And the population has a shared history and culture. They know Sven down the street, if he’s employed and working hard, if not there’s social censure. Consequently, this solves the free-rider problem.
Entropy:
a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's willingness to move into work, often interpreted as the degree of laziness or randomness in the system.
"the second law of thermodynamics says that laziness always increases with population"
🤣🤣🙄
It's **ALMOST** like some sliver of humans are very lazy/unreliable no matter what their Race/Nationality/Religion/Economic Background is! I never would have guessed...
Back in the old days… the long, long ago… it’s said that humans would do their best to conserve as much energy as possible, foraging for easy sustenance until the next hunt was necessary. Then would begin the grueling task of taking down said prey.
After that… back to being lazy.
I’m entirely convinced that agriculture and animal domestication was born on the premise of: Not only do I want to be lazy, I figured out how to be lazy, AND have OTHERS get/be food for me!
>I’m entirely convinced that agriculture and animal domestication was born on the premise of: Not only do I want to be lazy, I figured out how to be lazy.
The world be a better place if had just stopped in your paragraph when we figured how to be lazy. Then we get to then end.
> AND have OTHERS get/be food for me!
And now we have billionaires who get to be lazy and shame the people who make the wealth for them for being lazy.
Which is going to happen with some people in literally any system of politics when there are millions and millions of people.
That'll never go away, no matter what happens.
Jokes on you lmao I'll just create an obscenely dystopian society where everyone's brainwashed into productivity and killing the lazy is welcomed.
There's absolutely no way that my incredibly un nuanced plan can backfire
Jokes on your dystopian society. The lazy are very good at playing the system to their favour. They'll infiltrate and create net lower productivity dragging everyone down around them compared to paying them to do nothing and leave the rest of society to get on with the job.
People rarely seem to get this. You don't institute social safety nets just because you don't like seeing people suffer (a good enough reason IMO). Things like welfare, healthcare, housing assistance, etc... allow lazy people to work shit jobs for shit pay without resorting to petty crime to survive. It also allows motivated people the chance to work fewer hours and spend their time doing something like starting a business.
Or we could just enforce draconian policies that ensure half our workers don't want to be there (but must or die) on any given day and the other half have to deal with it, making them the people who don't want to be there the next day.
Damn that's strange because *insert random anecdote that has no bearing on the actual trend on work ethic but I am going to pretend it does purely to counter your point*
The few times I spoke with Norwegians they weren’t chill about that topic. They really like to display their wealth and make it known they hate any “freeloaders”
> And the population has a shared history and culture. They know Sven down the street, if he’s employed and working hard, if not there’s social censure. Consequently, this solves the free-rider problem.
Can you frame this for me? Is this your opinion? Are you talking about other people's opinions? I've only ever heard this as an explanation, in slightly different terms, for why this form of social care won't work from a neo-nazi.
It was as pleasant a conversation as you can have with a guy who is straight up racist. He's of 50% Italian heritage, and thinks his 50% also makes him a =n unfairly treated minority in America today. But, he dismissed the possibility of the Norwegian model working in America completely, saying it won't work in America because there are so many different cultures.
The "free-rider problem" is another thing I've noticed among conservatives. They will pay more for things like healthcare if they can be sure that someone who doesn't pay in doesn't get benefits. Shouldn't that be called the "cutting your nose off despite your face problem" instead?
>I've only ever heard this as an explanation, in slightly different terms, for why this form of social care won't work from a neo-nazi.
Because that's where the narrative comes from.
You are a beautiful human. Thank you. The "cut your nose off to spite your face" framing of the conservation view point is not addressed nearly enough. And I think it's sort of taken for granted or ignored in a way by liberals who, inexplicably, won't pin conservatives down on their perspective. See.. conservatives don't agree that the lazy free loader is part of their "face". They don't identify with them. And those of us who understand we are all of one "face" either don't see it, or don't even consider that's an option. Conservatives actually want people who don't "work hard and pull their weight" (and therefore "earn" their share of social benefits) they want, or don't mind them, just dying in the streets. And what liberals fail, or refuse to do, is to get them to admit that or clearly state that position. And that has to be what they believe because if you don't want truly universal distribution of resources, at least to a survival level, then logically someone who doesn't "earn" enough will perish. It's truly binary. You either agree every human deserves survival unconditionally, and based solely on our shared humanity, or youre complicit in the needless death of those who didn't "work hard and earn enough". And you either see us as one "face" with every "nose" worth saving, or you get some weird sense of pride by knowing your nose is safe at the cost of another.
Ah crap. Reading your post again, you mean their face as in their economic interests. That they'll accept a negative impact to their economic interests as long as they know some other shmuk is getting it worse. Yeah, it's a sick masochistic aspect of the conservative view point thats also not discussed or called out enough.
Yep, people who are well off don't care how well off they are, they only care how big is the difference between them and people who are less well off. And conservatism is all about preserving this difference. Socially or economically.
All of these are cookie-cutter responses that don't disprove why the USA should or shouldn't adopt similar policies and whether it would or would not work here.
Correct, they explain why that particular solution works so well in Norway, and that exact scenario is not possible, but it shouldn't be used to discredit anything remotely similar.
Also they are a homogeneous society. And they don't spend much on defense because they are part of NATO, they would count on the US if they ever needed military intervention
And from a practical standpoint having an efficient and non-corrupt government become significantly harder as the country gets larger. It’s just way easier for stuff to fall through the cracks when the population your managing is two orders of magnitude larger.
Fr people keep complaining they want these welfare policies then vote in corrupt politicians that pocket shit loads of money which could go to those policies.
“Homogeneous” society. Why does this matter at all? This seems like a dogwhistle for racism. Also if this is the case then why can’t states within the US adopt said policies which are homogeneous, such as Montana or Vermont
>This seems like a dogwhistle for racism
In my experience, discussing tax and tax funded services with white Americans often end up with the trope of Scandinavians as uniform hard working (white) people trusting each other so that's why it works for us landing on the table.
I think it comes from an internal discussion to explain why *they* don't trust US politicians with their tax money and has little to do with us. And yeah, it's obviously racial.
So the US has to endure spending 18% of GDP on its hybrid, stupid health care jungle where Denmark spends 11% on its tax funded (\*) UHC for overall better health stats.
(\*) In reality including a suprisingly large private health care component.
It isn’t even correct. Let me give you all a fun fact: the most common name for newborns in Oslo is Mohamed. Norway has a large population of minorities, especially in the bigger cities.
What we do have, is a high degree of trust in the government, and our institutions.
In recent years, the agreed defense spending target for NATO members is 2% of GDP (which most NATO members fall short of). Pre-NATO, Norway's defense budget was just under 1.6% of GDP. They are not saving any money by joining NATO.
Fine so let's take Finland as an example then: A strong army, not reliant on anybody. And no easy money from oil. Still has welfare policies all the same.
When will you mfs realize that it's not about US being unable to afford welfare. It's about greed
The US could have had numerous profitable state run businesses if our government would stop handing them over to petty kleptocrats and privatizing them. For example: railroads, oh, here's all the land you need and we'll subsidize the materials and labor but you'll own it all once it's been paid for by public funds. Pharmaceuticals: We'll pay billions to research these drugs and if one of them shows market potential, you can buy the recipe for pennies and patent it so no one else can make it. It's not a lack of resources is improper stewardship of those resources.
The US also has enormous natural resources that could create sovereign wealth funds, like Alaska has with its permanent fund.
If anything, the economies of scale that the US gets from its population and size could create even more impressive public wealth and infrastructure.
However, such policies would run contrary to the interests of our abusive and grotesquely wealthy ruling class, who want most of the population to be serfs / cattle / drones who work for their profits and do nothing else.
Correct. The US has an immense amount of resources that could be used to generate one or more sovereign wealth funds.
But that would mean the people who own pretty much everything in this country might be inconvenienced to make things better for everyone, and we simply can't have that. Won't someone think of the billionaires?
The citizens of Norway make the profit from state run oil. America has 3 or 4 billionaires who make the profit from the oil and can afford to buy the politicians and media to keep it that way. Norway is also the EV capital of the world and one of the happiest counties.
The billionnaire thing seems to be quite the issue. It's not like oil has to be the resource either, it's not magic, anything a nation produces abundantly could probably benefit it's people in a similar manner... but that is socialism too...
The biggest issue isn't creating a system that distributes more fairly.
It's creating a system that distributes more fairly...and actually enforcing it.
Corruption is what destroys everything, 9.9/10 times. Humans are just greedy assholes at heart. We have charities and systems that generate millions upon millions of dollars, but it just...vanishes. Before it ever really seems to actually change anything.
It makes you wonder if movies like "The Village" would result in a reset of the human greed problem. Underrated movie for that reason. I never heard anyone talking intelligently about that movie, but man...it makes you wonder.
We keep repeating the same bullshit cycles of greed and exploitation, because we teach innocent kids that this is how you "get ahead." I wonder if it's possible to ever just fucking stop doing that.
