Sorry, AOC and Bernie Sanders: Scandinavia Is No Socialist Paradise

Posted by $ nickursis 4 years, 8 months ago to Government
27 comments | Share | Flag

Now here is a breakdown for the socialist mouth pieces that has some facts to it. It ain't pretty...
SOURCE URL: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/sorry-aoc-and-bernie-sanders-scandinavia-no-socialist-paradise-69716


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP

All Comments Hide marked as read Mark all as read

  • Posted by fivedollargold 4 years, 8 months ago
    Sweden was doing well, so the leftists raised corporate taxes. Predictably, tax revenue decreased so they did a 180 and lowered corporate taxation. $5Au thinks it is another lesson of the "golden goose."
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by fivedollargold 4 years, 8 months ago
    All businesses in the EU are required to swear allegiance to "European socialism."
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by ewv 4 years, 7 months ago
      Bernie Sanders, quoted in the article: "If we mean socialism is what the old Soviet Union was, that’s not my thing. If you think of socialism as what China is, that’s not my view. My view is that you have an economy in which you have wealth being created by the private sector, but you have a fair distribution of that wealth, and you make sure the most vulnerable people in this country are doing well." Quoted from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ne...

      What does he think happened in the "old Soviet Union", Cuba and China that he used to openly support?

      From Atlas Shrugged: "An industrialist—blank-out—there is no such person. A factory is a 'natural resource,' like a tree, a rock or a mud puddle .... Who solved the problem of production? Humanity, they answer. What was the solution? The goods are here. How did they get here? Somehow. What caused it? Nothing has causes."

      From Ayn Rand's "Requiem for Man" on Pope Paul VI's encyclical "Populorum Progressio" ("On the Development of Peoples"), where she quoted the above passage, and replacing the "encyclical" with "Sanders":

      Sanders wants the "products of industrial wealth, [he] is scornfully indifferent to their source; [he] asserts a right to the effects, but ignores the cause; [he] purports to speak on a lofty moral plane, but leaves the process of material production outside the realm of morality—as if that process were an activity of a low order that neither involved nor required any moral principles...

      "The process of production is directed by man's mind. Man's mind is not an indeterminate faculty; it requires certain conditions in order to function—and the cardinal one among them is freedom. "

      It also requires a mind that wants to function, with a desire for freedom.

      Sweden used to be more socialist than today, but was notoriously drowning itself in stagnation. It reverted to a semblance of freedom for some business in an otherwise still stultifying welfare state with a docile conformism dominating a populace lacking an individualist sense of life. That is what the left is trying to do to us. It's not just statist oppression, but a demand for an entire culture of collectivist submission to the root of your soul.

      For all the claims of Sweden's 'success' it is no dynamic society leading the world in innovation or allowing freedom for individual achievement or a desire for either. It is no place for any individual with an independent mind and moral ambition. It was no success in the 1960s and early 70s either, when the left extolled it as a benevolent socialism proving that "socialism works". The Scandinavian socialism mantra from today's left is not new.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Temlakos 4 years, 8 months ago
    Scandinavia contains welfare states but not economic planning boards--no Bureaus of Economic Planning and Natural Resources. I'm amazed they do as well as they do--but at least they knew better than to take the next quantum step. And in some cases they're stepping back from it, when the immediate math tells them to.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by Lucky 4 years, 8 months ago
      I understand that compared with places where I have lived, Sweden has (until recently) a more monolithic culture. If so, then a socialistic welfare state can work - at least for a generation, there are social pressures, pride, shame, that prevents those who can work from applying for benefits, but those who cannot work can still get help.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by Temlakos 4 years, 8 months ago
        That's exactly what I heard from a Swede who is proud of his system--as it then stood.

        He also pointed out that Sweden's political leaders tried to take their country through the next quantum step: state purchase of heavy industries. They floated a Citizen Stock Ownership Plan, or something of the kind, whatever they wished to call it.

        And found way too few takers. So they abandoned that plan.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by exceller 4 years, 8 months ago
    "Scandinavia is not socialist, but it does combine capitalism with high taxes and big government. As evidenced by Scandinavians who live in America, their standard of living is higher in absence of the Scandinavian welfare model. Scandinavia is extremely capitalist when it comes to business freedom. Jul 24 2018"
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by lrshultis 4 years, 8 months ago
    It seems like a bit of insanity to try to change the great freedom of Capitalism to a none democratic system where one is not free to vote freely by buying or not buying and thus causing the decrease in creation of the increasing wealth in the world that comes from the freedom of Capitalism.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 25n56il4 4 years, 8 months ago
    If these people were serious, they might address the problem of homeless students in this country. This is a very sad issue. Children who are homeless and trying to get an education are sleeping in our parks and their cars, etc. Our schools are giving them two free meals a day and allowing them to use facilities for bathing and laundry at the schools in some cases.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by evlwhtguy 4 years, 8 months ago
      There are statistically almost no homeless children in the USA. There are to be sure a few.....but this is generally the fault of their parents making bad decisions it is not the USA doing bad things. Truth be told, the greatest threat to children being homeless is the fact that all the welfare benefits encourage broken families and the obstruction of reasonable immigration controls acts as a magnet to the flotsam and jetsam of neighboring regions. .
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  

FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo