Should every economy be like those of Scandanavia?

What do you think? Is their mixed economy/welfare state approach better? Statistics show that they are consistently towards the top of the Human Development Index (higher than the USA and Hong Kong) for example.

Reply 1

RyanT

Developed countries? Yes
Developing countries? No

So no, not every economy.

Keep in mind these countries aren't perfect either, Norway is kept afloat by hydrocarbons to a large extent and most of them have immense natural resource endowments especially relative to the amount of population to support on the proceeds of such. It's a good model for rich countries, but it would also stop poor countries getting rich.

Reply 2

hunty91

As someone who has spent most of his life living in Sweden, it's just not efficient. Socialism will never work in a developed country. Third-world countries, yes.

Reply 3

Gremlins

I can definitely see the appeal of trying to 'manage' capitalism to make its effects less bad... but then again there are issues with the state trying to manage people and industries, and ultimately if you admit that it's raw capitalism which is the problem (as the nordics do), why not just get rid of capitalism? To use an analogy, if someone is being hit on the head repeatedly with a hammer, the swedish response would be for the person hitting him to give away some money so that a pillow could be bought to attatch to the head the of person being hit.

Reply 4

rajandkwameali

I heard in an economics podcast recently that redistributing wealth is like talking water from the deep end of a swimming pool, placing it in the shallow end, and then expecting the entire water level of the pool to rise.

A managed/regulated capitalism can work, perhaps. But capitalism is obviously an enormously productive economic system. IMO, the focus should be on this to create wealth and lessen poverty, and not to siphen off wealth from the rich to the poor. I also reckon that keeping capitalism's productive benefits, whilst also giving persons a hand up and not a hand out, can hav some benefits.