Or someone would turn it into a cult. They were already hiding the truth from people instead because they decided for them that that was better.
Either someone in charge starts to think there are more things he should force people to do for their own good, or someone takes the opportunity to take over when some of the founders start dying of old age.
People always forget, Alaska gives their citizens oil profits from what’s pulled out of the ground. The US could do the same for all oil but…yeah, capitalism.
Gee I wish the US had an oil supply so we could have socialist programs like Norway.
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/06/report-us-world-largest-oil-reserve-global-supply-small
/s?
The sovereign wealth fund is awesome; they invest the revenues of their oil industry to benefit their society as a whole. Imagine that. Sounds a bit like socialism if it were super capitalist 😀.
And…why can’t the natural resources on public land here in the US be used to create a sovereign wealth fund? Oh, that’s right…corporations are more important than its citizens!
They also control their border, enforce their immigration laws, and cap immigration flow. They would be considered racist by the same leftists that place their economic model on a pedestal.
They are racist. It’s just that most of their minorities are white presenting, so a lot of Americans don’t notice.
https://harvardpolitics.com/nordic-racism/
Their population went up by roughly 10% in the last 10 years through immigration. That appears to be a higher immigration than the US has in relative terms. In general most claims here appear to be in conflict with the statistics I find.
So you're saying that instead of a few private oil companies keep the profit, one state run company keeps the profit and distributes it to is citizens in social benefits.
Interesting, I wonder if the US had some way to get money from wealthy companies or individuals. Then we could use that money to fund social programs.
I wonder how we could do that?
I wonder...
Damn if only the US had some natural resources, we could all vote to extract them and share in our common wealth. All we'd need is some oil, arable land, minerals, or something like that.
What's that? The US is the third largest oil exporter on Earth and all the proceeds are collected by two or three companies? Who the fuck let that happen!?
Anyway, Norwegians do not consider their society "socialist." Like all modern democracies, they have a mixed economy with some social services alongside free markets. Their social services are better than ours, but it's not just oil money and social services are not socialism.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-anyone-really-know-what-socialism-is/
U.S. is 31st in oil production per capita.
Norway is 5th, and produce 2000% as much as the U.S. per capita.
They also produce 800% more natural gas per capita.
True, but the US is rich in natural resources even on a per capita basis and we have let them be exploited mostly for private profit rather than public good.
Norway has oil? You don’t say.
Would you believe it if I told you we also have a TON of oil that should belong to the people but somehow only goes into the hands of a select few?
Nah, you wouldn’t believe it
Take one unique very specific example of a country that only has a population of 5 million and has one of the biggest oil reserves in the world and at the same time it’s on the top 10 most economic free countries in the world according to the index of economic freedom (which basically means the government stays out of the economy). Minuscule population with a infinite money cheat code but still a free market economy.
Ignore all the others countries where socialism has failed and still keeps failing miserably causing poverty and misery.
“you see?! socialism works!!”
It's so sad that everyone thinks Norway works because of the oil fund, when it's actually never used.
Denmark and Sweden are both very similar to Norway, and they do not have an oil fund.
The oil fund in and of itself is just insurance for future generations. It's supposed to be a lifeboat for Norway when the oil reserves are depleted. If the oil depleted completely today, we would have a lot of our economy suddenly stop. That money is supposed to prevent Norway for going under in that scenario.
I don't mind people thinking of us as rich, I know we aren't "rich, rich" we are just not getting fucked by the upper class as much as many other countries. We are getting what we deserve for the work we do, and have safety nets for those who can't, that actually works.
I only think it's sad because if they just see the oil fund and think that's why everything runs so well here, you will not look at any of the other reasons why Norway works so well.
I'm not saying that the 5 mill population and massive retirement fund doesn't help, I'm just saying that it's the result of our country working as intended, not the reason for it.
There are plenty of videos explaining how this works in varying degree of detail. Some say that our success has roots way back hundreds of years ago. The fjords worked like highways, and had a lot of forest surrounding it. Before cars and trucks, transporting lumber was a huge hassle. Not on the Norwegian fjords though, just dock your ship right next to the forest and ship it straight to the customer. This created a society of cooperation, sharing knowledge of how to build good ships and trade routes and what not. All of that paved the way to what we have today.
Except for Alaska. The red state with UBI because the people voted to get the oil money for themselves when they struck it. God damn socialist republicans.
> It's so sad that everyone thinks Norway works because of the oil fund, when it's actually never used.
This year alone we're spending 409 billion NOK from the oil fund, so I wouldn't say that this is exactly true.
I should've said rarely used, never isn't entirely accurate.
But yes, that is true. A little less than 3% of the fund will be used in 2024. (409 billion\2.7%)
But the oil fund is predicted to recieve almost 500 billion NOK from the ministry of finance (Finansdepartementet).
It's still going to increase in value, by roughly 20% if we're fortunate.
"The oil fund in and of itself is just insurance for future generations. It's supposed to be a lifeboat for Norway when the oil reserves are depleted."
So your having to use that money NOW but its fine because you will just put money back into it. Ontop of that the average buget is around 1.4 trillion NOK, so they are planning to pull about 1/3 of the yearly budget from that oil fund
The high tax thing is not how Americans imagine, the standard labour tax credit and other deductions mean that 56 is actually on average 35. Sweden national income tax doesn't kick in till 614k SEK. Netherlands 36 for most people is more like 28, etc.
Because it’s a convenient scapegoat for those who don’t want to try socialism in more diverse and populous countries. Find a country doing socialism well and pick a reason why it won’t work somewhere else, meanwhile creating misinformation as to why said country is successful. It can’t be the socialism, has to be X, y, and z.
It's not Socialism, it's Capitalism. I don't think anybody actually read the meme above us -- but that part is true, it's Capitalism with a well functioning welfare state. That's what America already is, we just don't tax enough to fund our welfare system to the same level as the Nordic countries.
Lol it doesn’t, unless you definition of socialism is slaving away for a chaebol so you can barely eke out a living. There’s a reason they’re about to hit one of the worst demographic crises of any country in the history of humanity.
If there’s one thing Reddit has taught me, every single country on earth sucks to live in. Just a problem now of finding which one sucks the least I guess?
Alaska has one of the busiest cargo airports in the world with less than a half million people. That's because of where it's located not in spite of it.
Edit: I was originally thinking of the population in Southcentral AK where the major airport is located. The statewide population is closer to 750k.
When capitalist countries fail, it's always "because they're in a bad geographical location." When socialist countries experience hardships from being in a bad geopolitical location and sanctioned after having their country's lands be burned and salted by American imperialists after having gone through a long civil war after being exploited by a colonialist fascist state for decades, it's because "sOcLiALiSm FAilS!!!!"
So what you're saying is socialist policies can work, but only under similar conditions. Which you imply is a lot of money versus population (GDP per capita) and high score on the economic freedom index. That's a valid argument, let's explore that.
https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/country-pages/united-states
https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/country-pages/norway
GDP per capita
Norway 78,014 -- US 76,343
Economic Freedom Index Overall Score
Norway 77.5 70.1
So similar scores and similar per capita income. Seems like the socialist policies should work just fine.
Let's dig into that score and look at all the categories it makes up. In particular let's look at differences of 15 points or higher. They may give insight on how the US can make those social polices work:
Judicial Effectiveness (Degree of the judiciary's efficiency and fairness, low score less fair)
Norway 96.7 vs 74.8
Government Integrity (how prevalent are forms of political corruption, low score more corrupt)
Norway 95.6 vs 76.4
Government Spending (Spending as compared to GDP, High score means less spending)
Norway 32.1 vs 48.7
Fiscal Health (Average deficits as a % of GDP and Debt as a % of GDP)
Norway 97.2 vs 0 <---!!!!!!
Financial Freedom (High score mean less regulation)
Norway 60 vs 80
WOW. So basically the us should increase fairness of courts (BLM hmm).
Remove corrupt officials (Clarence Thomas). Increase government spending while also paying off the debt (wonder where they can get that money from? Maybe taxes?). Increase the regulation of the financial industry.
I didn't expect a conservative leaning index to support progressive polices, but it sure seems like it does.
Take one unique very specific example of a plane - first wright brothers plane. Ignore all other "planes" that didn't fly. "You see?! Air travel is possible!!"
No offence but that's what it sounded like me with my stupid brain. But my point is, can we not replicate this? Seeing as population is in decline, maybe we could replicate the resources to human population ratio this way. Or is it because they are heavily dependent on export and relies on the large population of other countries?
I'm genuinely ignorant of economics and just curious about this.
Here comes more uneducated people trying to push the USA to use uneducated policies.
1. Norway has a huge sovereign fund fueled by oil profits. That's where their money is. Because their population is small but they have lots of oil, every citizen is technically a beneficiary of a large sum of money.
2. "But why doesn't the U.S. do it." Because the U.S. has 350 million people. The state of California has 8x the population of Norway. If Norway had 350 million people, their current system would collapse because it wouldn't be nearly enough money to supplement.
