Full Transcript for Five Questions About Nordic Economies

all of these different services available. These are countries with a policy of full employment. and that means that they don't have the unemployment percentage built in that in places like the United States and other capitalist solely capitalist nations or mostly capitalist nations, that is going to force people to take bad jobs, stay in bad jobs, etc., because they may be facing unemployment. The policy of these Nordic states is that everybody should have access to a job. Now there is cash assistance payments. There are cash assistance payments. the philosophy of these nations and these governments is that people should not starve to death. People should not be homeless. So there will be a floor in which people are provided assistance. But that's actually a pretty low floor in terms of the cash assistance payments are low enough that people are motivated to work. Again, as evidenced by the high percentage of people who do work in these in these nations. And there's more training options, there's more career options. We talked about free higher education. We talked about free vocational training. And what we see is that that makes work more attractive as well. People can switch jobs, people can switch careers without some of the a lot of the bumps in the road and the sacrifices that people have to make in a nation that does not have free vocational training and make it easier to move around from one job to another. There's also a characteristic of these states that they have high union membership. The actual union negotiations are the real reason why the wages are high, not so much a government mandated minimum wage. What also when we talk about what is the Nordic model, the question ca becomes sometimes, if you've heard people talk about this before, is well, is this socialism? I think the answer, the best answer is partly. And so there's you can see big debates sometimes is are these Nordic countries social democrat country countries or are they democratic socialist countries? And that sometimes can sound like arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin. And to be honest, from the perspective of those of us who are concerned about the people we see, for instance, in eviction court who are losing their homes, see people who are struggling twith housing or utility assistance or child care or putting food on the table. The the big picture goal is to not have this kind of human suffering and to make sure that human needs are met. And so If you do look at these countries, I do think it's accurate to say that they're partially socialist. So consider Norway. Norway, 78% of the wealth in that country that's not owned by individuals who own homes. So you take out the home ownership wealth, almost 80% of the wealth in that country is owned by the government. Norway has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, which is two and a half trillion dollars in assets. We've had past episodes talking about sovereign wealth funds. The rest of the economy is highly regulated, and as we've discussed, there are universal services. So everybody has access to basic needs. We had a prior episode a couple of weeks ago where we interviewed the the the Matt the lawyer, Matt Bruning, who's a lawyer and a political Analyst and economic analyst, etc., highly respected and well published. And he labeled what Norway is and what some of these Nordic countries are as quote unquote pretty socialist. And I think that's right. the also there's a a new book that's come out by Mike Beggs and Ben Burgess and Baskar Sankara called The Blueprint, which is the is it what it sounds like, it's going to be the the plan for what socialism could look like in the United States and in other nations. And we're going to have an episode talking about that in some detail. But in that book, The Blueprint, Beggs and Burgess and Sankara called these countries partial democratic socialism. And again, I think that's that's pretty much right. They the nations that are do have capitalist components. They do not completely avoid the market. They believe the market provides feedback that is beneficial to all. C companies can fail. but they have something called flexicurity. F-L-E-X-I-C-U-R-I-T-Y, if you're joining us in audio versions. Flexicurity means that companies can go under. people can lose jobs. There's going to be consequences for inefficiencies and in a company that doesn't produce goods that people want to purchase. But workers are going to get ongoing support, workers are going to get retraining if necessary, and as we've mentioned. Their healthcare is not tied to the job, the pension's not tied to the job. There is going to be a really robust safety net. So there is there there are components of capitalism in these countries, but there's quite a bit of socialism as well. So, more about what is the Nordic model. Just a few other items I think are worth mentioning. In Norway, for instance, corporations are required by law to have at least 40% of women on On every board of directors, corporate board of directors, there's a similar level of participation in their parliament. Gasoline is taxed very high, cars are taxed very high, electricity is taxed very high, and therefore people are less likely to own cars. And of course, as we mentioned already, there's really strong and robust and high-performing public transportation. All five Nordic countries are among the top 20 nations in the world for renewable energy production per capita. There are also lots of cooperative housing, lots of cooperative grocery stores, lots of farming cooperatives in these nations. And to give a specific example of how they do things well, Finland is considered to be the global leader in the response to homelessness. Finland is the maybe the best model out there in terms of housing first. The idea that we are going to make sure that individuals who are unhoused may be struggling with. Mental health issues, substance abuse issues, employment issues,

