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The question is how is it possible for the Scandinavian countries (as well as many other developed countries) to run robust social democracies, yet not Venezual

The question is how is it possible for the Scandinavian countries (as well as many other developed countries) to run robust social democracies, yet not Venezuala, and apparently not the USA (according to Sanders' detractors)? I mean this as a genuine, rather than rhetorical, question. Also, I can see the email address of everyone who's viewed this document, along with their name.

pinewurst 8y ago
I think you may have answered your own question. :). There’s a big difference between social democracies (Denmark) and socialism (Cuba, Venezuela). My personal take is that those who were instrumental in the creation of these had very different ideas about the desirable endpoints. Certainly, hearing my local “democratic socialists” (Seattle), I get a strong impression that Scandinavia is not their model. Why can’t we respect Clement Attlee more than Comrade Gonzalo?
- door4 8y ago
  The difference is that Denmark won't face U.S. aggression for attempting to take care of its poor, but poorer countries in the global south have and will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#Cold_War_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Then why did Venezuela do so well facing essentially the same pressure before the current socialist "revolution" ? And by the way, why does equality for all mean this ? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-s-ambassador-daughter-Venezuela-s-richest-woman-according-new-report.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-... Apparently, can't have socialism without Justin Bieber. Not for sharing, of course.
    - door4 8y ago
      The Daily Mail is a tabloid and not worth responding to. Extreme poverty halved under Chavez. The most vulnerable citizens in Venezuela (poor, indigenous Venezuelans) are the strongest supporters of the socialist government. Venezuela has had economic problems, relating to their over-reliance on oil revenue (which has always been a problem and has nothing to do with socialism), and bad monetary policy (which again, is not at all related to socialism) Meanwhile, the US continues to levy harsher sanctions aimed at forcing regime change (ie, so their country is run by a puppet state friendly to US capital), which only makes the crisis worse.
      - candiodari 8y ago
        I find it hard to believe that's still true. The only supporters left are the worst of the worst : police and military personnel who don't do it for the money, but because the state let's them bully, beat up and even rape. Same happened in the Soviet Union, but of course giving total power to the state (def. of socialism) never leads to the people that are the state (all states are nothing but a group of people) abusing that power to get away with bullying, rape and murder. Especially once, inevitably, a socialist state runs out of other ways to pay them. They can't survive without them. But noooo, it's outside sabotage, as if capitalist states don't sabotage each other too....
jeffdavis 8y ago
Scandanavian countries are small, more like a big city/metropolis in America. Governments don't scale up/down like zooming on a phone... they behave differently. See: https://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html https://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html
- mikeash 8y ago
  That’s a great discussion of how scale affects physical systems, but the bit at the end where it’s applied to governments makes no sense. It just declares that it must be the same. Are there actual analyses out there of how scale affects governments, the way one might find quantitative discussion of the square-cubes law in physics?
  - jeffdavis 8y ago
    The essay is brilliant because it expands your mind by talking about biology first (a neutral topic) -- delaying natural resistance to ideas that might conflict with poliical views. Then, in this new expanded space in your mind, it challenges an assumption prevalent in politics that policies are "good" or "bad" independent of who (and how many people) they are applied to. In my opinion, there should be a lot more discussion about this. Maybe what we really need is something resembling the Democratic platform at the local level, and something closer to Libertarianism at the national level. The fact that these ideas aren't even discussed should make you worried -- how many other ideas are just not even thought about in public discourse?
    - mikeash 8y ago
      Isn’t there already a lot of discussion about this? In the US, there’s constant debate about whether particular issues are best handled at the federal, state, or local level. We even fought a bloody civil war over the question of whether the legality of owning humans should be decided by the states or by the federal government.
      - jeffdavis 8y ago
glenra 8y ago
The Scandinavian countries that are doing the best economically today had their best economic growth when they were relatively free market/capitalist. So maybe if you grow enough prior to turning more socialist it can take a long time for socialist impulses to cause society to eat all the seed corn and starve?
- mikeash 8y ago
  Or maybe if you start out at a sufficiently high level, you can do just fine under democratic socialism? Or social democracy, I forget which is which.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  The growth boom in the Scandinavian countries was the industrialization between WW2 and 1980's. Living standards soared as the countries transformed from farming societies to industrial nations. As that happens, it's rather easy for any government to remain unchallenged, and in the case of Scandinavia the governments that took credit and remained in power were social democratic. Whether the boom was caused or merely correlated with the rise of social democracy is harder to say. History could have been different, we could have had a more liberal form of capitalism and we likely could have had even faster growth in these decades. Who knows. But to say that e.g. Sweden was more free market in the 60s/70s/80s than now I'd argue is not correct. Liberalization of the market economies in Scandinavia has been taking place in a pace rarely seen anywhere else. Go to Sweden and find voucher schools for all ages, free taxi markets etc, - things you can barely find the US!
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Yep, this. The term "social democratic" hardly seems to have a definition. Sweden, Norway, Denmark etc are all capitalist democracies with relatively higher levels of welfare spending than the USA, but that's the main difference. They are certainly not socialist or even close to it. I think this confusion may arise so frequently because socially speaking the current governments are very liberal-leaning (super pro immigration, super pro diversity/gender quotas etc). However that's causing kickback. Sweden's next election is predicted to be dominated by the Sweden Democrats who don't approve of such things.
skybrian 8y ago
Venezuela's populist government basically ignored economic reality; at the very least, if you depend on offshore oil revenues to fund socialism, you need to make sure you keep investing in oil exploration. [1] I can't tell you why Scandinavian counties seem to be sensible and many others are crazy. But, I would say that anyone thinking about changes to US governance needs to take the craziness level into account. For a while the US made a passable imitation of being somewhat sensible, but it seems that was an illusion. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/venezuelas-inflation-will-hit-1-million-percent-thanks-socialism/2018/07/27/44b5ac16-91e0-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/venezuelas-inflation...
Pimpus 8y ago
> Also, I can see the email address of everyone who's viewed this document, along with their name. Not mine. Thanks, Multi-Account Containers!
alkonaut 8y ago
What's confusing is how left wing politicians in the US have adopted the "democratic socialist" label, while clearly propagating for something resembling social democracy.
devnull791101 8y ago
they aren't socialist. they have large welfare systems but little government ownership of private enterprise. they are generally also high in democracy, 60% of taxes are raised and spent at local level rather than national, which is the opposite of socialist governments who prefer central control