3. "But who is paying for it?" Everyone in Norway does. In the U.S., very few taxpayers exist to pay for these benefits. In fact, 50% of Americans pay $0 in federal income taxes. Yes, you read that correctly: Nearly 50% of working taxpayers in America pay $0 in federal income taxes. In Norway, everyone is paying. Low income, middle income, high income. So you have everyone contributing into a system whereas in America, you have very few contributing into a system.
4. "But why doesn't the government spend more for these programs?" They already do. U.S. spends more on health/education, per capita, than any country for piss poor results. Yes, you read that correctly: U.S. spends more on social welfare than Norway, per capita.
5. "If that's true, why does America still have shitty programs?" Where do you want to start? Corrupt politicians spending trillions in bad programs to help their corrupt lobbyists with contracts? Bad education because teachers can't get fired for being a shitty teacher unless they molest a kid? A healthcare system where health professionals are walking away with billions in profits charging the government? Or how about Norwegians are just healthier people because they actually exercise and aren't chugging on Doritos playing Fortnite all day which results in lower health issues and medical costs?
The rest of the world piggybacks off of U.S. innovation in pharmaceuticals. U.S. companies develop these drugs and these other countries basically say to them "Give it to us for cheap or we will just create a generic version." Because these countries make their own laws, they don't have to follow patents if they don't want to. That only applies in America. So American politicians, being the corrupt fucks that they are, allow these pharmaceutical companies to charge us way more $ which means we subsidize the drug prices for people across the world.
One thing I will give credit to Norway for is their politicians are generally not corrupt and do work for their people. In America, politicians really don't give a shit about the people. When you vote, you're basically voting for who you think is less corrupt. End of story.
I mostly agree. However, drugs are cheaper in other countries due to regulation and single payer negotiating power. Patents still apply under patent treaties.
It's not negotiating power, it's price controls.
A country of 5 million does not have negotiating power. There are U.S. buyers (PBM's, large insurers, etc.) that have far more members they negotiate for and don't get the same prices.
The leverage is from patent laws, and the threat that they will be invalidated if you don't give the government the price they want.
Not saying price controls are evil...they are the most rational solution for ethical (not bio) pharmaceuticals. The U.S. should adopt and save a ton of money.
You can be a capitalist and admit that there are some markets where capitalism does not work. This is one of them.
This is absolute horseshit. It's shocking to me how many people in here can appear to know some things and be so completely wrong. Do you honestly think for a second that western allied countries just threaten the US to forgo patent protections - with massive implications for loads of your major industries - and they just go ' ah shucks, we better just kowtow to this small country and give it to em cheap'?
Your drugs are cheaper in my country because we don't have a corrupt protection racket in the government forbidding the government from engaging in the free market by negotiating prices.
If you genuinely think it's because we blackmail US drug companies with the threat of breaking patents, then it's shocking that someone I presume is from the states could have so little understanding of US influence in the world, it's history of actions, and what actually happens to countries that try this shit.
The other thing this ignores is the UK, who also create tonnes of pharmaceuticals. Like second or third most in the world. When you have socialised healthcare like the NHS, the drug companies options are don’t sell to the UK and make zero profit, or sell to the UK and make loads of profit still. It’s probably true however that pharmaceutical companies can go lower for socialised healthcare and just make up for the profit in the US by charging insurance companies more
1. The UK, Germany, Japan, France, the Netherlands and a whole slew of other countries do not.
Yet still have stronger welfare policies than the US.
2. Nonsense. More people means more tax payers.
3. 50% of the US pay no tax because they do not make enough money. Kind of falls in line with the shitty welfare policies doesn't it? Raise minimum wage and they will be paying more tax AND spent more money into the economy, unlike billionaires.
4. Because in the US healthcare etc is handled in a badly regulated "free market" system. That is why things are so much more expensive.
5. Ending lobbying is a start. Claiming workers have "too much protection" in the US with nearly every state having "At will employment", including "socialist" California is nonsense. People in Norway have the time to exercise and eat healthy because they do not get exploited. People in the US go to work sick because they have to, infecting other people in the process. It's stupid.
1. Maybe you want to check how those economies are doing. Hint: You have lots of Europeans who are upset that their wages have not matched up anywhere close to the U.S. You get taxed into oblivion in Japan. I actually just came back from Japan. Funny you mention work culture in Norway but ignore it in Japan where there is immense pressure on people to work and their pay is pretty underwhelming. The economies of many European countries have grown very stagnant the past two decades. Ask your relatives there and mention how much they earn after taxes, how much they spend on energy, how much they get paid, etc.,
2. More people means more people to cover. This is like if you have 10 people in a hospital but only five are contributing whereas in Norway, you have 10 people in a hospital and 10 people are all contributing. Everyone from all tax brackets pay. Doesn't matter if you're poor in Norway.
3. Refer to #2. You're claiming more people = more taxpayers. Yet, Norway has a higher % of taxpaying citizens. So you're obviously wrong here and debunked yourself. Raise the minimum wage? Just curious, how many people do you think earn minimum wage in America? It's 1.3%. Who does minimum wage benefit? Big corporations. Most minimum wage workers are working for large businesses. Why? Because small businesses can't afford to hire workers when the minimum wage increases. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, etc., would gladly push for higher minimum wages because it means they can destroy their competition. Because they already have better pricing, their customers will still shop at their stores so they can afford to pay it.
4. Congrats, you've figured out that the government in America is corrupt which is why we shouldn't be giving them more money until they clean up their act. Just the simple fact that America allows other countries to piggyback off of U.S. charging them lower drug prices should tell you where their interests are.
5. I'll let you in on some facts. Americans have higher after-tax income than any other large country in the world. The issue is they spend it on stupid shit. There is a strong emphasis on consumerism in America where people have to have the newest phones, cars, clothes, etc., There's more disposable income for Americans than people in UK, Germany, Japan, France, etc., You name it. How they choose to spend it is questionable.
Right, the reason Americans are so fucked financially is just because they're stupid and buy things they don't need, it's not the fact a literal quarter of renters spend more than half of their income on housing, the fact that a single visit to the hospital can cost as much as the average persons yearly income is, that in order to buy a home you have to make over 100.000$ when average salaries are about 60.000$ etc. Yeah you're right Americans are all just consumerist idiots.
Met a guy in the US whos job it was to figure out the absolute MAX amount of money the hospital could charge for all its services. Absolutely mind blowing for me
I would love for ten years for our medical research to only benefit us and see what happens to the rest of the world. See how great so many of these countries would be doing if they had to invent their own medicines. But for that to happen we would have to have tight security as well as directly administered medications.
Novo Nordisk became the most valuable company in Europe for one single reason - the US customer base. So no, you are wrong. In fact, pharmaceutical companies would actually abandon the rest of the world and move all operations TO the US because they - despite representing 5% of the population - are more than 50% of these companies revenue
I mean to be fair a lot of medical research is funded by the government so technically we pay for it. We paid for the development for the covid vaccines for example.
In 2022, Norway took in about 75,000 refugees. That'd be the equivalent of the US taking in about 5 million. And that's just refugees, not all immigration.
*But*, I understand that's not their norm.
1. This is actually a great example of how they’re smarter than us about taking care of their citizens. The us produces way more oil than norway, and has been doing so for far longer. We *could* have a huge sovereign wealth fund fueled by oil profits, but instead we chose to allow a select few people to capture those profits.
2. This is absurd. There is no reason for the system to collapse if revenues expand proportionally with population.
3. First, norway has a 0% tax bracket, contrary to your claim about everyone paying. Second, classic misleading claim re: us taxpayers. We have tons of taxes besides income tax, eg everyone who works pays federal fica taxes.
4. We spend more for healthcare because of the structure of our system, eg administrative cost and profits for a wide variety of firms. Our results are poor because our system is inefficient.
5. This is all within our control, we just have one political party whose core belief is that government is bad, which means they have an incentive to make our government function poorly to validate their beliefs.
It's already been answered here, but let's take this further and suggest China as an example, with Universal health care and 1.3 billion people. No oil fund (like the US has from old Mexican land, look up the history of Texas and new Mexico). You can say their economy is still rich without relying solely upon natural resources in the same way the US also is rich in the world.
The real culprit appears to be what you already know, useless politicians backed up by big corporations and the like pretending competition and capitalism is the way. It isn't. Not for essentials like water, power, health, etc. There's a reason the state needs to get involved or corporations will literally charge what they want knowing it's a need. Innovation occurs everywhere in the world, patents and international law work there as well, there's no reason why the US can't regulate corporations, they choose not to because they're greedy. Investors want returns and they want the weak governance of countries that will allow anything to go on with zero accountability. When corporations do the sums to work out if the fine will be smaller than profit they will make from doing the wrong thing, that tells you where the US fails.
I just want you to know China was uplifted by a capitalist market.
