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by JdN staff writer and economic policy correspondent
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Firstly, let me start by saying that I am in favor of implementing a system of healthcare that covers everyone.
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We spend more per capita on healthcare than ANY nation on earth yet most Americans, especially those covered by substandard insurance policies sold to them by predatory insurance companies, face losing EVERYTHING if anyone in their family gets into a major accident or is stricken by a major illness.
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Regardless of what traitorous corporatist Republican politicians tell us – getting everyone legally resident in this country covered is a GOOD thing.
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For a start, let’s have a look at which nations were FIRST to offer universal healthcare to their citizens – it wasn’t Cuba or some non-white Socialist Wakanda-like hovel – as the hacks in the GOP and Marxist Left will lead us to believe – but rather two of the greatest nations on earth, Germany and Great Britain. HARDLY nations to look down our noses at.
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In fact, the very first national health insurance system was launched in Germany in 1883, when Otto von Bismark, Chancellor of the German Empire, implemented the German Statutory Accident Insurance or national workers’ compensation scheme – which he introduced to assist German workers in the event of accidental injury, illness or old age.
Industrialists who were making massive profits off the backs of the toil and torment of Germany’s rural 19th century poor were ordered to provide injury and illness insurance for their workers, as it was the RIGHT thing to do.
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The novel healthcare system was funded and administered by employees and employers through so-called “sick funds”, (Krankenkassen), which were drawn from deductions in workers’ wages, from employers’ contributions and tax rebates.
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Named the Bismark Model, which it is still called to this day, the early German social health insurance model is widely regarded as the first form of universal care in modern times.
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It was so successful that other European nations soon followed suit.
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In the United Kingdom, the National Insurance Act of 1911 provided health coverage for primary care (but not specialist or hospital care) for wage earners. It covered about one-third of the population. The NHS that covers every last Brit soon followed.
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With the knowledge that our neighbors have healthcare and the peace of mind that comes with it – how can that not be a good thing?
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And although Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would never credit Germany and Britain as being the places where universal coverage was started, the fact remains the origins of the desire for a fair society have ALWAYS come from our ancestral homeland – Western Europe.
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And although Republican leaders are being disingenuous and dishonest when they tell us that national healthcare is a bad thing, the Left are hardly acting in our best interests either.
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Instead of demanding we reform our existing healthcare model on which American taxpayers spend more money per capita than ANY other nation on earth, the Left are pushing for a full government takeover – not because they care – but because they want higher taxes, more power and greater control of all facets of our lives.
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What they want is higher taxes, tighter controls on everything from guns to child education, healthcare and beyond and, in a phrase, GREATER involvement by the State in every facet of our lives.
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If we do as they say and implement their vision of a “just” society – just as Scandinavia apparently has – poverty and all that ails America will vanish in the blink of an eye!
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In a CNN Town Hall meeting Sanders remarked as much stating,
“I think we should look to countries like Denmark and learn what they have accomplished for their working people to see how America can be under Democratic Socialism.”
And Sanders and his supporters in Congress and the Senate are not alone in praising the Nordic model.
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Barack Obama, while visiting Sweden for a Nordic Summit back in 2016 during the final year of his failed presidency, joked:
“In a world of growing economic disparities, Nordic countries have some of the least income inequality in the world—which may explain one of the reasons that they’re some of the happiest people in the world, despite not getting much sun. . . . There have been times where I’ve said, why don’t we just put all these small countries in charge for a while? And they could clean things up.”
Admiration for the Nordic welfare state runs deep among Left-wing academics, politicians, journalists, and political pundits.
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And it’s easy to understand why. At first glance, the Nordic countries appear prosperous yet enjoy a seemingly statistically more equal and fairer distribution of wealth.
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Who wouldn’t want that?
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What, though, if this equality, which has many pitfalls and downsides, has more to do with the Swedes themselves than their “economic model”?
And what if specific elements of this economic model – the very elements filth like AOC and Sanders push – have actually harmed and are continuing to harm Sweden as well as undermine its true potential?