pinewurst 8y ago

I think you may have answered your own question. :). There’s a big difference between social democracies (Denmark) and socialism (Cuba, Venezuela). My personal take is that those who were instrumental in the creation of these had very different ideas about the desirable endpoints. Certainly, hearing my local “democratic socialists” (Seattle), I get a strong impression that Scandinavia is not their model. Why can’t we respect Clement Attlee more than Comrade Gonzalo?

door4 8y ago
The difference is that Denmark won't face U.S. aggression for attempting to take care of its poor, but poorer countries in the global south have and will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#Cold_War_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
- candiodari 8y ago
  Then why did Venezuela do so well facing essentially the same pressure before the current socialist "revolution" ? And by the way, why does equality for all mean this ? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-s-ambassador-daughter-Venezuela-s-richest-woman-according-new-report.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-... Apparently, can't have socialism without Justin Bieber. Not for sharing, of course.
  - door4 8y ago
    The Daily Mail is a tabloid and not worth responding to. Extreme poverty halved under Chavez. The most vulnerable citizens in Venezuela (poor, indigenous Venezuelans) are the strongest supporters of the socialist government. Venezuela has had economic problems, relating to their over-reliance on oil revenue (which has always been a problem and has nothing to do with socialism), and bad monetary policy (which again, is not at all related to socialism) Meanwhile, the US continues to levy harsher sanctions aimed at forcing regime change (ie, so their country is run by a puppet state friendly to US capital), which only makes the crisis worse.
    - candiodari 8y ago
      I find it hard to believe that's still true. The only supporters left are the worst of the worst : police and military personnel who don't do it for the money, but because the state let's them bully, beat up and even rape. Same happened in the Soviet Union, but of course giving total power to the state (def. of socialism) never leads to the people that are the state (all states are nothing but a group of people) abusing that power to get away with bullying, rape and murder. Especially once, inevitably, a socialist state runs out of other ways to pay them. They can't survive without them. But noooo, it's outside sabotage, as if capitalist states don't sabotage each other too....