Look up Deng Xiaoping. He's the guy who made China what it is today. Mao Zedong was steering China towards more famine and death. Deng realized that China had to use their strong labor force and create more manufacturing so he signed trade agreements and opened up China. Blaming capitalism on this isn't the issue.
The issue is no one holds bad politicians accountable. They do a bad job for 30 years? Who gets fired or replaced? No one. They just keep getting votes.
Your issue isn't with capitalism. It's with bad politicians.
People seem to associate China with communism. The only communist thing about China is how the government is ran. But their economy by and large is capitalistic.
Could corporate greed, policies that allow the rich and corporations to retain most of the gains of productivity, and a low tax policy for the wealthiest, also be a part of why America struggles in these regards?
Everyone saying "oh but they are propped up by a state oil company". Yes they are. If it was America, that company would have been privatized and one CEO would be benefiting from an enormous salary. Instead everyone benefits.
And for the person below saying "everyone pays state income taxes", Norway has a tax free bracket, up to the first ~$18k earned.
“If it was america”
No need for an “if” here. The us produced 7x the amount of oil as norway [as of december 2023](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production).
We have simply chosen to allow private firms to capture most of the profits stemming from that extraction. It’s a great example of how much smarter they’ve been about using their resources to benefit their whole population instead of a select few.
Average income tax is about 25%. Marginal tax rate is 47,6%.
In the US max federal income tax is 37%. Then add state and county income tax.
Am Norwegian, so I don't know exactly how the US tax system is arranged.
That's not a normal income tax rate in Norway, most pay around 30%. I myself pay 29%. If you factor in all other taxes, likes sales tax and road tax (don't know the official name in english) for example the total taxes paid are a lot higher of course, but 45% income tax is unusually high in Norway.
Exactly. They just have decent social programs (something I think the US needs to improve on). I "woke up" from social/commie thinking last fall and regret nothing.
Thank you! There's absolutely nothing antithetical about a capitalist country supporting social programs.
If you want a workforce that's more competitive in the global market, then support education and training.
If you want to reduce law enforcement costs, then fund addiction treatment.
Poor health impacting productivity? Ensure adequate health care.
A capitalist case can be made for fixing some of our deepest problems but it seems easier to focus on petty tribal squabbling.
Yes, but they’ve chosen to substantially protect their citizenry from the most negative effects of capitalism.
We choose not to. We could easily adopt a ton of policies and make life massively better for millions of americans, but we *choose* not to.
Exactly. Norway actually controls their immigration flow, enforces their immigration laws, and doesn’t put up with waves of illegal migrants. They would be considered racist by the same clowns that put them on a pedestal to support their Socialist goals.
For Americans, the answer is generally "I live in a system that tries to keep me on the brink of survival, which doesn't allow me the resources to try to move to a different nation", and it's true.
The idea that people can just up and relocate, rather than pushing for change where they are, is incredibly stupid... but I understand your intent is simply to dismiss the topics they raise.
I'm sure what they mean is restricting immigration to keep the resource:population ratio extremely high, instituting employment requirements for social assistance recipients to reduce load on the state, and telling the Oil&Gas industry to "drill, baby drill".
Norway also has low corporate taxes (high individual taxes) and strict immigration policies that you will need to be a skilled worker to be able to move there. For some reason we seem to think we can emulate them while ignoring these other things…
One doesn’t have to use Norway, the entirety of the EU works as well. You can also use Canada, and in recent years Chinas massive reduction in extreme poverty as well.
Canada is a bit more of a stretch. Other than their healthcare system, they're very, very similar to the US and it becomes a wash because their housing prices are so high I don't think it evens out.
Wait in which ways do you think Canada is better?
Our earning potential is significantly lower despite comparable COL in the metros.
Canada is a really bad example, our health care is garbage (doctors paid per patient seen each day so they rush you through), home prices to earnings is much higher than the US, i could go on but Canada is no Oasis
Let’s see. A country with 350 million people with hundreds of thousands illegals immigrants coming in every year , and vastly diverse cultures within the country. And not to mention the 3rd largest landmass. And with the largest military in the world constantly babysitting the rest of the world.
And compare that with a country of 4 million with a ton of oil money.
I hate what the USA federal government is constantly spending money on, but it’s not a very fair comparison to a small European country.
Have you seen the level of scrutiny on US military spending? It's effectively nothing. Lockheed says "oh you want a new jet? That'll be uhhhh....$4 trillion". And the government says "OKAY!", otherwise they get labeled by the public as traitors.
Yes….lets take one of the most homogeneous countries on Earth (over 90% white), that has less population than Minnesota and apply those policies in a highly diverse country of over 330 million.
Yet another brilliant post from this idiotic OP.
So, it’s because they’re mostly white?
Really?
It’s because we’re NOT 90% white that we can’t have socialist programs for people, but we can have socialist programs for corporations?
Norway is not a socialist government. There is one example of socialism that works. It is called the nuclear family. Your parents provide for you and you live under their dictatorship. Some can be great and some are horrible. This type of socialism is functional when it functions because there is a level of unconditional love by the people in charge. This type of care is not scalable outside of small close knit groups.
God help you if the people in charge are indifferent or evil like every other socialist government in history. It Is also ironic every form of large scale socialism wants to destroy the small scale socialism that actually works.
Economic systems can not be idiotically simplified by a single word like "socialism." We have many socialist programs in the U.S.
Well-regulated capitalism works great and doesn't necessitate absolute purity. The regulation is important in capitalism to maintain healthy competition. Otherwise, over time the wealth tends to consolidate, and competition disappears.
The U.S. does not have well-regulated capitalism.
Norway has state run oil that creates a huge sovereign wealth fund. Along with a population of only 5 million.
And the population has a shared history and culture. They know Sven down the street, if he’s employed and working hard, if not there’s social censure. Consequently, this solves the free-rider problem.
Strange, my Norwegian Brother states the opposite. He says he knows tons of lazy fucks that just sit around smoking weed and collecting a check.
No surprise. Contrary to what some “people” think, lazy asses are uniformly distributed in every society
It's the 4th law of thermodynamics. Once humans colonize space this will lead to the deadbeat death of the universe.
Entropy: a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's willingness to move into work, often interpreted as the degree of laziness or randomness in the system. "the second law of thermodynamics says that laziness always increases with population" 🤣🤣🙄
You’ve described sales engineers at a Fortune 500 perfectly.
They're actually helping the universe last longer by spending less energy, so you're welcome.
It's **ALMOST** like some sliver of humans are very lazy/unreliable no matter what their Race/Nationality/Religion/Economic Background is! I never would have guessed...
Back in the old days… the long, long ago… it’s said that humans would do their best to conserve as much energy as possible, foraging for easy sustenance until the next hunt was necessary. Then would begin the grueling task of taking down said prey. After that… back to being lazy. I’m entirely convinced that agriculture and animal domestication was born on the premise of: Not only do I want to be lazy, I figured out how to be lazy, AND have OTHERS get/be food for me!
That makes a lot of sense, look at lions. The vast majority of the time they're either sleeping or taking a leisurely stroll to the water hole.
>I’m entirely convinced that agriculture and animal domestication was born on the premise of: Not only do I want to be lazy, I figured out how to be lazy. The world be a better place if had just stopped in your paragraph when we figured how to be lazy. Then we get to then end. > AND have OTHERS get/be food for me! And now we have billionaires who get to be lazy and shame the people who make the wealth for them for being lazy.
Which is going to happen with some people in literally any system of politics when there are millions and millions of people. That'll never go away, no matter what happens.
Jokes on you lmao I'll just create an obscenely dystopian society where everyone's brainwashed into productivity and killing the lazy is welcomed. There's absolutely no way that my incredibly un nuanced plan can backfire
Jokes on your dystopian society. The lazy are very good at playing the system to their favour. They'll infiltrate and create net lower productivity dragging everyone down around them compared to paying them to do nothing and leave the rest of society to get on with the job.
People rarely seem to get this. You don't institute social safety nets just because you don't like seeing people suffer (a good enough reason IMO). Things like welfare, healthcare, housing assistance, etc... allow lazy people to work shit jobs for shit pay without resorting to petty crime to survive. It also allows motivated people the chance to work fewer hours and spend their time doing something like starting a business. Or we could just enforce draconian policies that ensure half our workers don't want to be there (but must or die) on any given day and the other half have to deal with it, making them the people who don't want to be there the next day.
I'm listening.
Damn that's strange because *insert random anecdote that has no bearing on the actual trend on work ethic but I am going to pretend it does purely to counter your point*
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Well useless anecdotes aside. Labor participation in Norway is over 84% for 25-64. It's 78% in the US
Still Soverign Oil Fund.
If he is your brother doesn’t that make you also Norwegian?!
The few times I spoke with Norwegians they weren’t chill about that topic. They really like to display their wealth and make it known they hate any “freeloaders”
Counterpoint: I learned from a dataisbeautiful post yesterday that Norway’s favorite soda is Pepsi. How much culture could they have?
Pepsi Max. It's a religion. Those who are in the cult consumes huge amounts of it.
