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> A free market system with socialist overtones can work wonderfully well. Just look at Northern Europe. Anything will work with Northern Europeans (or Mormons
by anamax 15y ago
> A free market system with socialist overtones can work wonderfully well. Just look at Northern Europe.
Anything will work with Northern Europeans (or Mormons, in reference to another thread) so that doesn't prove anything.
The key test is whether {something} works with cultures where other things fail.
- Florin_Andrei 15y agoOr maybe it's the other way 'round. Perhaps they chose a sensible system because they are rational, compassionate and civilized people. Come to think of it, that seems more likely now.
- anamax 15y agoHuh? How they chose their system has nothing to do with whether that system would work for someone else. It also has nothing to do with how well another system would work for them.
- itmag 15y agoThis is not really true. Only 100-70 years ago Sweden was a very classist society with quite severe internal conflicts (workers were gunned down by the military in an incident in the 30s for instance). In the 17th century Sweden was an imperialist country dedicated to the bloody wars of several ambitious kings (Gustav II, Karl XII, etc). Supposedly some people in Germany still warn their kids of the Swedes... So my point is that Scandinavia was not always a peace-loving hippie region dedicated to sensible socialism-light. That stuff is quite recent.
- anamax 15y agoAnd during that time, were Swedes productive and so on? If so, that's evidence for the "Swedes can make any system work" theory.
- itmag 15y agoYeah, they were productive. At mayhem and conquest :)
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago> That stuff is quite recent. Any sensible, rational "stuff" is recent, anywhere in the world. Until very recently, no country or culture were good places to be.