We must remember that communism/socialism/liberalism/and other "-isms"
that declare all men as being equal and entitled to equal shares of the
benefits of the society in which they live; (whether they earned them or
not); are historically very young social/political systems, and we have
no way of knowing if they are going to persist or become footnotes of
history.
In fact, while Sweden and other Nordic states have been classic
demonstrations of successful socialism in the past, they are currently
moving away from being all encompassing socialist states.
Gerry
From: www.thelocal.se:
The Nordic model, known for high taxes and its cradle-to-grave welfare
system, is getting a radical makeover as nations find themselves
cash-strapped. During the post-war period, the Scandinavian economies
became famous for a "softer" version of capitalism that placed more
importance on social equality than other western nations, such as
Britain and the United States, did.
Then came globalization and an ideological shift to the right has led to
a scaling back of the public sector.
In Sweden, visitors are sometimes surprised to learn about year-long
waiting times for cancer patients, rioting in low-income neighbourhoods
and train derailments amid lagging infrastructure investment.
"The generosity of the system has declined," said Gothenburg University
politics professor Jonas Hinnfors. "Much of this already started
changing in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s."
In the wake of a banking crisis in the early nineties, Stockholm
scrapped housing subsidies, reformed the pension system and slashed the
healthcare budget. A voucher-based system that allows publicly funded,
privately managed free schools to compete with state schools was
introduced, and has drawn attention from right-wing politicians
elsewhere, including Britain's Conservative Party.
In 2006, conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's government
accelerated the pace of reform, tightening the criteria for unemployment
benefits and sick pay while lowering taxes. Income tax in Sweden is now
lower than in France, Belgium and Denmark, and public spending as a
share of GDP has declined from a record 71.0 percent in 1993 to 53.3
percent last year.
Once the darling of progressives, Sweden has become a model for
free-market-leaning thinkers including British weekly The Economist,
which last year hailed the scaled-down Nordic model as "the next
supermodel."
"They offer a blueprint of how to reform the public sector, making the
state far more efficient," it wrote.
This month, the Wall Street Journal praised tax cuts and entitlement
reforms in Sweden and Denmark that "are now discomfiting their
big-government admirers overseas."
Although polls show strong support among Swedes for the income tax cuts
of the past few years, the leftist opposition looks set to win this
year's general election. The Social Democrats, in power for much of last
century, have been boosted by a string of scandals in private elderly
care homes involving degrading treatment of their residents, and by
plummeting school results in international rankings.
Critics wonder, however, how the workers party will inance an
improvement of public services, having already pledged to keep the
popular income tax cuts.
If Sweden is the Nordic country to have gone the furthest in shrinking
its welfare state, Denmark has moved the fastest. When her Social
Democratic government took power in 2011, there was little to suggest
Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt would make any dramatic changes to
the country's cherished welfare state -- funded by the world's highest
tax burden.
After a centre-right government had raised the retirement age and
reduced the unemployment benefits period from four to two years, "Gucci
Helle" -- as she is known among her detractors -- went on to cut
corporate taxes to 22 percent from 25 percent.
Other reforms have included requiring young people on benefits to
undertake training, and withdrawing student aid to those taking too long
to finish their studies.
It has left her deeply unpopular in some quarters. At last year's May
Day speeches, she was met by jeers as audience members sprayed her with
a water pistol, threw tomatoes at her, and even flashed their buttocks.
For some of Thorning-Schmidt's allies -- notably the leftist Red Green
Alliance -- the reforms have been too much to stomach, and in November
her minority government had to seek support from the main opposition
parties to pass this year's budget. Denmark has been spurred into action
by a persistently sluggish economy since a housing bubble imploded in
2007, leading to anaemic household spending.
Among Danes there is also a sense that the welfare state was ballooning
out of control. In 2011, a TV report aiming to show what life was like
for the poor in Denmark visited the home of a single mother on benefits,
whose disposable income turned out to be 15,728 kroner (2,107 euros,
$2,860) per month.
"Poor Carina", as she was later nicknamed, sparked a national debate on
the level of unemployment benefits, with one pollster crediting her with
fuelling a rise in the number of people who felt benefits were too high.
The next Nordic country to reform its welfare state is likely to be
Finland, battered by a downturn in the two pillars of its economy: the
forest industry and information technology. Helsinki responded to the
crisis by announcing in August a slew of measures to put more Finns to
work. Under the controversial plan, the retirement age is to go up, time
spent at university will go down, and incentives to enter the job market
will be boosted for the unemployed and young mothers.
Only Norway looks unlikely to reform entitlements anytime soon,
bolstered by its oil wealth. The country is home to the world's largest
sovereign wealth fund. Worth some 5,116 billion kroner (610 billion
euros, $830 billion), each of the country's 5,096,000 inhabitants is --
at least on paper -- a millionaire.
http://www.thelocal.se/20140121/swedens-welfare-state-most-scaled-back-in-nordics
Gerry
.................................................
On 1/25/2014 3:53 PM, Curt Raymond wrote:
Now now Peter, you're not supposed to inflict logic on anything. Don't point
out that pretty well all the countries in Europe have a longer lifespan than
the USA, higher standard of living, higher literacy rate.
If socialism is so bad how does anybody explain Germany, Finland, Sweden and
Denmark? They all seem to do okay.
Sure you can counter with France, Spain, Portugal, and Greece but there are
always those who do a thing well and those who do not.
-Curt
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:43:20 -0600
From: Peter Frederick <psf...@earthlink.net>
To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Subject: Re: [MBZ] 85 people own half the worlds wealth
Message-ID: <81e97e6d-756b-43f8-8dcf-2858e61e6...@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Leave out the free food, free housing, and free utilities and you have
Canada, which is much safer and less loony that the USA, at least when
I lived there.
Socialism is why Europe (and Scandinavia, in particular) have a much
better quality of life. Go and visit if you don't believe me. Better
yet, visit and get sick. You'll be astonished at the quality of the
care.
Peter
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