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Heap_Good_Firewater t1_j8poj4l wrote

Now you're making a little sense. Smaller, homogeneous population does help, "whiteness" has nothing to do with it. I would argue that high levels of social trust is the key, and this is helped by homogeneity. People are more willing to pay into a welfare system if they think it will help people like them, but this is not an insurmountable problem.

Importantly, Neither Sweden or Denmark are "socialist". They are "social democratic". Sweden outranks the US for business friendliness, competitiveness and entrepreneurship.

"Socialist" means that the workers (or the state) owns the means of production. No private ownership of any companies is allowed (East Germany, North Korea, Cuba until recently, etc.).

Sweden and Denmark derive 70-80% of their GDP from privately owned (AKA "capitalist") businesses.

The Nordic model is mostly capitalist but with a sizeable (but shrinking) state-owned sector (mostly utilities and old-school heavy industry). There are also very high marginal tax rates and a strong social safety net.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E0dWHCnic8

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>And yet, they canโ€™t pint to any other place that it works.

Germany has most of the same policies, and they are a large, successful, diverse country.

Where else has the Nordic Model been adopted and failed?

Edit:

Note: Japan succeeded in part because of high levels of social trust and extreme homogeneity, but they stalled out because of terminal demographics. The Nordic countries did a better job of keeping birth rates up.

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