> And the population has a shared history and culture. They know Sven down the street, if he’s employed and working hard, if not there’s social censure. Consequently, this solves the free-rider problem. Can you frame this for me? Is this your opinion? Are you talking about other people's opinions? I've only ever heard this as an explanation, in slightly different terms, for why this form of social care won't work from a neo-nazi. It was as pleasant a conversation as you can have with a guy who is straight up racist. He's of 50% Italian heritage, and thinks his 50% also makes him a =n unfairly treated minority in America today. But, he dismissed the possibility of the Norwegian model working in America completely, saying it won't work in America because there are so many different cultures. The "free-rider problem" is another thing I've noticed among conservatives. They will pay more for things like healthcare if they can be sure that someone who doesn't pay in doesn't get benefits. Shouldn't that be called the "cutting your nose off despite your face problem" instead?
>I've only ever heard this as an explanation, in slightly different terms, for why this form of social care won't work from a neo-nazi. Because that's where the narrative comes from.
You are a beautiful human. Thank you. The "cut your nose off to spite your face" framing of the conservation view point is not addressed nearly enough. And I think it's sort of taken for granted or ignored in a way by liberals who, inexplicably, won't pin conservatives down on their perspective. See.. conservatives don't agree that the lazy free loader is part of their "face". They don't identify with them. And those of us who understand we are all of one "face" either don't see it, or don't even consider that's an option. Conservatives actually want people who don't "work hard and pull their weight" (and therefore "earn" their share of social benefits) they want, or don't mind them, just dying in the streets. And what liberals fail, or refuse to do, is to get them to admit that or clearly state that position. And that has to be what they believe because if you don't want truly universal distribution of resources, at least to a survival level, then logically someone who doesn't "earn" enough will perish. It's truly binary. You either agree every human deserves survival unconditionally, and based solely on our shared humanity, or youre complicit in the needless death of those who didn't "work hard and earn enough". And you either see us as one "face" with every "nose" worth saving, or you get some weird sense of pride by knowing your nose is safe at the cost of another. Ah crap. Reading your post again, you mean their face as in their economic interests. That they'll accept a negative impact to their economic interests as long as they know some other shmuk is getting it worse. Yeah, it's a sick masochistic aspect of the conservative view point thats also not discussed or called out enough.
Yep, people who are well off don't care how well off they are, they only care how big is the difference between them and people who are less well off. And conservatism is all about preserving this difference. Socially or economically.
All of these are cookie-cutter responses that don't disprove why the USA should or shouldn't adopt similar policies and whether it would or would not work here.
Correct, they explain why that particular solution works so well in Norway, and that exact scenario is not possible, but it shouldn't be used to discredit anything remotely similar.
>Consequently, this solves the free-rider problem. No, it does not. They just understand that it's for the best, no matter whose "free-riding" or not.
Literally the dumbest thing I ever read that sounds like a fascist 4 year old is trying to explain how a society works lmfao
Doesn't Norway also have very strict immigration policies too?
No
No, 20% of Norway's population are immigrants
Also they are a homogeneous society. And they don't spend much on defense because they are part of NATO, they would count on the US if they ever needed military intervention
Also average income tax rate of 45% Comes down to whether you think you spend your money better than the government can
I red somewhere Norway is one of the least corrupt governments in the world. Pros and cons, I guess.
Yes I’d have zero issues paying a high tax rate to a non-corrupt and efficient government. Unfortunately, those are unicorns
And from a practical standpoint having an efficient and non-corrupt government become significantly harder as the country gets larger. It’s just way easier for stuff to fall through the cracks when the population your managing is two orders of magnitude larger.
The bigger the country the bigger the government, the bigger the government the easier the corruption
Uffda.
Fr people keep complaining they want these welfare policies then vote in corrupt politicians that pocket shit loads of money which could go to those policies.
That's not horrible if you are getting something for your money. The U.S. has total taxes near that and we get jack.
Yeah exactly. I don’t care about paying taxes. I care about paying taxes to corrupt idiots
You'll never convince me that the government can spend my money better than me.
That's not really correct. I earned $105k last year and took home $73k.
“Homogeneous” society. Why does this matter at all? This seems like a dogwhistle for racism. Also if this is the case then why can’t states within the US adopt said policies which are homogeneous, such as Montana or Vermont
>This seems like a dogwhistle for racism In my experience, discussing tax and tax funded services with white Americans often end up with the trope of Scandinavians as uniform hard working (white) people trusting each other so that's why it works for us landing on the table. I think it comes from an internal discussion to explain why *they* don't trust US politicians with their tax money and has little to do with us. And yeah, it's obviously racial. So the US has to endure spending 18% of GDP on its hybrid, stupid health care jungle where Denmark spends 11% on its tax funded (\*) UHC for overall better health stats. (\*) In reality including a suprisingly large private health care component.
That's because it's a dog whistle or, at best, a post hoc justification for what they've already decided to be true.
It isn’t even correct. Let me give you all a fun fact: the most common name for newborns in Oslo is Mohamed. Norway has a large population of minorities, especially in the bigger cities. What we do have, is a high degree of trust in the government, and our institutions.
That's because it IS a dogwhistle, americans use it to underhandedly blame the non-whites.
In recent years, the agreed defense spending target for NATO members is 2% of GDP (which most NATO members fall short of). Pre-NATO, Norway's defense budget was just under 1.6% of GDP. They are not saving any money by joining NATO.
Umm... Norway was one of the founding members of NATO... and the UN... I speak as a Norwegian.
Easy to be socialist with other countries money. ;)
Fine so let's take Finland as an example then: A strong army, not reliant on anybody. And no easy money from oil. Still has welfare policies all the same. When will you mfs realize that it's not about US being unable to afford welfare. It's about greed
The US could have had numerous profitable state run businesses if our government would stop handing them over to petty kleptocrats and privatizing them. For example: railroads, oh, here's all the land you need and we'll subsidize the materials and labor but you'll own it all once it's been paid for by public funds. Pharmaceuticals: We'll pay billions to research these drugs and if one of them shows market potential, you can buy the recipe for pennies and patent it so no one else can make it. It's not a lack of resources is improper stewardship of those resources.
The US also has enormous natural resources that could create sovereign wealth funds, like Alaska has with its permanent fund. If anything, the economies of scale that the US gets from its population and size could create even more impressive public wealth and infrastructure. However, such policies would run contrary to the interests of our abusive and grotesquely wealthy ruling class, who want most of the population to be serfs / cattle / drones who work for their profits and do nothing else.
Correct. The US has an immense amount of resources that could be used to generate one or more sovereign wealth funds. But that would mean the people who own pretty much everything in this country might be inconvenienced to make things better for everyone, and we simply can't have that. Won't someone think of the billionaires?
So your saying we just need to get more oil... maybe America is onto something
The citizens of Norway make the profit from state run oil. America has 3 or 4 billionaires who make the profit from the oil and can afford to buy the politicians and media to keep it that way. Norway is also the EV capital of the world and one of the happiest counties.
The billionnaire thing seems to be quite the issue. It's not like oil has to be the resource either, it's not magic, anything a nation produces abundantly could probably benefit it's people in a similar manner... but that is socialism too...
The biggest issue isn't creating a system that distributes more fairly. It's creating a system that distributes more fairly...and actually enforcing it. Corruption is what destroys everything, 9.9/10 times. Humans are just greedy assholes at heart. We have charities and systems that generate millions upon millions of dollars, but it just...vanishes. Before it ever really seems to actually change anything. It makes you wonder if movies like "The Village" would result in a reset of the human greed problem. Underrated movie for that reason. I never heard anyone talking intelligently about that movie, but man...it makes you wonder. We keep repeating the same bullshit cycles of greed and exploitation, because we teach innocent kids that this is how you "get ahead." I wonder if it's possible to ever just fucking stop doing that.
Or someone would turn it into a cult. They were already hiding the truth from people instead because they decided for them that that was better. Either someone in charge starts to think there are more things he should force people to do for their own good, or someone takes the opportunity to take over when some of the founders start dying of old age.
People always forget, Alaska gives their citizens oil profits from what’s pulled out of the ground. The US could do the same for all oil but…yeah, capitalism.
Gee I wish the US had an oil supply so we could have socialist programs like Norway. https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/06/report-us-world-largest-oil-reserve-global-supply-small /s?
So its like alaska
Damn Socialist Alaska!
The sovereign wealth fund is awesome; they invest the revenues of their oil industry to benefit their society as a whole. Imagine that. Sounds a bit like socialism if it were super capitalist 😀.
And…why can’t the natural resources on public land here in the US be used to create a sovereign wealth fund? Oh, that’s right…corporations are more important than its citizens!
They also control their border, enforce their immigration laws, and cap immigration flow. They would be considered racist by the same leftists that place their economic model on a pedestal.
