(08-21-2018 10:59 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: I have maintained for some time that Scandinavia and other "European socialist" nations are in fact less "socialist" that those who espouse "democratic socialism" would have us believe, and in fact much less "socialist" than are the ideas of those self-styled "democratic socialists."
The key to me is when redistribution of income and wealth becomes the primary policy objective. The Scandinavian and European philosophy is to provide a safety net. Everybody benefits (including the "rich") and everybody pays (including the "poor"). That is very different from our system. We have much more "means testing" (thank republicans for that) and generally a much more "progressive" tax system (no national consumption tax, higher corporate tax rates--at least until the 2017 tax law, and generally flatter individual tax rate structures). Thus our system is specifically designed to transfer income and wealth from "rich" to "poor." But a few observations:
1) The "means testing" forms a significant barrier for poor people trying to climb out of poverty; get a job, lose your benefits.
2) The need for so many gate-keepers drives the costs of programs through the roof; with a Bismarck system that essentially eliminates gate-keepers, France provides universal health care at a lower per capita cost to government than our hit-or-miss system.
3) Democrats have proved that they can buy voted with benefits, and win elections so long as there are more takers than makers. "Keep 'em dumb, keep 'em poor, keep 'em dependent on handouts, and you will keep 'em voting democrat."
4) The "rich" don't like being stolen from, and as long as they have other options they will exercise them. And there will always be a Cayman Islands, or somewhere, willing to offer them options.
Much of the European "socialism" as you note is not socialism. Best I've been able to figure is that during the post-war era when so much of the infrastructure was ruined, unemployment was high, there were housing shortages and food shortages and as result communist and socialist parties were growing stronger. The governments created large safety nets to quell the growing unrest and to head off movements toward government taking over private capital.
Few of them actually veered into true socialism, The UK was probably the most socialist already owning the phone, broadcasting, airline, coal, etc. The government even owned Jaguar.
The Scandinavian nations fully embraced the safety net and adopted a health system more similar to Germany keeping it mostly private with government collecting the taxes used to pay those private providers and setting prices.
They embraced consumer side capitalism. Their approach has been that people holding capital are not "job creators" but rather investors seeking the greatest return and the best way for them to get a good return that benefits the community is for consumers to have the ability to purchase goods and their demand for goods will make putting capital into factories and labor a good investment.
Most employ a strategy of low corporate tax rates to benefit the corporation but have higher income taxes which encourages shareholders to want the company to invest profits and grow value rather than dispensing profits via dividends.
During the recession, Germany paid many companies to not lay off employees because it was cheaper for the government to do that than pay unemployment benefits which tend to be around 70% of salary with extensive training benefits. So idled equipment was given maintenance work, factories were cleaned and painted as companies found busy work for their employees while receiving money from the government to keep them on the job.
Rather than socialism, it is like a "compassionate capitalism".