movement in America that dates back to the turn of the 20th century. The Socialist Party of America was established in The party elected more than 1, candidates at the state, local and federal level before World War I. Its candidates ran against both Democrats and Republicans, but its life as a third party essentially fell apart when the group succumbed to internal divisions in the early s.
All these people pour in bringing in new energy and ideas, [but it was] hard to say what [those ideas were]. Since then, Sanders and his supporters should be aware, Sweden actually worked to revise its economic model based on lessons drawn from its recession. State-owned companies were sold and financial markets were deregulated; public monopolies were replaced with competition. The Nordic country needed healthy companies and skilled workers, so top tax rates were rolled back while government welfare programs were redesigned.
Rather than persistently suggesting that the American Dream can be realized by expanding government or raising taxes, it is time for Sanders and his comrades to go back to school and study history.
He has served as a visiting scholar at Harvard, Stanford and Columbia. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.
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