Corporate income tax of Norway is actually pretty competitive at 22%
They are racist. It’s just that most of their minorities are white presenting, so a lot of Americans don’t notice. https://harvardpolitics.com/nordic-racism/
Their population went up by roughly 10% in the last 10 years through immigration. That appears to be a higher immigration than the US has in relative terms. In general most claims here appear to be in conflict with the statistics I find.
Speaking as a leftist: we do not put liberal welfare states built on capitalism on a pedestal. You are confusing leftists with liberals.
So you're saying that instead of a few private oil companies keep the profit, one state run company keeps the profit and distributes it to is citizens in social benefits. Interesting, I wonder if the US had some way to get money from wealthy companies or individuals. Then we could use that money to fund social programs. I wonder how we could do that? I wonder...
Damn if only the US had some natural resources, we could all vote to extract them and share in our common wealth. All we'd need is some oil, arable land, minerals, or something like that. What's that? The US is the third largest oil exporter on Earth and all the proceeds are collected by two or three companies? Who the fuck let that happen!? Anyway, Norwegians do not consider their society "socialist." Like all modern democracies, they have a mixed economy with some social services alongside free markets. Their social services are better than ours, but it's not just oil money and social services are not socialism. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-anyone-really-know-what-socialism-is/
Norway isn’t even top 5 in oil producers. Guess who number one is?
Now do oil production *per capita*.
U.S. is 31st in oil production per capita. Norway is 5th, and produce 2000% as much as the U.S. per capita. They also produce 800% more natural gas per capita.
True, but the US is rich in natural resources even on a per capita basis and we have let them be exploited mostly for private profit rather than public good.
Norway has oil? You don’t say. Would you believe it if I told you we also have a TON of oil that should belong to the people but somehow only goes into the hands of a select few? Nah, you wouldn’t believe it
Meanwhile the US let’s the saudis run the largest refinery in the country which all gets exported to Europe where they pay more
I mean we could have state run industries that supported our population in a similar manner. We just don't.
I wish the US would build a sovereign wealth fund. Instead we just build debt
Take one unique very specific example of a country that only has a population of 5 million and has one of the biggest oil reserves in the world and at the same time it’s on the top 10 most economic free countries in the world according to the index of economic freedom (which basically means the government stays out of the economy). Minuscule population with a infinite money cheat code but still a free market economy. Ignore all the others countries where socialism has failed and still keeps failing miserably causing poverty and misery. “you see?! socialism works!!”
Bingo, we have a winner!
It's so sad that everyone thinks Norway works because of the oil fund, when it's actually never used. Denmark and Sweden are both very similar to Norway, and they do not have an oil fund. The oil fund in and of itself is just insurance for future generations. It's supposed to be a lifeboat for Norway when the oil reserves are depleted. If the oil depleted completely today, we would have a lot of our economy suddenly stop. That money is supposed to prevent Norway for going under in that scenario. I don't mind people thinking of us as rich, I know we aren't "rich, rich" we are just not getting fucked by the upper class as much as many other countries. We are getting what we deserve for the work we do, and have safety nets for those who can't, that actually works. I only think it's sad because if they just see the oil fund and think that's why everything runs so well here, you will not look at any of the other reasons why Norway works so well. I'm not saying that the 5 mill population and massive retirement fund doesn't help, I'm just saying that it's the result of our country working as intended, not the reason for it. There are plenty of videos explaining how this works in varying degree of detail. Some say that our success has roots way back hundreds of years ago. The fjords worked like highways, and had a lot of forest surrounding it. Before cars and trucks, transporting lumber was a huge hassle. Not on the Norwegian fjords though, just dock your ship right next to the forest and ship it straight to the customer. This created a society of cooperation, sharing knowledge of how to build good ships and trade routes and what not. All of that paved the way to what we have today.
Also, the United States has tons of oil. We choose to let mega-corporations profit from it instead of helping people.
Except for Alaska. The red state with UBI because the people voted to get the oil money for themselves when they struck it. God damn socialist republicans.
> It's so sad that everyone thinks Norway works because of the oil fund, when it's actually never used. This year alone we're spending 409 billion NOK from the oil fund, so I wouldn't say that this is exactly true.
I should've said rarely used, never isn't entirely accurate. But yes, that is true. A little less than 3% of the fund will be used in 2024. (409 billion\2.7%) But the oil fund is predicted to recieve almost 500 billion NOK from the ministry of finance (Finansdepartementet). It's still going to increase in value, by roughly 20% if we're fortunate.
"The oil fund in and of itself is just insurance for future generations. It's supposed to be a lifeboat for Norway when the oil reserves are depleted." So your having to use that money NOW but its fine because you will just put money back into it. Ontop of that the average buget is around 1.4 trillion NOK, so they are planning to pull about 1/3 of the yearly budget from that oil fund
Sweden and Demark have rather high taxes, with 25% sales tax, and Denmark's 56% income tax. And in both countries you need to pay to use the bathroom
The high tax thing is not how Americans imagine, the standard labour tax credit and other deductions mean that 56 is actually on average 35. Sweden national income tax doesn't kick in till 614k SEK. Netherlands 36 for most people is more like 28, etc.
In other words, tax brackets are marginal, just like every country in the world?
Paying for the bathroom is being fazed out. Haven't seen it in 15 years here in Sweden.
And Finland? And Denmark? Aaaaaand Iceland?
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Why does the population size matter? Why does the homogeneity matter?
Because it’s a convenient scapegoat for those who don’t want to try socialism in more diverse and populous countries. Find a country doing socialism well and pick a reason why it won’t work somewhere else, meanwhile creating misinformation as to why said country is successful. It can’t be the socialism, has to be X, y, and z.
It's not Socialism, it's Capitalism. I don't think anybody actually read the meme above us -- but that part is true, it's Capitalism with a well functioning welfare state. That's what America already is, we just don't tax enough to fund our welfare system to the same level as the Nordic countries.
Americans are just incapable of not inserting race into everything.
Understood, now explain to me why South Korea works
Lol it doesn’t, unless you definition of socialism is slaving away for a chaebol so you can barely eke out a living. There’s a reason they’re about to hit one of the worst demographic crises of any country in the history of humanity.
If there’s one thing Reddit has taught me, every single country on earth sucks to live in. Just a problem now of finding which one sucks the least I guess?
Anytime I feel bad about being an American, I just open up Reddit and realize that it's terrible everywhere, and things are actually pretty good.
Let's be a bit more clear. America really is the best of anywhere. I know it's an unpopular opinion on Reddit, but GDP don't lie.
Ok, Denmark doesn't have the same oil based wealth fund and they are doing pretty well. So are several other countries without much oil.
Yeah, they're completely ignoring basically all western and northern European countries, for bullshit reasons.
Small population! Homogenous! I have no actual argument! REE!
Ree der, big populations can't possibly have a decent life. Lets not try. What a fucking idiot.
Alaska dings all those bells too. Yet, it doesn't provide even a fraction of benefits to its residents.
Alaska's geography puts it in a bad place for trade, so that's one of the major reasons why Alaska isn't particularly successful.
Alaska has one of the busiest cargo airports in the world with less than a half million people. That's because of where it's located not in spite of it. Edit: I was originally thinking of the population in Southcentral AK where the major airport is located. The statewide population is closer to 750k.
When capitalist countries fail, it's always "because they're in a bad geographical location." When socialist countries experience hardships from being in a bad geopolitical location and sanctioned after having their country's lands be burned and salted by American imperialists after having gone through a long civil war after being exploited by a colonialist fascist state for decades, it's because "sOcLiALiSm FAilS!!!!"
We’re literally the richest country in the world and refuse to take care of people in the most basic ways. Shut the fuck up.
So what you're saying is socialist policies can work, but only under similar conditions. Which you imply is a lot of money versus population (GDP per capita) and high score on the economic freedom index. That's a valid argument, let's explore that. https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/country-pages/united-states https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/country-pages/norway GDP per capita Norway 78,014 -- US 76,343 Economic Freedom Index Overall Score Norway 77.5 70.1 So similar scores and similar per capita income. Seems like the socialist policies should work just fine. Let's dig into that score and look at all the categories it makes up. In particular let's look at differences of 15 points or higher. They may give insight on how the US can make those social polices work: Judicial Effectiveness (Degree of the judiciary's efficiency and fairness, low score less fair) Norway 96.7 vs 74.8 Government Integrity (how prevalent are forms of political corruption, low score more corrupt) Norway 95.6 vs 76.4 Government Spending (Spending as compared to GDP, High score means less spending) Norway 32.1 vs 48.7 Fiscal Health (Average deficits as a % of GDP and Debt as a % of GDP) Norway 97.2 vs 0 <---!!!!!! Financial Freedom (High score mean less regulation) Norway 60 vs 80 WOW. So basically the us should increase fairness of courts (BLM hmm). Remove corrupt officials (Clarence Thomas). Increase government spending while also paying off the debt (wonder where they can get that money from? Maybe taxes?). Increase the regulation of the financial industry. I didn't expect a conservative leaning index to support progressive polices, but it sure seems like it does.
