Sweden, etc...the Free Market View

from wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
Note #4 "The surprising ingredients of Swedish success - free markets and social cohesion" (PDF). Institute of Economic Affairs. June 25, 2013. (this appears to be from a Free Market Think Tank, as it uses their phrasing(ie:”Big Government”) I have included it for balance)

Myopic. Cherry-Picking data and criteria in order to suit one's preconceived “results”...
Framing and Phrasing and numerous Unexamined Assumptions.

Repeatedly, in this...”Growth is always Good”...and “More Profit is always Good”....and Taxes are Bad...Government is not even a Necessary Evil...it's just Evil.
I have little patience for such an extreme Orthodoxy.
Never do the Free Market Fundies acknowledge a Finite Planet.
Or Pollution...including all the plastic crap we buy, then throw away.
Similarly, never do they consider the concept of “Enough”.
That that 1 million dollars I made last year is plenty to live a good life with.
That I do not need, nor do I necessarily want, an additional million(s) in the bank.
These assumptions are derivative of the Value System based on Greed that is foundational to “capitalism” as we do it in the USA.
Such a statement by a CEO or Hedge Fund owner...that “nope...I got plenty”...would be almost unthinkable here. Indeed, there was one such CEO in the last week or so who did just that, and the Right threw up in their mouths a little.
The Nordic economies have reduced waste and pollution, and have settled on a societal Norm of “Enough”.
This Norm is acknowledged, obliquely, in this paper...all that stuff about Trust and Personal Responsibility and Community.(IEA wants to put responsibility for these things on Protestantism, in some of the least religious countries in history)
Those three things require a little consideration of the other folks one shares a country with, as well as the Commons...air, water and soil health...the health of one's neighbor...and so on.
It's not all about Me, over there.
There was a time in Texas...in my lifetime...that unmitigated Greed, and infinite selfishness, was looked down upon.
Gordon Gecko has somehow become our patron saint.
That is not the case in Northern Europe, by all measures that I've seen.

Similarly, while lamenting the advent of socialism(small s) in the 30's...and the concurrent decline in “entrepreneurialism”...the author neglects to mention the poverty and want that came before....during the period that he treats as the golden age.
Everything I've seen would indicate the contrary....that vast swaths of folks were hurting, and that this hurt was the reason they agitated and revolted and took over the economy.
It was democratic, from the get-go.
After the rise of the Nordic Model, folks maybe didn't go into business because they didn't want to...and now they didn't have to.
This idea is an anathema to the hypercapitalists...not wanting to work is seen as lazy and impure.
But what did so many of those folks do instead?
They became artists and social workers, they volunteered at the day care..they went fishing a lot...just like Dick Cheney is able to do(no one ever says that he's lazy because he hunts and fishes so much...a curious omission)
There is also the common fallacies of “Bigger = Better”...and “bigger Market Cap” = “better company”.
This is a value judgment, and not conducive to what we're trying to get at.
Measure these companies(and countries) by their own value system...not that of Wall Street or the Chicago School.
In other words, we are seeing a confusion of tongues.
Over here, we don't measure “wellbeing” or “happiness”.
There's a reason for this...in fact, “Business”(sic) have lobbied hard against the introduction of such measurements...over here.
There, they do measure Wellbeing and Happiness, as well as a host of other hard to measure “Quality of Life” criteria.
We measure things like “happiness” indirectly, at best.
Nominal GDP Growth “implies” happiness.
When it suits the Paradigm Defense Forces, we measure “Job Growth” one way....when that way doesn't suit them, we measure it in another.
Usually...as in the recent “Texas Miracle”...”a job is a job is a job”.
In Scandinavia...and Europe in general...they measure such things in a more rounded, comprehensive way that Neoliberals cannot abide.
“well, their largest companies are all over 70 years old” is hardly comparing apples to apples.(Bigger is not always Better)
If we take the criteria that is habitually...even religiously...used over here, and apply it to Scandinavia...it looks like a hellhole over there.

How is it then that the people are so happy?

Conversely, when we take their criteria, and apply it to us...we look like a backwards feudalistic nightmare country.
It matters who does the measuring...and what criteria are used, and how those criteria are formulated and applied.
All of this entails Foundational Assumptions.
From where I'm standing, their criteria are superior and much more comprehensive; they include measurements of what it is like to be a Human Being, there. Our Economists and their cheer-leading analogs in media, may think that is unimportant...or superfluous...

