There was a chart here posted a few days ago that listed countries by happiness. I think Norway and some other countries that are not considered capitalist were near the top. Even with those countries, something like 20-25% were still not happy. That is a large percent. Imagine if the world put just 10% of the effort going into profiting of of AI into figuring out what makes humans happy and implementing it.
You’ll find pretty much all of the Scandinavian countries up there. Technically Social Capitalist kinda stuff. The problem is the population disparity, income disparity, and number of social services between them and the US. Canada is much the same though pretty far on the Capitalism side of things.
Norway is mixed market capitalist, like most developed countries. They do have a strong welfare system, though. I’d imagine it’s similar in the other countries in the list you mention too, but I’d have to see what they are.
The majority of wealth — excluding homes — in Norway is held in its sovereign wealth fund. This fund is invested in a diversified set of foreign and domestic industries. If we can’t call a country in which the majority of wealth is held in collectively owned means of production, socialist. What even is socialism?
Wealth is definitely a strong element. It’s easy to forget that socialism is just democratic ownership of the economy, not just “workers owning the means of production” because that forgets all the people who can’t work. In addition, these elements add to Norway’s status as a mixed economy with market socialist elements:
30% of the domestic stock market is owned by the Norwegian state
They operate 70+ state owned enterprises (SOEs), including a national bank and telecom
Norway has 50% union density, which is pretty high compared to the rest of the world
They have works councils where workers get 33%(?) of the seats on the board of larger corporations
20% of Norways population lives in democratically owned housing (housing coops), originally funded by the government but now growing their membership faster than the population is growing
Norway uses Georgist-style taxes on land (natural resources - oil, aquafarms, hydropower, wind energy) because no one worked for the creation of those natural resources hence a good cut of the profits should belong to the people
When you compare these to China, you’ll notice that a so-called communist country gets beaten on many of these in relative terms, which is a strong case for Norway being quite socialist (obviously they also have capitalism hence the “mixed economy” part, before someone goes “well actually”)
A socialist system would also feature government officials vetoing spending on the basis of cost. If you think about it, there would be even more such instances, since a socialist government has a larger say on economic questions.
Economic systems are aimed at resolving the question of how to allocate scarce resources. Switching from “capitalist” to “socialist” does not make the allocation problem go away. It only changes who makes the decisions.
And the results of those decisions would probably not be what you seem to be expecting. Real world experience shows that socialist countries tend to allocate more resources to things like heavy industry, and fewer resources to consumer goods like, say, condoms for students.
A socialist system would also feature government officials vetoing spending on the basis of cost. If you think about it, there would be even more such instances, since a socialist government has a larger say on economic questions.
Not necessarily, allow me to give a different perspective. Market socialists usually argue in favour of socialised organisations like cooperatives and unions having more power. Socialism doesn’t necessarily equal an all powerful control economy, you can marketise elements in a humane way. In Sweden, for example, the unions handle unemployment benefits through what’s known as a Ghent system[1]. In Norway, 20% of housing is democratically owned through housing coops that were originally funded by the government (but that stopped a few decades ago) and it’s still growing faster than the population itself is, so given enough time Norway will eventually be all democratically owned housing. In Finland, something like 90%+ of the population is a member in democratically owned grocery shops (consumer coops), where anyone can stand in elections for managerial positions - yes, you can literally be democratically elected a manager in a coop shop.
Also, anecdotally, when I went to high school in Norway I was offered free condoms. This is also the case in Sweden and Finland, now that I look it up.
We have a voteable communist party in my country, it’s never going to get elected. People are either dumb as bricks or corrupt, and so is the system. The whole system is hopeless, I don’t think we’ll ever see real change without seeing violence first.
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There was a chart here posted a few days ago that listed countries by happiness. I think Norway and some other countries that are not considered capitalist were near the top. Even with those countries, something like 20-25% were still not happy. That is a large percent. Imagine if the world put just 10% of the effort going into profiting of of AI into figuring out what makes humans happy and implementing it.
You’ll find pretty much all of the Scandinavian countries up there. Technically Social Capitalist kinda stuff. The problem is the population disparity, income disparity, and number of social services between them and the US. Canada is much the same though pretty far on the Capitalism side of things.
Norway is mixed market capitalist, like most developed countries. They do have a strong welfare system, though. I’d imagine it’s similar in the other countries in the list you mention too, but I’d have to see what they are.
The majority of wealth — excluding homes — in Norway is held in its sovereign wealth fund. This fund is invested in a diversified set of foreign and domestic industries. If we can’t call a country in which the majority of wealth is held in collectively owned means of production, socialist. What even is socialism?
Wealth is definitely a strong element. It’s easy to forget that socialism is just democratic ownership of the economy, not just “workers owning the means of production” because that forgets all the people who can’t work. In addition, these elements add to Norway’s status as a mixed economy with market socialist elements:
When you compare these to China, you’ll notice that a so-called communist country gets beaten on many of these in relative terms, which is a strong case for Norway being quite socialist (obviously they also have capitalism hence the “mixed economy” part, before someone goes “well actually”)
A socialist system would also feature government officials vetoing spending on the basis of cost. If you think about it, there would be even more such instances, since a socialist government has a larger say on economic questions.
Economic systems are aimed at resolving the question of how to allocate scarce resources. Switching from “capitalist” to “socialist” does not make the allocation problem go away. It only changes who makes the decisions.
And the results of those decisions would probably not be what you seem to be expecting. Real world experience shows that socialist countries tend to allocate more resources to things like heavy industry, and fewer resources to consumer goods like, say, condoms for students.
Not necessarily, allow me to give a different perspective. Market socialists usually argue in favour of socialised organisations like cooperatives and unions having more power. Socialism doesn’t necessarily equal an all powerful control economy, you can marketise elements in a humane way. In Sweden, for example, the unions handle unemployment benefits through what’s known as a Ghent system[1]. In Norway, 20% of housing is democratically owned through housing coops that were originally funded by the government (but that stopped a few decades ago) and it’s still growing faster than the population itself is, so given enough time Norway will eventually be all democratically owned housing. In Finland, something like 90%+ of the population is a member in democratically owned grocery shops (consumer coops), where anyone can stand in elections for managerial positions - yes, you can literally be democratically elected a manager in a coop shop.
Also, anecdotally, when I went to high school in Norway I was offered free condoms. This is also the case in Sweden and Finland, now that I look it up.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_system
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Shrug. Beats capitalism.
In CA we need such a party to run in deep blue seats.where they can easily get more votes than the Republicans
We have a voteable communist party in my country, it’s never going to get elected. People are either dumb as bricks or corrupt, and so is the system. The whole system is hopeless, I don’t think we’ll ever see real change without seeing violence first.