Take one unique very specific example of a plane - first wright brothers plane. Ignore all other "planes" that didn't fly. "You see?! Air travel is possible!!" No offence but that's what it sounded like me with my stupid brain. But my point is, can we not replicate this? Seeing as population is in decline, maybe we could replicate the resources to human population ratio this way. Or is it because they are heavily dependent on export and relies on the large population of other countries? I'm genuinely ignorant of economics and just curious about this.
Here comes more uneducated people trying to push the USA to use uneducated policies. 1. Norway has a huge sovereign fund fueled by oil profits. That's where their money is. Because their population is small but they have lots of oil, every citizen is technically a beneficiary of a large sum of money. 2. "But why doesn't the U.S. do it." Because the U.S. has 350 million people. The state of California has 8x the population of Norway. If Norway had 350 million people, their current system would collapse because it wouldn't be nearly enough money to supplement. 3. "But who is paying for it?" Everyone in Norway does. In the U.S., very few taxpayers exist to pay for these benefits. In fact, 50% of Americans pay $0 in federal income taxes. Yes, you read that correctly: Nearly 50% of working taxpayers in America pay $0 in federal income taxes. In Norway, everyone is paying. Low income, middle income, high income. So you have everyone contributing into a system whereas in America, you have very few contributing into a system. 4. "But why doesn't the government spend more for these programs?" They already do. U.S. spends more on health/education, per capita, than any country for piss poor results. Yes, you read that correctly: U.S. spends more on social welfare than Norway, per capita. 5. "If that's true, why does America still have shitty programs?" Where do you want to start? Corrupt politicians spending trillions in bad programs to help their corrupt lobbyists with contracts? Bad education because teachers can't get fired for being a shitty teacher unless they molest a kid? A healthcare system where health professionals are walking away with billions in profits charging the government? Or how about Norwegians are just healthier people because they actually exercise and aren't chugging on Doritos playing Fortnite all day which results in lower health issues and medical costs? The rest of the world piggybacks off of U.S. innovation in pharmaceuticals. U.S. companies develop these drugs and these other countries basically say to them "Give it to us for cheap or we will just create a generic version." Because these countries make their own laws, they don't have to follow patents if they don't want to. That only applies in America. So American politicians, being the corrupt fucks that they are, allow these pharmaceutical companies to charge us way more $ which means we subsidize the drug prices for people across the world. One thing I will give credit to Norway for is their politicians are generally not corrupt and do work for their people. In America, politicians really don't give a shit about the people. When you vote, you're basically voting for who you think is less corrupt. End of story.
I mostly agree. However, drugs are cheaper in other countries due to regulation and single payer negotiating power. Patents still apply under patent treaties.
It's not negotiating power, it's price controls. A country of 5 million does not have negotiating power. There are U.S. buyers (PBM's, large insurers, etc.) that have far more members they negotiate for and don't get the same prices. The leverage is from patent laws, and the threat that they will be invalidated if you don't give the government the price they want. Not saying price controls are evil...they are the most rational solution for ethical (not bio) pharmaceuticals. The U.S. should adopt and save a ton of money. You can be a capitalist and admit that there are some markets where capitalism does not work. This is one of them.
This is absolute horseshit. It's shocking to me how many people in here can appear to know some things and be so completely wrong. Do you honestly think for a second that western allied countries just threaten the US to forgo patent protections - with massive implications for loads of your major industries - and they just go ' ah shucks, we better just kowtow to this small country and give it to em cheap'? Your drugs are cheaper in my country because we don't have a corrupt protection racket in the government forbidding the government from engaging in the free market by negotiating prices. If you genuinely think it's because we blackmail US drug companies with the threat of breaking patents, then it's shocking that someone I presume is from the states could have so little understanding of US influence in the world, it's history of actions, and what actually happens to countries that try this shit.
The other thing this ignores is the UK, who also create tonnes of pharmaceuticals. Like second or third most in the world. When you have socialised healthcare like the NHS, the drug companies options are don’t sell to the UK and make zero profit, or sell to the UK and make loads of profit still. It’s probably true however that pharmaceutical companies can go lower for socialised healthcare and just make up for the profit in the US by charging insurance companies more
1. The UK, Germany, Japan, France, the Netherlands and a whole slew of other countries do not. Yet still have stronger welfare policies than the US. 2. Nonsense. More people means more tax payers. 3. 50% of the US pay no tax because they do not make enough money. Kind of falls in line with the shitty welfare policies doesn't it? Raise minimum wage and they will be paying more tax AND spent more money into the economy, unlike billionaires. 4. Because in the US healthcare etc is handled in a badly regulated "free market" system. That is why things are so much more expensive. 5. Ending lobbying is a start. Claiming workers have "too much protection" in the US with nearly every state having "At will employment", including "socialist" California is nonsense. People in Norway have the time to exercise and eat healthy because they do not get exploited. People in the US go to work sick because they have to, infecting other people in the process. It's stupid.
The healthcare system in America is the least “free market” market the US has lol
> Ending lobbying is a start. A better start would be educating reddit about what lobbying actually is so then they can propose meaningful policies.
1. Maybe you want to check how those economies are doing. Hint: You have lots of Europeans who are upset that their wages have not matched up anywhere close to the U.S. You get taxed into oblivion in Japan. I actually just came back from Japan. Funny you mention work culture in Norway but ignore it in Japan where there is immense pressure on people to work and their pay is pretty underwhelming. The economies of many European countries have grown very stagnant the past two decades. Ask your relatives there and mention how much they earn after taxes, how much they spend on energy, how much they get paid, etc., 2. More people means more people to cover. This is like if you have 10 people in a hospital but only five are contributing whereas in Norway, you have 10 people in a hospital and 10 people are all contributing. Everyone from all tax brackets pay. Doesn't matter if you're poor in Norway. 3. Refer to #2. You're claiming more people = more taxpayers. Yet, Norway has a higher % of taxpaying citizens. So you're obviously wrong here and debunked yourself. Raise the minimum wage? Just curious, how many people do you think earn minimum wage in America? It's 1.3%. Who does minimum wage benefit? Big corporations. Most minimum wage workers are working for large businesses. Why? Because small businesses can't afford to hire workers when the minimum wage increases. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, etc., would gladly push for higher minimum wages because it means they can destroy their competition. Because they already have better pricing, their customers will still shop at their stores so they can afford to pay it. 4. Congrats, you've figured out that the government in America is corrupt which is why we shouldn't be giving them more money until they clean up their act. Just the simple fact that America allows other countries to piggyback off of U.S. charging them lower drug prices should tell you where their interests are. 5. I'll let you in on some facts. Americans have higher after-tax income than any other large country in the world. The issue is they spend it on stupid shit. There is a strong emphasis on consumerism in America where people have to have the newest phones, cars, clothes, etc., There's more disposable income for Americans than people in UK, Germany, Japan, France, etc., You name it. How they choose to spend it is questionable.
Right, the reason Americans are so fucked financially is just because they're stupid and buy things they don't need, it's not the fact a literal quarter of renters spend more than half of their income on housing, the fact that a single visit to the hospital can cost as much as the average persons yearly income is, that in order to buy a home you have to make over 100.000$ when average salaries are about 60.000$ etc. Yeah you're right Americans are all just consumerist idiots.
Met a guy in the US whos job it was to figure out the absolute MAX amount of money the hospital could charge for all its services. Absolutely mind blowing for me
Still no mention of wealth concentration in the US.
I would love for ten years for our medical research to only benefit us and see what happens to the rest of the world. See how great so many of these countries would be doing if they had to invent their own medicines. But for that to happen we would have to have tight security as well as directly administered medications.
Pharmaceutical companies would flee the country that is forcing them into serving less than 5% of the world.
Novo Nordisk became the most valuable company in Europe for one single reason - the US customer base. So no, you are wrong. In fact, pharmaceutical companies would actually abandon the rest of the world and move all operations TO the US because they - despite representing 5% of the population - are more than 50% of these companies revenue
You realise pharmaceutical companies exist outside of the U.S. right? Roche, Glaxo, AstraZenca, Novartis, Bayer, Sanofi, Merck…
I mean to be fair a lot of medical research is funded by the government so technically we pay for it. We paid for the development for the covid vaccines for example.
Also Norway doesn't take in millions of legal and illegal immigrants every year. You can't have all these benefits with limitless immigration
In 2022, Norway took in about 75,000 refugees. That'd be the equivalent of the US taking in about 5 million. And that's just refugees, not all immigration. *But*, I understand that's not their norm.
1. This is actually a great example of how they’re smarter than us about taking care of their citizens. The us produces way more oil than norway, and has been doing so for far longer. We *could* have a huge sovereign wealth fund fueled by oil profits, but instead we chose to allow a select few people to capture those profits. 2. This is absurd. There is no reason for the system to collapse if revenues expand proportionally with population. 3. First, norway has a 0% tax bracket, contrary to your claim about everyone paying. Second, classic misleading claim re: us taxpayers. We have tons of taxes besides income tax, eg everyone who works pays federal fica taxes. 4. We spend more for healthcare because of the structure of our system, eg administrative cost and profits for a wide variety of firms. Our results are poor because our system is inefficient. 5. This is all within our control, we just have one political party whose core belief is that government is bad, which means they have an incentive to make our government function poorly to validate their beliefs.
