According to most libertarians, socialism ends in disaster. Redistribution of wealth and high taxes destroy the incentive to contribute to civilization, thus leading to failure.
However, what about the oft-touted "bumblebee economies" of Scandinavian countries? Scandinavian countries have incredibly high taxes and a very big government, yet they seem to be doing pretty damn well, at least way better than the less taxed US.
Yes, we could attribute the wealth of Scandinavian countries to a variety of different factors, but doesn't it prove that socialism isn't detrimental?
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFEVazV6WYM[/video]
Already covered.
The Myth of Scandanavian Socialism.
Damn it Anenome! I was so close! Look at what I have in my clipboard right now why don't you?? *pastes*
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/5616.aspx
Communalism is generally a viable way to order an economy, but it must be remembered that the modern world has built up far beyond what a communalized economy could sustain, meaning that a return to communalism such as our tribal forebears used, would mean a significant contraction of wealth and as a result that many people, perhaps a few billion, would die as a result. That's the disaster feared.
Certainly communalism is more effective an economic order than, say, hunting-gathering. That's one step below even communalism. At least communalism is still trying to produce things. But capitalism is a step up from communalism in the same way that communalism is a step up from hunting-gathering.
And, capitalism is the final step, the maximization of what's economically possible.
As for the Scandanavians, their society is at a level commensurate with the amount of communalism they prefer. With a free market they could certainly achieve much more. They simply don't realize it, for it's counterintuitive.
Neodoxy: Damn it Anenome! I was so close! Look at what I have in my clipboard right now why don't you?? *pastes* http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/5616.aspx
^_^
So the answer would be that the welfare state in Scandinavia has coincided with its stagnation?
"All told, the recession became Sweden's deepest by far since the Great Depression, with GDP in 1993 being 5% lower than in 1990, with employment falling more than 10%, and the budget deficit rising to more than 10% of GDP. By then Sweden had fallen to between 15th and 20th place in international income comparisons, a decline from which it has never since recovered. After this deep downturn, Sweden has performed much better for a number of reasons. The 20% decline in the value of the krona in late 1992 gave a strong boost to exports and together with the dramatic lowering of interest rates, this helped kick-start a cyclical recovery in late 1993. Moreover, a number of free market reforms implemented during Ingvar Carlsson and conservative Carl Bildt (who was Prime Minister between 1991 and 1994) had helped raise the structural growth potential of the Swedish economy. Apart from the already mentioned reforms of reduced marginal tax rates and abolished currency controls, deregulated bank lending and significantly lower inflation, this included privatizations of several state-owned companies and deregulation of several key sectors, including the retail sector, the telecommunications sector and the airline industry. Also, when the massive budget deficit was eliminated, even the Social Democrats realized the need for deep spending cuts, which together with the typical cyclical decline in the burden of spending during booms helped reduce the extremely bloated burden of government spending somewhat. All of this has helped Sweden recover in relative terms from the stagnation of the 1970s and 1980s and the deep economic downturn in the early 1990s. It is this relative recovery that is now seized upon by the Social Democrats and their sympathizers inside and outside of Sweden when they claim that the Swedish model of high taxes and a big welfare state is successful. Yet as should be clear, the relative improvement of performance is due not to high taxes (lower now than previously), but to free-market reforms. The reason Sweden no longer trails the rest of Europe is that these reforms, which have not been implemented in most continental European countires, have made the Swedish economy relatively freer."
"All told, the recession became Sweden's deepest by far since the Great Depression, with GDP in 1993 being 5% lower than in 1990, with employment falling more than 10%, and the budget deficit rising to more than 10% of GDP. By then Sweden had fallen to between 15th and 20th place in international income comparisons, a decline from which it has never since recovered.
After this deep downturn, Sweden has performed much better for a number of reasons. The 20% decline in the value of the krona in late 1992 gave a strong boost to exports and together with the dramatic lowering of interest rates, this helped kick-start a cyclical recovery in late 1993. Moreover, a number of free market reforms implemented during Ingvar Carlsson and conservative Carl Bildt (who was Prime Minister between 1991 and 1994) had helped raise the structural growth potential of the Swedish economy.
Apart from the already mentioned reforms of reduced marginal tax rates and abolished currency controls, deregulated bank lending and significantly lower inflation, this included privatizations of several state-owned companies and deregulation of several key sectors, including the retail sector, the telecommunications sector and the airline industry. Also, when the massive budget deficit was eliminated, even the Social Democrats realized the need for deep spending cuts, which together with the typical cyclical decline in the burden of spending during booms helped reduce the extremely bloated burden of government spending somewhat.
All of this has helped Sweden recover in relative terms from the stagnation of the 1970s and 1980s and the deep economic downturn in the early 1990s. It is this relative recovery that is now seized upon by the Social Democrats and their sympathizers inside and outside of Sweden when they claim that the Swedish model of high taxes and a big welfare state is successful.
Yet as should be clear, the relative improvement of performance is due not to high taxes (lower now than previously), but to free-market reforms.
The reason Sweden no longer trails the rest of Europe is that these reforms, which have not been implemented in most continental European countires, have made the Swedish economy relatively freer."
Here, for good measure, the other side of the coin:
"The nearly universal opinion expressed these days is that the economic crisis of recent years marks the end of capitalism. Capitalism allegedly has failed, has proven itself incapable of solving economic problems, and so mankind has no alternative, if it is to survive, then to make the transition to a planned economy, to socialism. This is hardly a new idea. The socialists have always maintained that economic crises are the inevitable result of the capitalistic method of production and that there is no other means of eliminating economic crises than the transition to socialism. If these assertions are expressed more forcefully these days and evoke greater public response, it is not because the present crisis is greater or longer than its predecessors, but rather primarily because today public opinion is much more strongly influenced by socialist views than it was in previous decades..."
"The nearly universal opinion expressed these days is that the economic crisis of recent years marks the end of capitalism. Capitalism allegedly has failed, has proven itself incapable of solving economic problems, and so mankind has no alternative, if it is to survive, then to make the transition to a planned economy, to socialism.
This is hardly a new idea. The socialists have always maintained that economic crises are the inevitable result of the capitalistic method of production and that there is no other means of eliminating economic crises than the transition to socialism. If these assertions are expressed more forcefully these days and evoke greater public response, it is not because the present crisis is greater or longer than its predecessors, but rather primarily because today public opinion is much more strongly influenced by socialist views than it was in previous decades..."