Why are socialist Scandinavian countries the happiest in the world?

[Michael Cole]

I'm talking about the people of Cuba, not refugees who fled the island.

I know. Some people don't think Cuba is doing well at all. Batista is irrelevant.

 

[AliHajiSheik]

They may be happy/content in their country but they are like locusts when they hit a US shopping mall.


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[Gator]

The Cubans are doing far better under socialism than they were under Batista.

If you consider a $25 average monthly salary as doing good.

 

[Thoreau72]

I know. Some people don't think Cuba is doing well at all. Batista is irrelevant.

Sanctions by the US do not help things for the average Cuban or the government.

 

[ataraxia]

Unfortunately, when discussing "Socialism" we often end up debating the meaning or definition of the word instead of the idea of improving Capitalism to allow for more to benefit from the Ideals of Capitalism.

If we can't get past current definitions it's going to be tough to improve what we have currently.

I agree, but unfortunately it gets hard to have fruitful discussions about some of those potential improvements when some people refer to them as "socialism" That word just creates a visceral reaction and conjures up all sorts of scary things (for Americans especially) that just completely shuts down and fries the circuits of the other side. That's why I am thinking that word "socialism" has just been so overused to mean so many different things that it has become a completely useless word at best, and even counter-productive. I think the use of that word has probably been one of Bernie's biggest political mistakes.

 

[Thoreau72]

If you consider a $25 average monthly salary as doing good.

They have been under US sanctions and penalties for most of my life, and I'm 72.

No surprise, the $ you mentioned.

 

[Kyle Phoenix]

Reading through that you could replace the word russian with american and it would still work.

And a knowledge of history would explain quite adequately why marx/engels ideology spread so rapidly. Throughout europe revolution was happening both in action and in writitng. The elite ruling classes of these countries were oppresssive and people were fighting it. Marx / engels just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right words to inspire the revolutions that were occuring.

In terms of organisation, the differences between the Soviets and the Americans weren't huge. A corporation is basically a centrally planned economy regardless of whether it is publicly owned or privately owned. It's the difference between planning by a board of executives to maximise profits for share holders, rather than a government minister in the capital city. People tend to think of Capitalism and Socialism in idealised terms, with capitalism being thousands of small businesses run by individuals competing against one another, and socialism as a single large and impersonal government bureaucracy running the whole economy. The reality was somewhere in the middle, as most capitalist countries in the cold war had a mixture of public ownership and large private corporations, whilst the communist bloc had public enterprises with markets to determine wages and prices.

The major difference was that the Capitalist system is run for private profit, whereas the Socialist command economy was run by government decree. So the American economy would invest in what was profitable to produce, whereas the Soviet economy would invest in heavy industry under the assumption that continuous economic growth would improve standards of living and military capabilities. America was run by corporate bureaucracies and the Soviet Union by Government ones. They behaved differently and had different motivations, but there were a great deal of similarities between them.

 

[ataraxia]

Is Sweden even socialist?

How Sweden Overcame Socialism - WSJ

Several sources depict Sweden as suffering Reston under socialism for s couple decades till 1991, when free market reforms began to turn things around.

Agreed. But that's just what Bernie is talking about, the "Nordic model"- and he stupidly still uses the word "socialism" to describe it. But then again so do some Scandinavians. That's why that word "socialism" just needs to be gotten rid of. It just creates more confusion and mayhem that useful dialogue. No one wants to perfectly emulate the Soviet Union or Cuba- I think we can all agree that those experiments failed.

 

[Michael Cole]

Sanctions by the US do not help things for the average Cuban or the government.

Maybe not, but the people are equally poor. One-party communist rule isn't the answer.

 

[ataraxia]

Why don’t you just move to Norway?

I love Norway, But here’s the thing, you can’t just copy another country’s legal structure and get the results they get.

If you ever read the Writings of Russel Kirk (great conservative writer and philosopher, who draws heavily from Edmund Burke whom you should also read, in fact the Norwegian Høyre party which forms the current government openly cites Burke as an influence) he writes about societies forming over a long period of time and all changes must be organic and in keeping with their traditions. The United States has radically different history then Norway and so imposing the structures built by Norwegians for Norway will not make us Norwegians, it would likely instead disintergrate the country

So you think socialism works under certain circumstances? Why always bring up Cuba when you want to scare people about socialism? How do you know that the results here in the US won't be more like Norway than Cuba?