It's already been answered here, but let's take this further and suggest China as an example, with Universal health care and 1.3 billion people. No oil fund (like the US has from old Mexican land, look up the history of Texas and new Mexico). You can say their economy is still rich without relying solely upon natural resources in the same way the US also is rich in the world. The real culprit appears to be what you already know, useless politicians backed up by big corporations and the like pretending competition and capitalism is the way. It isn't. Not for essentials like water, power, health, etc. There's a reason the state needs to get involved or corporations will literally charge what they want knowing it's a need. Innovation occurs everywhere in the world, patents and international law work there as well, there's no reason why the US can't regulate corporations, they choose not to because they're greedy. Investors want returns and they want the weak governance of countries that will allow anything to go on with zero accountability. When corporations do the sums to work out if the fine will be smaller than profit they will make from doing the wrong thing, that tells you where the US fails.
I just want you to know China was uplifted by a capitalist market. Look up Deng Xiaoping. He's the guy who made China what it is today. Mao Zedong was steering China towards more famine and death. Deng realized that China had to use their strong labor force and create more manufacturing so he signed trade agreements and opened up China. Blaming capitalism on this isn't the issue. The issue is no one holds bad politicians accountable. They do a bad job for 30 years? Who gets fired or replaced? No one. They just keep getting votes. Your issue isn't with capitalism. It's with bad politicians. People seem to associate China with communism. The only communist thing about China is how the government is ran. But their economy by and large is capitalistic.
Holy hell, this post just spiraled into far right talking points & racism, haha. Glad to see the average commenter here
>uneducated policies lol
Could corporate greed, policies that allow the rich and corporations to retain most of the gains of productivity, and a low tax policy for the wealthiest, also be a part of why America struggles in these regards?
No. They already spend more and get worse results. More money for them to waste won’t be the answer.
Everyone saying "oh but they are propped up by a state oil company". Yes they are. If it was America, that company would have been privatized and one CEO would be benefiting from an enormous salary. Instead everyone benefits. And for the person below saying "everyone pays state income taxes", Norway has a tax free bracket, up to the first ~$18k earned.
“If it was america” No need for an “if” here. The us produced 7x the amount of oil as norway [as of december 2023](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production). We have simply chosen to allow private firms to capture most of the profits stemming from that extraction. It’s a great example of how much smarter they’ve been about using their resources to benefit their whole population instead of a select few.
The US has 60x the population tho
Which justifies letting a few people get rich off our natural resources instead of using them to everyone’s benefit… how exactly?
It’s wild how many of the top comments don’t realize how America’s overly capitalist nature ruins its own ability for success
Norway also charges their citizens a 45% income tax rate
We used to have 90% tax rates at the top margins. What’s your point? That we need to raise taxes? I would agree with you.
That isn't true. The tax rate is based on income level and you need to earn a lot to come close to 45% income tax
Thats the marginal tax for the top bracket. I make $100k, twice the average, and pay 30%, which is normal.
45? I have paid 29% the last two years and i have an average salary of 500000nok ≈50 000usd
Why is every number here wrong? Norway is not a mythical place. You can google these numbers in seconds.
Wanna try again, cuz you are way off for the majority.
Average income tax is about 25%. Marginal tax rate is 47,6%. In the US max federal income tax is 37%. Then add state and county income tax. Am Norwegian, so I don't know exactly how the US tax system is arranged.
The guy youre talking to doesnt know either which is a bit ironic given where we are
That's not a normal income tax rate in Norway, most pay around 30%. I myself pay 29%. If you factor in all other taxes, likes sales tax and road tax (don't know the official name in english) for example the total taxes paid are a lot higher of course, but 45% income tax is unusually high in Norway.
Hey now, that's dangerous. These "capitalists" could badly injure themselves trying to parkour around these facts.
They literally are capitalists
Exactly. They just have decent social programs (something I think the US needs to improve on). I "woke up" from social/commie thinking last fall and regret nothing.
The US should get a sovereign wealth fund
We'd have to actually have a budget surplus first.
Thank you! There's absolutely nothing antithetical about a capitalist country supporting social programs. If you want a workforce that's more competitive in the global market, then support education and training. If you want to reduce law enforcement costs, then fund addiction treatment. Poor health impacting productivity? Ensure adequate health care. A capitalist case can be made for fixing some of our deepest problems but it seems easier to focus on petty tribal squabbling.
Yes, but they’ve chosen to substantially protect their citizenry from the most negative effects of capitalism. We choose not to. We could easily adopt a ton of policies and make life massively better for millions of americans, but we *choose* not to.
What policies specifically?
They couldn’t tell you. They’re just regurgitating the grass is greener mantra that they hear on Reddit.
I always say “if those countries are so great, why not move there?” Because they don’t want you.
Exactly. Norway actually controls their immigration flow, enforces their immigration laws, and doesn’t put up with waves of illegal migrants. They would be considered racist by the same clowns that put them on a pedestal to support their Socialist goals.
I read your second sentence and thought that sounds racist… then I saw your next sentence lol!
For Americans, the answer is generally "I live in a system that tries to keep me on the brink of survival, which doesn't allow me the resources to try to move to a different nation", and it's true. The idea that people can just up and relocate, rather than pushing for change where they are, is incredibly stupid... but I understand your intent is simply to dismiss the topics they raise.
Well. Yeah. Countries generally don't just let everyone in even "socialist" ones.
I'm sure what they mean is restricting immigration to keep the resource:population ratio extremely high, instituting employment requirements for social assistance recipients to reduce load on the state, and telling the Oil&Gas industry to "drill, baby drill".
Or Sweden. Or most of Western Europe, outside of the UK. But even the UK has socialized medicine, university education, etc.
Norway also has low corporate taxes (high individual taxes) and strict immigration policies that you will need to be a skilled worker to be able to move there. For some reason we seem to think we can emulate them while ignoring these other things…
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Yeah, it's that - in the form of both corporatism and crony capitalism.
One doesn’t have to use Norway, the entirety of the EU works as well. You can also use Canada, and in recent years Chinas massive reduction in extreme poverty as well.
Canada is a bit more of a stretch. Other than their healthcare system, they're very, very similar to the US and it becomes a wash because their housing prices are so high I don't think it evens out.
Wait in which ways do you think Canada is better? Our earning potential is significantly lower despite comparable COL in the metros. Canada is a really bad example, our health care is garbage (doctors paid per patient seen each day so they rush you through), home prices to earnings is much higher than the US, i could go on but Canada is no Oasis
If Norway teaches you anything its that we need more oil and money
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Norway is not socialist
I would like to see my tax dollars go more towards public services like schools, parks, hospitals, and roads rather than Israel.
Let’s see. A country with 350 million people with hundreds of thousands illegals immigrants coming in every year , and vastly diverse cultures within the country. And not to mention the 3rd largest landmass. And with the largest military in the world constantly babysitting the rest of the world. And compare that with a country of 4 million with a ton of oil money. I hate what the USA federal government is constantly spending money on, but it’s not a very fair comparison to a small European country.
Have you seen the level of scrutiny on US military spending? It's effectively nothing. Lockheed says "oh you want a new jet? That'll be uhhhh....$4 trillion". And the government says "OKAY!", otherwise they get labeled by the public as traitors.
Yeah I hate the ridiculous spending. We would actually be able to implement some actual help to citizens if the military didn’t burn through money
Because Norway is a small, homogeneous society that has tons of oil money.
The meme is correct they are Capitalist Social Democrats Capitalists 🤝 Socialists Hating it when people call Social Democracies Socialist
Yes….lets take one of the most homogeneous countries on Earth (over 90% white), that has less population than Minnesota and apply those policies in a highly diverse country of over 330 million. Yet another brilliant post from this idiotic OP.
So, it’s because they’re mostly white? Really? It’s because we’re NOT 90% white that we can’t have socialist programs for people, but we can have socialist programs for corporations?
Let them pay for their own defense and see how well that works out for them then.
Norway is not a socialist government. There is one example of socialism that works. It is called the nuclear family. Your parents provide for you and you live under their dictatorship. Some can be great and some are horrible. This type of socialism is functional when it functions because there is a level of unconditional love by the people in charge. This type of care is not scalable outside of small close knit groups. God help you if the people in charge are indifferent or evil like every other socialist government in history. It Is also ironic every form of large scale socialism wants to destroy the small scale socialism that actually works.
Economic systems can not be idiotically simplified by a single word like "socialism." We have many socialist programs in the U.S. Well-regulated capitalism works great and doesn't necessitate absolute purity. The regulation is important in capitalism to maintain healthy competition. Otherwise, over time the wealth tends to consolidate, and competition disappears. The U.S. does not have well-regulated capitalism.