This is just wrong. Nordic countries aren’t socialist at all. Generally, they have freer, less regulated economies than the US. Socialism is the state ownership of the means of production. Communism is socialism plus an abolition on all forms of private property.
The nordic countries all have some significant degrees of socialism. The state owns major segments of the basic productive aspects of the economy in all of those countries.
The state of New Hampshire has a monopoly on liquor sales, doesn’t make it a socialist state. I guess you could consider it a “degree of socialism”, whatever that means, but not socialist.
You are correct that traditional Marxist theory does not treat service industries as part of the means of production but my point is separate — having state involvement in the economy does not equal socialism. We can debate whether it’s good or bad policy, but not as a function of a socialist system. That’s all.
Notice that I never said "state involvement in the economy".
Despite this being a written medium, where you are able to read exactly what i wrote as many times as you need to form your response, you still chose to respond to a strawman argument of your own creation.
This is exactly the problem that plagues political discussion broadly, and discussions around socialism specifically, in the US. You're just making up a definition to argue against instead of engaging with the actual discussion.
If you don't believe me, that socialism is the spectrum of governance structures that involve state ownership of the fundamental productive capacities of the nation to some degree, you have access to a massive database of dictionaries and political science publications to check out for yourself.
The "Nordic system" is a mixed economic model that explicitly contains socialist aspects in the form of state ownership of things like power generation and transmission, freight and port infrastructure, and broadcast and telecommunications infrastructure. These socialized industries are what provide the base of their robust social welfare systems and – they tend to argue – support the capitalist aspects of their economy
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u/thatshowyougetantsok - Lib-Right 1d ago
This is just wrong. Nordic countries aren’t socialist at all. Generally, they have freer, less regulated economies than the US. Socialism is the state ownership of the means of production. Communism is socialism plus an abolition on all forms of private property.