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A more detailed analysis of what makes Scandinavia tick and the uniquely Nordic outcomes American liberals cite, are not a product of socialism, but rather race, culture and Scandinavia’s recent return to the free markets which AOC and Co. detest!
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And, if anything, the very model liberals cite as ideal, in fact HARMS Scandinavian prosperity and societal health.
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NORDIC CAPITALISM
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A 2015 story by American PBS titled “What Can the U.S. Learn from Denmark?” is a perfect example of how the Left view Scandinavia.
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The article cites Denmark’s government as an example of success, praising the nation’s “extremely high taxes, strong labor unions, and heavy [-handed] State involvement in the economy.” It suggests that these policies explain why Danes live, on average, 1.5-2 years longer than Americans.
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A paper written by Nima Sanandaji of the Heritage Foundation, commenting on the flawed documentary, chimed in on the debate, telling a very different story.
“All these statements (about Denmark) are of course true, but they lack historical perspective.
Danes today outlive their American counterparts, but not because Denmark has the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the developed world.
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As late as 1960, taxes in Denmark were actually lower than in the United States (25 percent of GDP compared with 27 percent), yet at the time, Danes lived 2.4 years longer than Americans—well before the creation of the Danish welfare state.
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In Sweden and Norway, too, the gap in life span compared with the United States is smaller today than it was in the mid–twentieth century, when their public sectors were relatively less developed. Child mortality follows a similar trend: when Nordic countries had smaller welfare states compared with the rest of the world they were further ahead than they are today.
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The positive influence of the welfare state on overall prosperity is similarly exaggerated. In fact, prosperity in the Nordic countries has increased faster in periods of economic freedom than in those of democratic socialism.
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The example of Sweden is important.
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In the latter half of the nineteenth century, liberal politicians such as Johan August Gripenstedt, Minister of Finance from 1856 to 1866, introduced reforms designed to secure business freedom, free trade, and strong protections for property rights. From around 1870 to 1936, Sweden pursued pro-market economic policies and was rewarded with an average yearly growth rate of two percent—the highest of any Western European nation during the period and twice as high as rates of leading economies such as that of the United Kingdom.”
And that all came to an end by 1940 when the nation’s Left-wing Swedish Social Democratic Party – the party that’s opened the nation’s borders – had total control over the nation’s government and with it, Sweden’s people.
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By 1970, after three decades of incrementally raising taxes and expanding the welfare state while leaving the market-oriented policies of their predecessors in place – which saw Sweden’s growth quickly level off – the Swedish Democrats decided to implement what they referred to as “Third Way Socialism” or “Democratic Socialism”.
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Sweden — unlike other Nordic countries such as Norway, and even Denmark — decided to raise taxes even farther, all while exerting more control on and stifling small businesses and savaging the national economy.
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The most aggressive and very worst of the Swedish Democrats’ Left-wing policies was the introduction of what was referred to as “employer funds,” a system through which ownership of small and middle-sized private firms would slowly be transferred to funds run by labor unions with strong ties to the political elite. What happened was large corporations with strong ties to government took over.
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Massive inflation that outpaced incomes followed, economic growth halted, consumer choice narrowed, purchasing power crashed, and the nation’s standard of living plummeted.
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By 1975 Sweden’s average growth rate fell from 2.9 – just below the European average – to just above 1 percent, the second lowest in Western Europe.
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At the same time, the nation saw inflation skyrocket.
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It was also at this point that many successful businesses and individuals fled the country. There was widespread emigration, social ills like alcoholism and mental illness went through the roof and Sweden all but fell apart.
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Things got so bad that the government, recognizing they were losing their grip on the nation they terrorized, reduced the generosity of welfare programs, lowered taxes and relaxed regulatory control.
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They had no choice as slowly but surely their power and vice-like grip on Sweden’s impressionable masses, were faltering. At this stage they didn’t have the required number of immigrants needed to stay in power without at least seeming to appease the people.