jeffdavis 8y ago

Scandanavian countries are small, more like a big city/metropolis in America. Governments don't scale up/down like zooming on a phone... they behave differently. See: https://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html https://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html

mikeash 8y ago
That’s a great discussion of how scale affects physical systems, but the bit at the end where it’s applied to governments makes no sense. It just declares that it must be the same. Are there actual analyses out there of how scale affects governments, the way one might find quantitative discussion of the square-cubes law in physics?
- jeffdavis 8y ago
  The essay is brilliant because it expands your mind by talking about biology first (a neutral topic) -- delaying natural resistance to ideas that might conflict with poliical views. Then, in this new expanded space in your mind, it challenges an assumption prevalent in politics that policies are "good" or "bad" independent of who (and how many people) they are applied to. In my opinion, there should be a lot more discussion about this. Maybe what we really need is something resembling the Democratic platform at the local level, and something closer to Libertarianism at the national level. The fact that these ideas aren't even discussed should make you worried -- how many other ideas are just not even thought about in public discourse?
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Isn’t there already a lot of discussion about this? In the US, there’s constant debate about whether particular issues are best handled at the federal, state, or local level. We even fought a bloody civil war over the question of whether the legality of owning humans should be decided by the states or by the federal government.
    - jeffdavis 8y ago

glenra 8y ago

The Scandinavian countries that are doing the best economically today had their best economic growth when they were relatively free market/capitalist. So maybe if you grow enough prior to turning more socialist it can take a long time for socialist impulses to cause society to eat all the seed corn and starve?

mikeash 8y ago
Or maybe if you start out at a sufficiently high level, you can do just fine under democratic socialism? Or social democracy, I forget which is which.
alkonaut 8y ago
The growth boom in the Scandinavian countries was the industrialization between WW2 and 1980's. Living standards soared as the countries transformed from farming societies to industrial nations. As that happens, it's rather easy for any government to remain unchallenged, and in the case of Scandinavia the governments that took credit and remained in power were social democratic. Whether the boom was caused or merely correlated with the rise of social democracy is harder to say. History could have been different, we could have had a more liberal form of capitalism and we likely could have had even faster growth in these decades. Who knows. But to say that e.g. Sweden was more free market in the 60s/70s/80s than now I'd argue is not correct. Liberalization of the market economies in Scandinavia has been taking place in a pace rarely seen anywhere else. Go to Sweden and find voucher schools for all ages, free taxi markets etc, - things you can barely find the US!
- repolfx 8y ago
  Yep, this. The term "social democratic" hardly seems to have a definition. Sweden, Norway, Denmark etc are all capitalist democracies with relatively higher levels of welfare spending than the USA, but that's the main difference. They are certainly not socialist or even close to it. I think this confusion may arise so frequently because socially speaking the current governments are very liberal-leaning (super pro immigration, super pro diversity/gender quotas etc). However that's causing kickback. Sweden's next election is predicted to be dominated by the Sweden Democrats who don't approve of such things.

skybrian 8y ago

Venezuela's populist government basically ignored economic reality; at the very least, if you depend on offshore oil revenues to fund socialism, you need to make sure you keep investing in oil exploration. [1] I can't tell you why Scandinavian counties seem to be sensible and many others are crazy. But, I would say that anyone thinking about changes to US governance needs to take the craziness level into account. For a while the US made a passable imitation of being somewhat sensible, but it seems that was an illusion. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/venezuelas-inflation-will-hit-1-million-percent-thanks-socialism/2018/07/27/44b5ac16-91e0-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/venezuelas-inflation...

Pimpus 8y ago

> Also, I can see the email address of everyone who's viewed this document, along with their name. Not mine. Thanks, Multi-Account Containers!

alkonaut 8y ago

What's confusing is how left wing politicians in the US have adopted the "democratic socialist" label, while clearly propagating for something resembling social democracy.

devnull791101 8y ago

they aren't socialist. they have large welfare systems but little government ownership of private enterprise. they are generally also high in democracy, 60% of taxes are raised and spent at local level rather than national, which is the opposite of socialist governments who prefer central control