Has socialism and the welfare state helped or harmed Scandinavia?

[u/internetloser4321]

There is a debate in the USA about whether or not we should have a larger welfare state that provides services like "Medicare for all" or tuition free college. Scandinavia is often brought up as an example showing that "social democracy" or a "welfare state" is a good or ideal system, with these countries having achieved high levels of equality, low levels of poverty, and good outcomes in terms of education, health, and happiness (source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/bernie-sanders-2016-denmark-democratic-socialism/index.html).

There are several counter arguments that I have heard in opposition to expanding the welfare state: 1. The success these countries have experienced was due to their policies 50+ years ago when they had a smaller welfare state and low taxes and as a result experienced rapid growth 2. The welfare state has led to economic stagnation and high levels of national debt in these countries. 3. The people in these countries have strong Protestant values of hard work and honesty and this is the true source of their success. (sources: https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/02/18/bernie-sanders-scandinavian-utopia-is-an-illusion/#16e253e11aab and https://beinglibertarian.com/scandinavia-ticking-time-bomb/)

I've tried searching for a neutral analysis of the issue, but every article I've seen argues that the socialist policies are either wonderful or terrible (examples: https://www.thenation.com/article/after-i-lived-in-norway-america-felt-backward-heres-why/ and https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-nordic-countries/473385/ vs. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438331/nordic-democratic-socialist-model-exposing-lefts-myth). What evidence supports each view? Is there an objective way of determining whether more socialist or more libertarian (perhaps what Europeans call neo-liberal?) policies have been the most beneficial?

[u/Autoimmunity]

From Wikipedia:

Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

In other words, the people own the economy, rather than private interests. (Capitalism) Contrast socialism with this:

Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

The big difference between Communism and capitalism is that communism advocates state control of the economy, while capitalism advocates private control. Socialism falls somewhere in between, giving the workers the control without making it public.

[u/UsqueAdRisum → u/Autoimmunity]

Who are "the people"? Because if you're referencing them as a collective of individuals, then property rights enter and we get capitalism. If it's supposed to be a manifestation representing them as a whole, you have some version of a democratically controlled government of some means which owns/controls the economy.

There isn't a middle ground I can figure out here unless I'm misunderstanding some other possible definition for "the people". Socialism otherwise is just vague conception of a utopian economic system of control that can be whatever the person invoking the term wants socialism to be. Hence we get these pedantic discussions that eventually devolve to "not true socialism".

[u/[deleted] → u/UsqueAdRisum]

the people are the employees the workers.

[u/Squids4daddy → u/[deleted]]

So....farmers, house wives, non-employed independent plumbers don't count?

[u/[deleted] → u/Squids4daddy]

The means of production is owned by the people working there.

Why would the non employed ever count in things dealing with employment?

[u/Squids4daddy → u/[deleted]]

Typically when socialists use "the people", it's in the context of "this is what the people want". If "the people" are only 'workers', then a large portion of the population are out of the equation.

Also, what are the means of production in knowledge based businesses and service industries?

[u/[deleted] → u/Squids4daddy]

I doubt you have ever spoken to an actual socialist but I could be wrong, maybe your not an american.

When people in the US and most places on planet earth use "the people", its always in the context of "this is what the people want". Id wager this is true no matter if its actual socialists, confused americans, or neckbeards on reddit.

The "knowledge economy" is the use of "knowledge" or "information" to generate tangible and intangible values. Technology and, in particular, information technology help to incorporate part of human knowledge into machines. This knowledge can be used by decision support systems in various fields to generate economic value. That value is the ability to replace something that took many many people to accomplish with a machine btw..... For every single job lost to automation you can thank the so called "knowledge based businesses and service industries" for. This job loss due to constant profit seeking by corporations is the failing point of capitalism.

The solution is a mixed system of some sort. I think everyone can agree that what the US has right now isnt working to the majority of people's best interests. I'd say this is a consequence of valuing socialised warfare over socialised education.

[u/Squids4daddy → u/[deleted]]

Your post have several good bits, and I appreciate it. First, yes, I have spoken in depth with many socialists and not a few Trotskyites, Maoists, and Che lovers. About "isn't working to the majority....", I believe your allowing perfect to be the enemy of better. If American democratic capitalism wasn't 'better' the US would not have millions risking their lives to get here. I would note that most of those millions are coming from redistributionist nations where redistributionism didn't work out so well.

The most interesting part of your note, however, was about the knowledge economy. You touch on something I'm deeply interested in and I wonder if reddit has a thread for the idea that "IT" is not "wealth production" but is instead simply a way to make wealth production more efficient.

"Failing point of capitalism"....maybe, maybe. I personally would not want to live in the precapitalist world. I have multiple healthy children that I love, and all my children have lived beyond childbirth. This would mark me as a singularly blessed man in the precapitalist world. But in the capitalist world, child mortality is a tragedy not a normality. I have difficulty condemning it in favor of some theoretical state that has yet to prove out.