I do not.
This has been my fundamental critique of the Neoliberal, Chicago School-Style Economics that are almost religiously advocated in the USA.
When one points to Europe, and says...”hey...look at how satisfied they appear to be...”...one is often met with adolescent sneers and snickers.

“Hippy Dippy Utopians...”

But as I've said so many times, Who are the Utopians in this debate?

The Neoliberal Theology would have every Human Being regarded as an “Economic Unit”...a “Rational Agent”, performing Cost-Benefit Analysis not only to every Economic Decision, but to all Human Interaction.
Homo Oeconomicus( with a very blind eye turned away from the “Real Citizenry” over here, the Paper Kind)

It seems that a Prima Facie case can be made rather simply that this is not all that we are...that Being Human entails much more than simply Marginal Utility and Net Worth.
So before we can have a real discussion about the validity, the veracity and...yes...the utility of the Nordic Model, we must first look at what is being measured.
To that end....here's a bunch of links that I've just muscled through, regarding the measurement of satisfaction, happiness and quality of life.
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(Remember, Wiki is a decent place to start, in my view...and usually has many links to source material.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_measures_of_economic_progress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_satisfaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/non-economic-data/happiest-countries

http://www.nber.org/digest/septoct07/w12934.html

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/beyond_gdp/indicators_social_en.html

http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2012/04/happiness

This last is, unsurprisingly, a rather mild example of the snickering one often finds from Free Marketeers when such measurements are undertaken.

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Interestingly, to me, at least...there appears to be a correlation between religious belief(especially Evangelical/Fundamentalist(in the US)) and perceived Happiness and Well Being.
This is a can of worms, of course....but interesting, nonetheless.
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Here are the two big Think Tanks in Texas that deal with Economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Public_Policy_Priorities

The former is currently the dominant intellectual group in the state, enjoying massive funding, and preferential status with the Texas GOP/Tea Party, which means that they are the preferred Think Tank of the Government of the State of Texas.
They never talk about Happiness, or any other subjective measures of Economic Performance. They therefore are a case in point of the Myopia I mentioned.
The latter, on the other hand, looks at economics from the standpoint of the Middle, and especially the Lower, Classes.

Things look rather less rosy from down here.

To be open and honest, I sometimes correspond with the CPPP, while the TPPF rarely(once) answers my emails or phone calls.
I made many calls to each during my hunt for evidence of the actual existence of the proverbial Welfare Queen driving a Cadillac...CPPP sent me much data indicating the mythological Quality of such widespread Fraud and Abuse; TPPF sent me on a circular phone journey, to numerous answering machines. I finally got a call back some weeks later from a guy(I forget his name or his claim to expertise...he sounded pretty young) who pretended to never have heard of the Welfare Queen Myth, peddled at least weekly by the folks who sign his checks.(this was the non-answer I received from every GOPtea Congressional staffer I called, as well)
I include these two groups as illustrative examples of the degrees of Myopia in Economics, today....and to show how what results you get, depends on what you measure, as well as what you do not.
I also include them, because the Paper in question, from the IEA, moves into Morality, next.

