Nima Sanandaji - Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism

Debunking Utopia

Copyright 2016 by Nima Sanandaji

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Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-944229-39-9

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sanandaji, Nima, 1981- author.

Title: Debunking utopia : exposing the myth of Nordic socialism / Dr. Nima Sanandaji.

Description: Washington, D.C. : WND Books, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016013123 | ISBN 9781944229399 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Socialism--Scandinavia. | Welfare state--Scandinavia. |
Scandinavia--Social policy. | Scandinavia--Economic policy. |
Scandinavia--Politics and government.

Classification: LCC HX318.5 .S26 2016 | DDC 335.50948--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016013123

Introduction

BERNIE SANDERS AND OTHER LEFTIST politicians want to increase taxes, regulate businesses, and create a society where government takes responsibility for many aspects of daily life. If you are sick, the public sector should pay for your treatment and give you sick leave benefits. If you quit your job, taxpayers should support you. If you have a low income, the government should transfer money from your neighbor who has a better job. While many believe that the public sector should provide some help in these situations, there are those on the left who believe that nearly all the responsibility should be on the public sector and little on the individual, families, and other parts of civil society. The ideal is a society in which the state makes sure that those who work and those who dont have a similar living standard. There is nothing odd about these views. They are classical socialist ideas, or as Bernie Sanders himself would explain, the core ideas of social democracy.

These days, few people believe in pure socialism. The system has failed, leading to human misery on a wide scale in every country in which it has been introduced. The Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea are hardly positive role models. China, the last major socialist country, has in many ways transitioned to a capitalist economy. A less radical idea that is gaining ground is social democracy. Contrary to socialism, social democracy isnt meant to be introduced through an authoritarian system where one party monopolizes power. It is to be combined with democracy and also the free market. In social democracy government takes control of some, but not all, parts of the economy within the frame of a democratic system. Services such as education, health care, and elderly care are provided through public monopolies, and funded by tax money.

I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people. BERNIE SANDERS, 2015

Social democracy is becoming increasingly popular among the Left in the United States. An important reason is that positive role models exist. In fact, a number of countries with social democratic policies namely, the Nordic nations have seemingly become everything that the Left would like America to be: prosperous, yet equal and with good social outcomes. Bernie Sanders himself has explained: I think we should look

I fully understand the Lefts admiration for the Nordic countries. In 1989 I emigrated with my family from Iran to Sweden and grew up in a typical immigrant household, supported mainly by welfare benefits. I graduated, got my PhD, and started writing about politics. Since then I have written more than a hundred policy reports and some twenty books about various societal issues in Sweden and other northern European countries. This part of the world has indeed fascinating social systems. It is true, as Bernie Sanders and his supporters say, that the Nordic welfare states provide a host of benefits. To give an example from my own upbringing, taxpayers fully paid for my higher education, affording opportunities to a person from one of the poorer households in society.

What is less known on the other side of the Atlantic is that the Nordic welfare states also create a range of social problems. An example from my own upbringing is that many of my friends, although bright, never studied or got a meaningful job. My best friend started a criminal gang. This is not just my personal experience, but sadly it is a common fate of many migrants to Sweden. I am sure that this might sound odd for American admirers of social democracy. If the government provides generous benefits, even fully funded higher education, shouldnt more people be lifted out of poverty? The reality is that Nordic policies trap many families, particularly those with an immigrant background, in welfare dependency. This is why, as I show in detail later in this book, the American Dream of income mobility is more vivid in capitalist America than in the Nordic welfare state systems.

If people such as Bernie Sanders were truly interested in learning from the Nordic experience, I am sure they could expand their horizon. The pragmatic Nordic people have created relatively well-functioning public sectors, in contrast to the less efficient bureaucracy that exists in America. The Nordic welfare states certainly have their advantages. Public provision of child care, for example, allows many women to work. A closer look at the systems, however, shatters the rosy illusion of the Left. The welfare states of the north are dealing with challenges stemming from the long-term effects of high taxes, generous benefits, and public-sector monopolies. From Spain to the Baltics, Latin America and the United States, leftist ideologues hedge much of their political beliefs on the success of Nordic social democracy. In the Nordics themselves, this ideal image of democratic socialism has lost its shimmer.

Leftist ideologues hedge much of their political beliefs on the success of Nordic social democracy. In the Nordics themselves, this ideal image of democratic socialism has lost its shimmer.

It is possible that social democracy will again become popular in the Nordics. For the last decades, however, the labor movement and the Social Democratic parties have gradually lost support, and shifted considerably toward the right. As a simple illustration, lets look at the current governments in

Finland is also ruled by a center-right coalition. The prime minister is previous businessman Juha Petri Sipil, who has quite a conservative stand on the issue of immigration. Sigmundur Dav Gunnlaugsson, the prime minister of Iceland, is yet again the head of a center-right coalition. Free-market and small-government ideas have become quite popular in Iceland, a country that never fully embraced Nordic-style democratic socialism. Norway is led by conservative party leader Erna Solberg. The massive oil wealth of Norway would make a generous welfare state more feasible than elsewhere. Over time, however, even Norwegians have been alarmed over how working ethics are eroded by a system where much responsibility is placed on the public sector and little on the individual.

In Finland the anti-immigration Finns Party is part of the government, while in Denmark the anti-immigrant Danish Peoples Party supports the current government. Icelands two largest parties are both skeptical of the European Union, and the public opinion in the country is overall against open borders. To sum up, conservative parties are in power in most Nordic nations, while anti-immigration parties with a populist touch have been gaining ground. This political landscape is far from what is favored by liberals in the United States, although few American admirers of Nordic-style democratic socialism seem aware of this.