Is Scandinavia really better than the United States?
Tom Quiner shows me why the USA is better to live in than Scandinavia. Like most other Europeans I long to live in a country with no reliable healthcare or social security safety net, and open access to firearms.
By Tom Quiner
One of this blog’s socialist readers recently waxed eloquent about the economic virtue of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, aka the Scandinavian countries.
She made some compelling points:
“If you look at countries with a strong welfare model, like in Scandanvia, they pay up to 60% in tax, have high rates of benefits yet low levels of unemployment. Raising the social safety net has made them the best and most productive places to live in the world, with the lowest levels of income inequality.”
In other words, the socialist prescription for economic nirvana rests on increasing taxes, taking money from producers and redistributing it to non-producers. You, know, kind of like they do in Cuba and Venezuela. You know, kind of like the Soviet Union did it.
Obviously, socialists are challenged by these examples since these countries have been such abject economic failures. I read just last…
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Was he referring to you in his snide opening remark?
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Indeed. As far as I know he hadn’t published my response, which was to another one of his readers on a post a week or so ago. Just saw this post by chance. Also interesting he doesn’t give the context of the discussion in a link.
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Found the context. It was one of those posts annoyed because Obama is introducing free pre-school for 3 year-old-kids to try give families from a lower income households less of an educational disadvantage (given that kids that start school earlier tend to stay in school earlier and have better results). Tom thought it was an attack on stay at home mothers, but then said if women wanted to take maternity leave it shouldn’t be provided by the government (thereby forcing mother’s on low incomes back to work when babies are unreasonably young). It was an odd argument. But one of his readers said:
“We will always have the poor; the question is how to best help. Historically, the Church -specifically the Catholic Church- has been on the front lines of this matter, where it can be closest to the people in need. Yet we must not mandate this care upon the populous so as to cause undue burden. Raising the social safety net too high quickly exposes human tendencies to become overly reliant (think hammock), or apathetic about production.”
To which I replied:
“Is that your personal opinion or something based on research? If you look at countries with a strong welfare model, like in Scandanvia, they pay up to 60% in tax, have high rates of benefits yet low levels of unemployment. Raising the social safety net has made them the best and most productive places to live in the world, with the lowest levels of income inequality:
http://www.uwgb.edu/walterl/welfare/denmark.htm
http://sciencenordic.com/happier-people-nordic-countries”
I didn’t get a response, so I assume his comment about welfare was based on nothing but a hunch she/he had.
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I know you’re not that interested, but I’ll use your comment to point to it in case anyone is:
http://quinersdiner.com/2014/11/01/stay-at-home-moms-are-un-american/
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I find his blog, ergo him, obnoxious, to be honest.
He has always given me the impression that if a super virus wiped out everyone human except white, conservative christians of his faith he would not shed a single tear.
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Have you and Zande ever considered the Stephen Colbert phenomena? What do you say we do our own ‘fancy’ version? Could be fun.
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What’s that, Pink? You know I’m always up for mischief 🙂
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It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed Tom’s dementia.
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Glad I could oblige, sort of.
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You baffle me, Violet. The poor in the US have a powerful safety net, one that often provides them with a higher quality of life then those who are able to hold down good jobs. The poor are the one group of people that have always had good access to medical care.
In fact, one problem with Obamacare is that it’s been harming the poor and working class the most, by cutting into their safety net.
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A comment based entirely on your personal opinion, knowing nothing of living in the rest of the world and having lived in the USA your entire life.
“European countries are much more generous to the poor relative to the US level of
generosity. Economic models suggest that redistribution is a function of the variance and
skewness of the pre-tax income distribution, the volatility of income (perhaps because of
trade shocks), the social costs of taxation and the expected income mobility of the median
voter. None of these factors appear to explain the differences between the US and
Europe. Instead, the differences appear to be the result of racial heterogeneity in the US
and American political institutions. Racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to
the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters. American
political institutions limited the growth of a socialist party, and more generally limited
the political power of the poor.”
Click to access why_doesnt_the_u.s._have_a_european-style_welfare_state.pdf
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Under the circumstances, IB you being a believer in such a silly thing as the virgin birth of your god man an’ all I would imagine not having L & R printed on you shoes would be quite enough to baffle you.
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I imagine she’s still baffled by mirrors.
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First of all, Finland is not part of Scandinavia. Finland and Iceland are Nordic countries along the old kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Scandinavia is a geographical term, while Nordic is the political term.
Finland has more guns per capita than the US, but we shoot each other a lot less. My guess is, that is a result of us actually knowing how to handle guns (because almost every Finnish male is also a soldier) unlike in the US where people shoot their family members accidentally with their home defence weapons all the time. Why do they need weapons to defend their homes? Is their police impotent and incapable to protect them, or is it just because the amount of poor people and a culture of preferring economic succes over social success creates the violence? I do not know?