Talk about Work Ethic, and Personal Responsibility may sound a little familiar to Americans. “Dependence” is mentioned in the same coded way it is used over here. They refrain from using the phrase “Welfare Queen”, but one can almost hear that phrase in the background.
Sweden, as the Paper notes after sufficient usage of such code-words, has recently installed “Gate Keepers” for access to things like Sick Pay, and Disability.
I don't reckon anyone would deny that this is necessary, so long as it's Fair.(Curiously, Fairness is another word that rarely enters into the Free Marketeers' lexicon)
So it's a polite version of our usual,”oh, look at what the welfare state does: makes people lazy and hang from the government teat...”
It's difficult for me to keep my cool with this stuff...I admit.
I've heard such things for most of my life...Bootstraps!! Incentive to Work!!!
It is tiresome, since the purveyors of such things rarely want to visit those aspects of “work” that are actually Deterrents to being all balls to the wall.
Like the strange feature(that most Texans know about intuitively, even though they don't readily admit it, or vote accordingly) of working hard all the time, and not being able to go to the doctor, let alone have any leisure time.
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Next, they go on to talk obliquely about Immigration and “Assimilation” and “Integration”.
We've heard all of this, before, too.
Lol.
This perceived failure is another example of the difficulty of measurement of subjective, non-economic things...as well as an assumption that Assimilation is the Preferred Goal of Immigration.
The Muslim Immigrants are the ones being talked about...
They are very different culturally, ethically and spiritually from the relatively Homogenous natives of Scandinavia. There is racism involved , here,as well.
I believe that this is a separate issue from the main one...it's related, of course, but as the last 2 weeks in America has shown, Race is hardly a settled thing....the argument is filled with Attribution Errors and Assumptions regarding “Those People”, and is therefore unhelpful.
Widespread Islamic Immigration is also a relatively new thing in Scandinavia.
I want more data, ere we get into the effects of Immigration on the Nordic Model.
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Next, we move into the issue of “Hidden Taxes”...hidden by that rascally government(in one of the most transparent system of government yet devised, no less), in order to shore up Employment Numbers.
This will need further, Objective, study.
I mean, we could talk about the same thing in US economic policy....Inflation, and the ten million taxing authorities and the related Opacity of Government in the US, but we've had those discussions, before...at least I have,lol...to no real point.
Folks tend to believe what they want to believe.
Here's where measures of Satisfaction...which include perceived Corruption in Government....could be helpful.
Those measurements in Scandinavia consistently show a higher Satisfaction with Government, less Alienation, and far less Perceived Corruption.
Civic Participation is higher there, as well.
Folks pay attention to what their Government is doing...there are actual National Debates on these things...perhaps as a result of more leisure time, and less balls-to-the-wall, work yerself to death-ism.
The graphs are interesting, regarding hidden versus visible taxation.
I don't have internet out here, but a graph like that for the USA, and for Texas, would likely make for a fun comparison.

(I'm making a note to check, when I'm connected again...and will attempt to include such a graph, without comment, in this space when I get home)
{couldn't find a similar graph for USA, but there is this idea:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_welfare_state )}

As expected, they mention the Laffer Curve in response to those graphs.
We can talk about that, if you like....I have found it to be one of the most dishonest planks in the whole Neoliberal Revolution of the past 35 years.
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Next we get to the inevitable citation of the Heritage Foundation.
The phrase “Economic Freedom” is used.
The USA is regarded as scoring relatively higher than Scandinavia in this metric, but I live in Texas, and cannot legally sell an egg to my local grocer(no matter what the customer wants or prefers)...so we can talk about that, too...if you like.
Assumptions that are required to stay Unexamined are not conducive to honest debate.
They also seem to like the Fraser Institute, whom I have never heard of.(I'll maybe get back to you to see if my as yet unexamined assumptions regarding that group are wrong.lol.)
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It is probably pretty obvious by now that I remain unconvinced by this Paper.
I've heard all of these arguments and assertions and lamentations for most of my life, so I will take them, here, with a lot of salt.



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The Economist has a more balanced view of all of the above.

(http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570835-nordic-countries-are-probably-best-governed-world-secret-their)

(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571136-politicians-both-right-and-left-could-learn-nordic-countries-next-supermodel)


It still relies overmuch on Free Market Mythology for my taste, but it is far less sneering and snickering.
Again, I think it's useful to compare things like Trust in Government, Satisfaction with Government, and overall Trust in Other People...with those same metrics here, in the USA.
By those measures, we are a backwards and hostile country, filled with selfish ignoramuses and sneaky politicians.

From that last Economist article:
“The main lesson to learn from the Nordics is not ideological but practical. The state is popular not because it is big but because it works. A Swede pays tax more willingly than a Californian because he gets decent schools and free health care. The Nordics have pushed far-reaching reforms past unions and business lobbies. The proof is there. You can inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations. But you need to be willing to root out corruption and vested interests. And you must be ready to abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum. The world will be studying the Nordic model for years to come. “

One would think that the Free Marketeers, with their high minded pontifications on Competition would be willing to apply that Ideal to the field of Ideas, as well.
That remains to be seen, of course...but what I've observed since Bernie Sanders announced last week doesn't exactly inspire hope for a reasoned, dispassionate debate on the merits and failures of the Nordic Model.
This is a shame.
Reckon we might learn something.
(and...just for clarity,...these are the folks who produced the Paper I've been firing missiles at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs)

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for the third installment of this little series, I'll dive into what the Nordic Countries say about themselves.
The Research Frenzy continues, apace.