 

[ataraxia]

Maybe not, but the people are equally poor. One-party communist rule isn't the answer.

So why are we talking about Cuba and not Norway?

 

[veritas1]

There are no socialist Scandinavian countries. Every single one of them is capitalist with a few socialized aspects. Most, in fact, take umbrage at being called socialist.

 

[Michael Cole]

So why are we talking about Cuba and not Norway?

Off-shoot related to Bernie.

 

[KLATTU]

what color are those countries?

 

[KLATTU]

So why are we talking about Cuba and not Norway?

what color are those counties?

 

[ataraxia]

There are no socialist Scandinavian countries. Every single one of them is capitalist with a few socialized aspects. Most, in fact, take umbrage at being called socialist.

OK, why don't we do what they are doing and stop worrying about what it's called? Bernie has really used them as examples, talking of the "Nordic model".

And they don't take THAT much umbrage at being called socialist. Here is the new prime minister of Finland:

"I feel that the 'American Dream' can be achieved best in the Nordic countries, where every child no matter their background or the background of their families can become anything, because we have a very good education system. We have a good health-care and social welfare system that allows anybody to become anything. This is probably one of the reasons why Finland gets ranked the happiest country in the world."
-Sanna Marin

 

[CimpleMan]

I agree, but unfortunately it gets hard to have fruitful discussions about some of those potential improvements when some people refer to them as "socialism" That word just creates a visceral reaction and conjures up all sorts of scary things (for Americans especially) that just completely shuts down and fries the circuits of the other side. That's why I am thinking that word "socialism" has just been so overused to mean so many different things that it has become a completely useless word at best, and even counter-productive. I think the use of that word has probably been one of Bernie's biggest political mistakes.

Bernie has been around a long time and one of his more endearing traits is he hasn't changed his message throughout all his years. If he tried take out Socialist out of his Democratic Socialist tag then people would've slammed him for doing so. He did the best he could to distinguish and explain but the word has too much baggage.

Bernie just wanted improve things for the less fortunate and for younger generations. Call it Socialism if you want, I just call it compassion for those in need.

 

[Court Jester]

The answer to the OPs question about Scandinavian countries being happier really isn't rooted in their economic policies or their politics. The answer lies in the fact that for most of their history they have not been affected by multi-multiculturalism. The same is also true in Singapore and Japan as referenced in the OP's original post.

In Scandinavian culture people are expected to work hard and be good citizens, not wards of the state or welfare bums. The overriding culture is one where you take pride in self sufficiency, and lazy or entitled expectations are not only frowned on---they are scorned by the culture. The exact same way it works in Japan.

So no, this is NOT a race thing, or a political thing, it is a cultural thing. And despite people like Bernie Sanders' insistence that America could be like Scandinavia ignores the fact that Scandinavia doesn't have cities like Oakland, Baltimore, Compton, and Queens.

So who wouldn't be happy in Scandinavia---- or at least the traditional one as it has been?

 

[ataraxia]

what color are those counties?

I don't know what that means.

But do you think they are the same? Given the choice, you really would have no idea how to choose because they are both the same "color"?

 

[ataraxia]

The answer to the OPs question about Scandinavian countries being happier really isn't rooted in their economic policies or their politics. The answer lies in the fact that for most of their history they have not been affected by multi-multiculturalism. The same is also true in Singapore and Japan as referenced in the OP's original post.

The article linked in the OP actually cites the above as a common myth and dispels it early on in the article, if you read it.