Was the Soviet Union really a failure economy, or did it fall because of the lack of democracy? If it fell not because of poor democracy but because of lack in Coke and bule jeans, it would be terribly disappointing. Would it not?
In Cuba they have had for decades higher standards of literacy and lower standard for infant deaths than in the US according to the UN. They have free educational system and healthcare. How can they afford it when the biggest economy in the world right beside them supposedly can not handle such? How is this possible from a country that has been besieged for over generation by it’s neighbours and only produces sugar and tobacco as exports? Cuba should not be compared to the US though. It should be compared to the other small Latin American countries under the “big stick” of the US. Correct? How about Haiti and El Salvador? Those countries really have free markets. No idle restrictions for the economy. Are they not the ideal socieities?
People pouring to the US from underdeveloped countries and crisis areas of the world tells us as much about what it is like to live as the poorest part of populace in the US as people pouring from those very same poor countries to the Nordic countries (and they do come here too in multitudes) tell us about the living of the poorest people in Nordic countries. It tells us merely, that the western countries are presently not at war on their own soil and that it is true what this dude called Karl Marx said, capital draws capital. The very poorest people move to any place where it is less terrible to live than in the worst places of the world, if they can.
How about the US democracy? Does that function? In Finland, elections with such a low participation as 35 % would have been cancelled and nullified. If 65 % of population does not even bother to attend elections for representative democracy, it is a sign of total and utter failure of democracy. It means the majority does not find candidates who actually represent them. There is something rotten, and it is not in Denmark this time.
The US is and has been for ages at the same time the leading proponent prophet of idealist utopian ultra free capitalism and the worlds biggest planned economy. You can find truly free markets from many other countries, like Somalia for example. If you do not like taxes, try living there for a while. Organizes society requires taxes and though it may be good for people to have venues for competition – competition between individuals should never be a reason why the losers of the competition do not get clean water, sustinence, medical care and education… But it is. Is it not?
Neither the US or the Nordic countries are paradise, or perfect, but the question is for what do we want our societies to aspire for? Better living for everyone, or better means of income to the very richest?
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“what do we want our societies to aspire for? Better living for everyone, or better means of income to the very richest?”
I just don’t think the vast majority of Americans understand what the alternatives are. They’re sold lies about what a welfare state means, or even what a decent public healthcare system looks like, and they don’t generally have the travelling experience to properly view alternatives. It’s sad really, especially when you look at the changes that Obama’s tried to bring about – he can’t even introduce pre-school education without being accused of trying to brainwash children …
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And Raut, I can’t believe you’re still writing novel-length comments to Insanity’s buddy xPraetorius!! That last one must have taken you a whole day, needless to say I paged down it because unfortunately I don’t have a whole day to read it!
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Yes, well. That was a wasted effort. I had forgotten all about him and then stumbled over his latest reply. I hope not to make the same mistake again… If a person knows absolutely nothing about anything a blog commentary is hardly the place to educate him.
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“If a person knows absolutely nothing about anything a blog commentary is hardly the place to educate him.”
Classic quote! I should build a post around that!!!
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Thank you for the compliment. But I must admit I was being naive. At first, you see, I thought he just had some misinformation and that I could set him on a path to seek out better venues of info, if he chose to, but then slowly – much too slowly – I realized, that he was just making stuff up and pulling wild claims from his hat. And that he was totally incapable of even getting my meaning, no matter how I put my words. Perhaps it is as he suggested a result of English being my second language…
It is good to have conversations with people who disagree with you sometimes, just to test your views, but one can hardly call it even a conversation, if the other person does not even understand what you are talking about and the both of you simply end up talking past each other…
With a child one can level down the terminology and explain what one means by few more words, but with someone who has very high presuppositions and biases, who has created his own alternate history and has no clue as to how the real world works (and we did cover his ignorance in geology, biology, evolution, economics, could you have guessed – the Bible, history and the entire scientific method) then ultimately, there is no way to have a meaningfull conversations. We could not even agree on the meaning of words, as he had some special meanings of his own, that he was adamant on keeping to. It was much like talking to a kid who has invented his own secret language in wich common words have special secret meanings and he thinks himself clever for being the only one who knows those special secret meanigs of words.
The final moment in any conversation by wich you can recognize an idiot, is when the other person starts to proclaim victory. An ignorant person is not necessarily an idiot, but there are idiots out there. If a person relates to a conversation as a competition and proclaims victories (based on who knows what nonsense, like in my example), well, that just tells you, that such a person is not a very mature individual and, that you are not actually even having a conversation. Rather just, that winning the competition is so much more important to that person, than trying to get to the bottom of the issue, that he/she is not even open to any suggestions you make. That of course explains why one is not getting through and every comment has to be re-explained as the other party renders what you said into a new strawman form and then argues against that. Even if the person does not openly express they feel they are in a competition rather than a conversation, when suddenly “nope” turns out to be a perfectly valid argument for them, you should know it is a competition and no longer has anything to do with having a discussion and contemplating the actual subject.