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The reforms though – much to the chagrin of some of the party’s less pragmatic Left-wing zealots who opposed them – paid off handsomely.
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Between 1991 and 2014, Sweden’s growth rate rose 2 percent—placing the country only slightly behind the United Kingdom, which had the highest rate in Western Europe during this very difficult economic period. (Remember this was during the sub-prime fiasco and Zionist global War on Terror when nations were seeing their economies SHRINKING rather than increasing in size.)
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Sweden’s growth would have been much higher if the regulatory changes and tax reforms were applied to all people and industries FAIRLY.
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Instead, the reforms were only aimed at large businesses and corporations. The small businessman was left out of the equation and to this day has never recovered.
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Just as COVID-19 restrictions prop up America’s largest corporations while destroying small businesses, Sweden’s reforms killed the remaining Swedish small businesses that still built products in the country, while enriching the likes of IKEA, which manufactures all its products overseas.
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And here’s something else lying AOC and Bolshevik Sanders won’t tell you.
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In Sweden, representatives from the nation’s biggest businesses, organized labor and ruling government literally sit around a table and decide what people will be paid. (Notice how Walmart and Amazon are in favor of increasing our nation’s minimum wage to 15 bucks am hour?) They decide together how much tax will be generated as well as all but set the prices for the nation’s goods and services.
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Mussolini and Soviet economic planners would be proud!
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As you’d imagine, small business has absolutely no representation at these talks, and as such, have been left to pay the nation’s tax bill.
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Although Sanadaji alludes to it, he never crosses the Rubicon by outright saying it.
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RACE….
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And the fact that Swedes, because of their genetically high IQ, succeed as a people because of who they are, not by way of the policies of their government.
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Sanandaji continues,
“Good social outcomes in the Nordic countries predate the welfare state because what makes Nordic societies unique is related not to policy—large welfare states can also be found in countries such as Belgium, France, and Spain—but to culture.
Over 100 years ago, German sociologist Max Weber observed that Protestant countries in northern Europe tended to have higher living standards, better academic institutions, and more well-functioning societies than countries in other parts of Europe. He attributed their success to the “Protestant work ethic.”
Swedish scholar Assar Lindbeck later built upon this theory by looking at factors other than religion.
For instance, he explained that in the hostile environment of pre-industrial Scandinavia, it was difficult to survive as a farmer without working exceptionally hard. The population therefore adopted out of necessity a culture with a great emphasis on individual responsibility, honesty, trust, punctuality, and hard work.
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These cultural attributes help explain why Nordic nations developed high levels of prosperity and low levels of poverty during the small-government era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The welfare states were introduced only once Nordic societies had already become prosperous and equal. Everything that Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and other leading Democrats admire about Nordic countries already existed in the middle of the twentieth century, when these societies had small public sectors and low taxes.
In fact, these outcomes can be found in the United States, too, among a specific group of people: Americans with Nordic ancestry.”
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Something else that interested me was a comparison between how Nordics living in Scandinavia fared against people of predominantly Nordic ancestry living in America. This was presented as a research project commissioned by Foreignpolicy.com, presumably on behalf of corporate America.
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Remember:
Strident capitalists and pro-corporatist researchers like Sanandaji and people working for the Heritage Foundation and Foreignpolicy.com, in general are paid to see that the status quo continues in America.
So for them to say the truth about Scandinavial is beyond the realm of possibility.
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When they aren’t bashing policies that increase taxes on the rich, they are inciting hatred against Russia, pushing for war in Syria as well as attacking former President Trump.
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So I ask that you please take that into account when consuming anything they write or that I share here….
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Still, as I envisioned, the results of the report demonstrated that the Scandinavian model that the Democrats often cite – which does have some advantages over the American policy model – has only served to hinder Sweden’s prosperity and in turn lower that nation’s standard of living.
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The report, full of evidence TOO bullet-proof to refute, is clear:
People of Scandinavian origin living in the less-government United States do better than Scandinavians living in the more-government Scandinavia.