"Common myths about Scandinavian countries:

...Third, it is often suggested that it is easier to build welfare societies in small and homogenous countries such as the Nordics, compared to larger and more diverse countries. However, research has not found a relationship, either negative or positive, between the size and homogeneity of a country’s population and life satisfaction. In addition, smaller countries on average are not more homogenous than larger countries.[12] In fact, today the Nordic countries are actually quite heterogenous, with some 19 % of the population of Sweden being born outside the country. Some empirical studies have found that increased ethnic diversity is associated with reduced trust. This is attributed to ethnically diverse societies having more difficulty generating and sharing public goods, but Eric Uslaner shows that it is not ethnic diversity per se, but rather ethnic residential segregation that undermines trust.[13] Corroborating this, other research has demonstrated that the economic inequality between ethnic groups, rather than cultural or linguistic barriers, seems to explain this effect of ethnic diversification leading to less public goods.[14] Thus the historical fact that the Nordic countries have not had an underclass of slaves or cheap labor imported from colonies could play some role in explaining the Nordic path to welfare societies. Furthermore, Charron & Rothstein[15] show that the effect of ethnic diversity on social trust becomes negligible when controlling for quality of government, indicating that in countries of high-quality institutions such as the Nordic countries, ethnic diversity might not have any effect on social trust. Furthermore, according to the analysis in World Happiness Report 2018, the ratio of immigrants within a country has no effect on the average level of happiness of those locally born, with the ten happiest countries having foreign-born population shares averaging 17.2 %, about twice as much as the world average.[16] Other studies have tended to find a small positive rather than negative effect of immigration on the well-being of locally born populations.[17] Ethnic homogeneity thus provides no explanation of Nordic happiness.

Also, immigrants within a country tend to be about as happy as people born locally.[18] As we argue later, quality of governmental institutions play a big part of Nordic happiness and these institutions serve all people living within the country, including immigrants. This is a probable explanation for the high ranking of the Nordics in the comparison of happiness of foreign-born people in various countries, in which Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland occupy the top four spots, with Sweden seventh globally.[19] The well-being advantage of the Nordic countries thus extends also to those immigrating to these countries."
The Nordic Exceptionalism: What Explains Why the Nordic Countries Are Constantly Among the Happiest in the World | The World Happiness Report

 

[Lisa]

"Living has become better, comrades. Living has become happier." - Joseph Stalin

Is what way is totalitarian Russian in any way similar to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or Finland.

You have no idea what any of the forms of socialism means but you only claim to know to oppose it. Why should anyone care what you say when you cannot have a rational conversation about a social democracy such as in western Europe or even Canada?

Among political scientists and sociologists, the term social democracy has become widespread to describe the Nordic model due to the influence of social-democratic party governance in Sweden and Norway.

Being that you are a white nationalist you probably look fondly on Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa.

what color are those counties?

Is a person's skin color important to you or a determining factor in their inherant worth or their rights?

 

[vegas giants]

The answer to the OPs question about Scandinavian countries being happier really isn't rooted in their economic policies or their politics. The answer lies in the fact that for most of their history they have not been affected by multi-multiculturalism. The same is also true in Singapore and Japan as referenced in the OP's original post.

In Scandinavian culture people are expected to work hard and be good citizens, not wards of the state or welfare bums. The overriding culture is one where you take pride in self sufficiency, and lazy or entitled expectations are not only frowned on---they are scorned by the culture. The exact same way it works in Japan.

So no, this is NOT a race thing, or a political thing, it is a cultural thing. And despite people like Bernie Sanders' insistence that America could be like Scandinavia ignores the fact that Scandinavia doesn't have cities like Oakland, Baltimore, Compton, and Queens.

So who wouldn't be happy in Scandinavia---- or at least the traditional one as it has been?

That....and the socialism

 

[Lisa]

There are no socialist Scandinavian countries. Every single one of them is capitalist with a few socialized aspects. Most, in fact, take umbrage at being called socialist.

Au contraire,

What is social democracy in simple terms?
Social democracy is a government system that has similar values to socialism, but within a capitalist framework. The ideology, named from democracy where people have a say in government actions, supports a competitive economy with money while also helping people whose jobs don't pay a lot.

 

[Court Jester]

That....and the socialism

No, not that simple. Nordic countries would be more successful than other countries no matter what the system is because they are Nordic culture.

Example: Venezuela. Different culture, different result.

 

[vegas giants]

No, not that simple. Nordic countries would be more successful than other countries no matter what the system is because they are Nordic culture.

Example: Venezuela. Different culture, different result.

It works in scandanavia it can work in the US