> The Scandinavian countries started from a fundamentally different premise. They're not based on a socialist principle--i.e. that property should be owned in c

> The Scandinavian countries started from a fundamentally different premise. They're not based on a socialist principle--i.e. that property should be owned in common with the government controlling its use. This cannot be emphasized enough. It’s social democracy, not socialism as in USSR. It’s as different from socialism as national socialism is. Our regulations on private sector are aimed at keeping the markets free, thus efficient. Free doesn’t mean free from regulation, but free from natural monopolies etc. One of the best examples is our mobile/internet regulation. There are no local monopolies and competition works quite well. So while we do have a big public sector the private sector that actually pays for all of this has to be really efficient.