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Let’s look at a few facts and a bit of history.
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A recent study conducted by Foreignpolicy.com, which also employs Sanandaji and his brother, “demonstrated that Scandinavians do FAR better in America than they do back in their native homelands.”
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Foreignpolicy.com writes,
“Measured by GDP per capita, Danish Americans’ living standards are 55 percent higher than those of Danes; living standards of Swedish Americans are 53 percent higher than those of Swedes; and Finnish Americans’ living standards are 59 percent higher than the Finns’.
Even for Norwegian Americans, who lack the oil wealth of Norway, living standards outpace those of the Norwegians by three percent.”
The article concluded,
“In recent years, a number of Nordic economists have linked the Nordic welfare state to evolving norms around work. The Danish economist Casper Hunnerup Dahl, for instance, has argued that there is a strong correlation between the expansion of Denmark’s welfare programs and a decrease in the Danish work ethic. The Swedish economist Martin Ljunge has found that Sweden’s generous sick leave insurance system has gradually increased the population’s desire to stay home from work, with younger Swedes 20 percent more likely to take sick days than their older counterparts, other circumstances being equal. Ljunge claims that “the higher demand for sick leave pay among the younger generations can be seen as a measure of how rapidly the welfare state affects attitudes toward the use of public benefits.” In the paper “Family Welfare Cultures,” the economists Gordon B. Dahl, Andreas Ravndal Kostol, and Magne Mogstad study the Norwegian disability insurance system, in which the benefits that claimants are granted often depend on the strictness of the judge who hears their case. The authors find that when a parent is granted disability insurance by a lenient judge, his or her adult children are significantly more likely to claim disability benefits in the future, with the effect increasing over time. So the lesson from Nordic countries is not that large welfare systems can be introduced without harming economic growth or creating a culture of welfare dependency—the lesson is that they will do precisely that.”
And again, although the authors have a pro-capitalism agenda, and are often times commissioned by corporate America, their scholarly findings and more importantly what they tell us about race and subsequent achievement, should nevertheless be viewed as highly instructive.
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What I hope everyone takes from my report and the studies I’ve cited are three things.
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1. We spend more than enough money on healthcare to ensure that EVERYONE in this nation is covered if taken ill or injured. So to fix the problem we first need to purge our government of corruption, NOT spend even more money on a model designed to enrich our oppressors in government, Big Pharma and the healthcare industry. Nor do we need to reinvent the wheel by importing a flawed model hatched in largely homogeneous Scandinavia for that matter. Remember that almost ALL the technology the Scandinavians use is AMERICAN made. The CT Scans and the MRIs the Swedes use in their hospitals were designed – often times MADE in America (often times by immigrants fleeing socialism or Third World hellholes). The CT Scan was actually invented by a Brit and the MRI by a first generation Armenian-French American).
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2. Scandinavians do better here in the States than in their ancestral homelands because America, even with ALL of her flaws, still affords greater opportunity than nations with more restrictions on small business.
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3. Race matters. Scandinavians can somewhat thrive under an oppressive welfare state because they are still largely homogeneous/white and as such, there are still enough high achievers to support the nation’s indigenous poor and relatively small immigration populations. The United States can do no such thing as we are already 50-60% non white.
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Lastly, when leftist proponents of Scandinavian-styled democratic socialism see they are losing an argument about “Scandinavian Democratic Socialism”, they typically shout how Norway – by far the least socialist of the Scandinavian nations – is richer than we are!
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They say, “Okay so Sweden is not as prosperous as we are and has loads of drunks, rape, but eff you “Nazi”, Norway is! They have a welfare system in place, higher taxes and are still richer than we are!”
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Firstly as I stated earlier, Norway, like most of Scandinavia is still largely homogeneous – both racially and ethnically – therefore, due to the fact they are well over 90% white and predominantly Nordic, it is fair to say that they will have a national IQ far FAR higher than ours and therefore far less bottom feeding scum to support (the main reason Sweden HAD to reform their welfare policies). Good luck seeing ONE black person outside of Oslo if you ever make it over there.