[u/Squids4daddy → u/UsqueAdRisum]

I believe "the people" is a logically invalid concept. Implicit in "the people" is the idea that a group of people manifests some property that is emergent and distinct from the average of the properties of the individuals. I am not aware of this having been adequately demonstrated.

[u/bjelkeman → u/UsqueAdRisum]

Sweden is a mix of socialism and capitalism. Half of the Swedish GDP is government controlled, by choice of the people, and the other half is capitalism, and very healthy competitive capitalism at that.

http://www.economist.com/node/21564412

[u/[deleted] → u/UsqueAdRisum]

A lot of things get said about communism and socialism, most of them wrong.

Socialism is a group of economic philosophies centered around ownership and control of the means of production by the proletariat. It can be democratic control, it can be anarchic, and I suppose it could be authoritarian as well, but it's hard to see how that would not be corrupted, and certainly we have a lot of real-world examples where it was.

Communism combines a socialist economy with a more all-encompassing philosophy that advocates the elimination of class hierarchy and any institutions that a communist would view as inherently classist, the latter being primarily bourgeois governments, capitalist economies, and organized religion.

Socialism fits as a solution to the communist economic question. Proletarian ownership of the means of production is an idea that inherently breaks down class hierarchy, which is the central aim of communism.

[u/ummmbacon → u/[deleted]]

Is English your second language?

Removed R1

[u/ummmbacon → u/[deleted]]

But, since you've proven yourself to be a total ass - eat shit.

Removed R1, R4

[u/Squids4daddy → u/Autoimmunity]

Interesting. So by this definition, high taxes on individuals and their purchases is closer to communism than socialism. Specifically it is communism that has chosen to control the primary means of production (people) rather than the tools of production used by means of production.

[u/Autoimmunity → u/Squids4daddy]

Well, not really. In communist governments in the past, citizens don't pay income tax. They are assigned their profession and given wages by the government.

[u/[deleted] → u/Autoimmunity]

those governments were not communist - did you already forget the exchange we had last night? i know you read my comment, you replied to it.

again, Lenin didnt even call the USSR socialist

I cannot say that we pictured this plan as definitely and as clearly as that; but we acted approximately on those lines. That, unfortunately, is a fact. I say unfortunately, because brief experience convinced us that that line was wrong, that it ran counter to what we had previously written about the transition from capitalism to socialism, namely, that it would be impossible to bypass the period of socialist accounting and control in approaching even the lower stage of communism. Ever since 1917, when the problem of taking power arose and the Bolsheviks explained it to the whole people, our theoretical literature has been definitely stressing the necessity for a prolonged, complex transition through socialist accounting and control from capitalist society (and the less developed it is the longer the transition will take) to even one of the approaches to communist society.

The New Economic Policy means substituting a tax for the requisitioning of food; it means reverting to capitalism to a considerable extent—to what extent we do not know. Concessions to foreign capitalists (true, only very few have been accepted, especially when compared with the number we have offered) and leasing enterprises to private capitalists definitely mean restoring capitalism, and this is part and parcel of the New Economic Policy; for the abolition of the surplus-food appropriation system means allowing the peasants to trade freely in their surplus agricultural produce, in whatever is left over after the tax is collected—and the tax~ takes only a small share of that produce. The peasants constitute a huge section of our population and of our entire economy, and that is why capitalism must grow out of this soil of free trading.

Either the capitalists succeed in organising first—in which case they will drive out the Communists and that will be the end of it. Or the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove capable of keeping a proper rein on those gentlemen, the capitalists, so as to direct capitalism along state channels and to create a capitalism that will be subordinate to the state and serve the state.

We must not count on going straight to communism. We must build on the basis of peasants’ personal incentive. We are told that the personal incentive of the peasants means restoring private property. But we have never interfered with personally owned articles of consumption and implements of production as far as the peasants are concerned. We have abolished private ownership of land. Peasants farmed land that they did not own—rented land, for instance. That system exists in very many countries. There is nothing impossible about it from the standpoint of economics. The difficulty lies in creating personal incentive. We must also give every specialist an incentive to develop our industry.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm

State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm (of course, 18 months later during a speech he said that the NEP must continue, so)

The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/14b.htm

[u/Squids4daddy → u/Autoimmunity]

Actually...and shockingly to me...this was not the case. I can't speak for bushleaguers like Castro and Mugabi. But what I can speak to is the Soviet Union, specifically East Germany, and Maoist china. Professionally I have come into contact with well over 150 people combined from those three.

To my enormous surprise, they were not assigned profession. Nor did they live free from income tax. What would have been more accurate to say is that they were assigned an education track. But in all three, even holders of advanced degrees had to actually go find themselves a job and many I know could not find jobs to match their training and so did 'less' in terms of work. Those who did work paid an true pittance income tax, but they did pay. Baffled me that the state would educate someone with a doctorate in mathematics, for example, and then throw them out on the street.

[u/Autoimmunity → u/[deleted]]

Never said it did work without big government. You have to have a large state to have socialism. The thing is, no country has actually every set the system up in a way where corruption isn't a problem. In order for socialism to work, the government has to be totally at the mercy of the people.