I think people in America vastly over generalize when speaking of the nordic social democracies. They have a very outdated notion of how socialistic they are a

I think people in America vastly over generalize when speaking of the nordic social democracies. They have a very outdated notion of how socialistic they are and the direction they are headed. All the exemplar social democracies have been making large market strides in the last 20+ years. This is just as true of China too. These economies are going well now because they are becoming more market based (and American). China would still be struggling without market reforms. Planned economies can be excellent at going in a straight line or when everybody is the same. That is why they look good on paper and seduce technocrats and academics who think they can plan something as big and complex as the economy. However they are horrible at adapting to new situations because of everything from bureaucracy to new technology to balancing competing goals. So planned economies tend to do well now but fail as the world they were built for changes. Capitalism requires some amount of faith in that we believe solutions will come but don't know what they are yet. Capitalism is said to harness the power of necessity and imagination, and those are impossible to predict. The nordic countries had to change or fail and they have adopted market based changes. The jury is still out on China and what will happen when the world changes underneath it - become more market oriented or wither. There has been pushback from the nordic leaders for calling them socialism: https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/denmark-tells-bernie-sanders-to-stop-calling-it-socialist/ https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/denmark-tells-...