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Although you aren’t going to win an argument relying on this fact – as you’ll be called a raycisssttt! – there’s one other factor the leftists fail to mention regarding Norway – OIL!
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Norway is rich in it and they DRILL! We are poor in it and even when we find some, we are stopped from exploiting it.
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While the Left literally stop us from building pipelines that could bring us closer to energy independence, they cite the success of Norway’s economic policies LARGELY funded by their oil industry, while FAILNG to mention the fact that Norway is Europe’s energy titan.
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Inconvenient for Leftists like AOC is the fact that Norway’s actual economic success rests largely on its wealth of natural resources.
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With a population of only 5 million inhabitants, Norway has abundant natural resources in the form of forestry, mining, fishing, and most importantly, oil, and natural gas. Sweden itself, which is still largely covered in forest, is also resource-rich, although comparatively poor when it comes to oil.
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In fact, Norway’s oil fund is the planet’s LARGEST sovereign wealth fund, worth approximately $200,000 per citizen!
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It wasn’t Norway’s social democratic economic policies that created the country’s wealth or that keep people’s lights on when the nation’s hit by snowstorms. It was Mother Nature!
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So while Norway boasts oil reserves the likes of which the fictional Ewing family would kill for, we have no choice but to amass wealth through manufacturing and the propagation of industry.
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We export but 4 barrels of oil per American per year (it’s less if one factors in the number of illegals we support) compared to Norway’s 87 — yet still, as bad as things are because of the lockdowns (which Scandinavia didn’t have), we still manage to nearly match Norway in living standards.
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The other Nordic countries, which lack Norway’s oil and natural gas riches – yet are still resource rich compared to us – have FAR lower living standards than the United States, even Britain and Germany – when one factors in purchasing power and cost of living etc.
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U.S. GDP per capita was $62,480 in 2018, nearly on par with the $65,603 in Norway and between 10 and 15 thousand dollars HIGHER than Denmark, Sweden and Finland’s GDPs which were no higher than the rest of Western Europe’s, while their cost of living was massively greater (energy, housing and food costs).
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And again we do that with 175 million non-whites and about the most corrupt EVIL government the Western world has EVER seen.
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And make no mistake – if we implement the sort of Socialism the Bolshevik Sanders and brain-dead hispanic AOC want, we will look more like Soviet Russia or Venezuela than Sweden.
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End article
Very good article.
Another point that is little known today is that, in the 1950s, before decolonisation in Africa, most African colonies under European administration had a higher standard of living and a higher GDP than most East Asian countries.
That’s right — Africans under white rule had a higher standard of living than the average East Asian.
However, when the evil white man left Africans to rule themselves, what happened? Rapid collapse into poverty and corruption.
Sorry to disappoint about Norway – although quintessential points of deduction are valid and approvable, it’s way less than 90% white, more like 80%, if that, thereunder maybe 70-75% are ethnic Norwegians – its short-haired, overweight female politicians have made sure to spread the diversity evenly and widely around for decades. Even the smallest, most rural municipality has its share of exotic “enrichment” (subsidized by public resources, of course) to be found leeching off resources and capacity. Theoretically removing the veil of illusion enabled and maintained by the petroleum wealth, contemporary Norway is entirely dysfunctional and broken, like with anything run by women, and despite having the advantage of majority-Nordic ancestry on paper, most of these dumbed-down, materially spoiled children would never be able to take care of themselves. Norwegian societal infrastructure runs mainly on imported Eastern European labour. Sweden is sky-high in debt and counting. Denmark is the whitest Scandinavian country, not to say it’s not in similar throes of cultural dissolution and degradation. The author possesses very limited knowledge on the ground-level situation and actual, present-day reality in Scandinavian countries, i.e. typical assuming, American ignorance from an external perspective.
So sorry to hear that!
Francois actually lived for a decade up in northern Sweden (less expensive, less non-whites, and he likes hockey.) 😉 .