This is what I learned from that discussion. So, maybe it was not totally wasted on me. Should have learned it a long time ago, but I am slow… 😉
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Posted this on Tom’s article, but he won’t approve the comment. He has a frightful history of censoring things he doesn’t agree with, as we well know….
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That’s fantastic! No way it’ll make past moderation. He’s held a few of my perfectly sober comments now – clearly can’t deal.
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To be honest, I think people who make these assessments have likely not been outside of this country. If they have it’s been to some third world country on a mission trip and thus they view the rest of the world as needy and crumbling. Their worlds are very small.
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Also, in the US’ zeal for being the ‘leader’ we fail to take pointers from anyone else. We view ourselves as the innovators as though we have cornered the market on good ideas and wealth accumulation. The assumption that we are the only country where immigrants pour over the borders is absurd. It also doesn’t take into account that citizens EU countries are free to travel and move around within the EU.
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Completely agree with all of that. They’re languishing in some Republican-type brainwashing about what any form of socialism is. The irony of most of them being Christians instructed to make societies looking after the poor seems to be completely lost of them.
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Comments that may not make it past Tom’s moderation on his original post:
49erDweet says:
NOVEMBER 9, 2014 AT 5:20 PM
I have to laugh at the “no reliable health care” assumption. When we retirees on SS travel abroad our European friends marvel at the advanced pulmonary equipment my wife’s been issued. A decade ahead.
violetwisp says:
NOVEMBER 10, 2014 AT 8:12 AM
Interesting. I marvel that an American family member of mine died of a completely treatable cancer because she’d never earned enough to take out health insurance. A last ditch effort putting the entire family in financial ruin by paying for treatment in Mexico didn’t world out. I’m glad your wife’s experience is more impressive, but I think if you know anything about healthcare provision in most countries in Europe, you’ll know that there are less preventable deaths here.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/press-releases/2012/aug/potentially-preventable-deaths
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Comments that may not make it past Tom’s moderation on his original post:
K. Q. Duane says:
NOVEMBER 9, 2014 AT 5:14 PM
Unlike America, I don’t see people clambering to get into Sweden. That should end the discussion.
violetwisp says:
NOVEMBER 10, 2014 AT 8:00 AM
Do you live in Sweden or Europe? Can you point to your sources on this? Unfortunately refugees are dying by their hundreds trying to get into Europe. I see a lot of this discussion is driven by sheer ignorance.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/european-refugee-crisis-worsens-in-mediterranean-a-964304.html
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
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Pingback: complementary comments of the month | violetwisp
Good grief, I am embarrassed daily by the idiocracy spewing forth from people in my country. The fact that Tom censored your comments speaks volumes. He also failed to mention that the seizing of assets from American citizens has more to do with the GW Bush Patriot Act than the Obama Administration.
Click to access what%20the%20patriot%20act%20means%20to%20you.pdf
My best friend is from Denmark. He tritely states “America is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
Can’t hardly blame him. I’d live in Denmark in a heartbeat. I love their culture. They look out for each other. There’s a reason why they are among the most peaceful and happiest countries on the planet, not to mention being ranked in the top ten of the world’s most innovative.
Also, the United States ranked dead last in the quality of its health-care system when compared with 10 other western, industrialized nations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06/16/once-again-u-s-has-most-expensive-least-effective-health-care-system-in-survey/
To add insult to injury, according to JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) and the Journal of Patient Safety, medical errors (preventable harm in hospitals) are the 3rd leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.
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That’s weird! The third comment from a regular that I’ve hauled out the spam tin in the last week. And I only have a flag for pending on comments with over 10 links.
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Heh, don’t give Arch any more reason to bitch about WP, lol.
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Isn’t it amazing that there’s this fantastic mechanism to fish out the occasional error, but in the meantime we don’t get bothered with ANY unwanted comments? I love it soooo much! 😀
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*snickers*
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That’s a great link Victoria. Having worked in the NHS I’m well aware of the faults, but I wouldn’t swap it for insurance-based health care in a million years. To be providing good care at a cheap per capita price says a lot about a state-based health care system. I could go on for ages, but won’t, but it’s good to see a study validating my totally prejudiced views.
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Hey Seas,
While on the topic real quick, how goes your physio?
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Non-existent in terms of trips to hospital, which had become of little value. I can get up and down stairs so I chucked the community physio. I’m just practising limping around and hoping one day I’ll be able to walk again. Thanks for asking 🙂
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Glad to hear it. But are you sure ditching your sessions is the wisest choice if you still have a limp?
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Too long a story and very OT for here. I may write about it. At some point. Possibly.
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Violet, I posted a comment and I think it may have been flagged as spam. Would you check your queue?
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I read his original post and it just seemed like the standard conservative drivel to me. I wasn’t impressed.
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Indeed, standard conservative drivel is his speciality. I guess I don’t generally get much exposure that kind of thing, so it’s a bit of a novelty.
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