et cetera. But step one is to get them housed, is to provide them housing, and then you can work on some of the other issues. So housing first in Finland in particular has been enormously successful. In the Nordic nations, immigration has been a challenge, as it has been in a lot of Western global north come countries. but there is a tradition in the Nordic nations of high rates of accepting asylum seekers. and those asylum seekers are then expected to learn the language, expected to train for jobs, etc. So that's the a little bit of the overview of what the Nordic model is. The the second is quest, second question is, do these economies work? I think the first thing to address is that work for people in these countries is much, much better than for most people, especially working class people in the United States. On July 4th, ironically enough, of 2026, the New York Times published a a big article, an opinion piece by Nicholas Christoff, entitled What We Should Learn from Nordic Happiness. And he builds on what George Lakey writes about in his book. And let me quote you a little bit from Nicholas Christoff's piece. Quote: Do you know how to get an American company to grant you excellent wages and amazing benefits, even for an entry-level job? Move to dorm Move to Norway and take the job there. Construction workers, hotel maids, gas station attendants, and store cashiers will all typically earn more than $20 an hour, plus evening bonuses, plus weekend bonuses, plus five weeks paid vacation each year, a pension, maternity, and paternity leave that add up to a year, and paid leave when a child is sick. Now that is not just Norwegian companies. It is 7-Eleven, it's Burger King restaurants, it's gas stations, Exxon Mobil affiliated gas stations. And and Kristoff asks the question. Quote, if American and other international firms can offer such terms for retail jobs in Norway, could they do so in our country? And as we're going to answer before we're done here, the answer to that is absolutely they can. So talking a little bit more about better work-lives, the data show that. This universal services state, this idea that your health care is not dependent on your job, your pension is not dependent on your job. If you do have a month where you're not making a lot of income, you're still going to be able to stay housed and have your family stay fed. So what happens in a universal services state is that it doesn't breed laziness. What it does, the data show, is it breeds more entrepreneurism. People are willing to take risks. And try and create new businesses and try and create new approaches for improving their their economies, improving their communities. As Lakey says, quote, the three things we as Americans worry about, education, retirement, and medical expenses, are things that Norwegians don't worry about. End quote. And so people can take risks, people can start their their new jobs, there's more social mobility in these nations. There's greater

respect for working class and blue collar jobs because there's vocational training as an option, again, free to higher education, traditional academic higher education. And of course, people working working class blue collar jobs are much more likely to be able to afford the necessities of life than they are in a place like the United States, where we have a lot of folks doing really important work but are getting paid subliving wage jobs, not getting access to good benefits, etcetera. Overall, the Norwegians in particular work far less hours than the than the United States and workers in the United States, but they are much more productive than we are. So, yes, these economies work because there's better work-lives. Do these economies work? Well, also, we need to address the idea of taxes. Yes, taxes are higher there. taxes and you don't get all these services for free, right? Taxes in Norway and Denmark are about 31% of the gross domestic product, the United States is only eleven percent. But the people in those countries are happy to pay the higher taxes because of the quality of lives that they enjoy as a result. So again, quoting George Lakey, for their high taxes, the Norwegians have got an overall affluence, stability, opportunity, and a high level of services that make life easier and more secure. A basic principle in the Nordic model is taxing for the common good. End quote. Taxing for the com common good is the idea that this is something that we are willing to invest in, you pay higher taxes, and as a result you are living a much more stable and as we're gonna see, happier life. Going along again on the theme of do these economies work, these are much more equal societies. And that's not just a statistic. When you have a place like the United States with significant income and wealth inequality, we see the data show that this kind of inequality in our communities, in our country, highly correlates with negative statistics. in physical health and mental health and drug abuse and education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, violence, teenage pregnancy, and child well-being. All of that negatively affected by the fact that we have so much inequality here where we have a very small number of people who own so much of the wealth and are make so much more income than the vast majority of people, including some people who make very little in their wages and very little assets. Overall. And the reverse is true. If you have a more equal society in a place like the Nordic nations, they have much lower crime rates, they have much lower addiction rates, they have much lower obesity rates, etc. And that's consistent among more equal nations around the world. So the big picture overall is that frankly, life is better. People are happier in these nations. The Gallup World Happiness Report shows that of the top six nations. For happiness, five of them are the Nordic nations. The United States is twenty-third. People are happier, life is better,

there are high birth rates because of the parental leave that's available, child care that's available, the families can't afford to have children and have those kids well cared for and to be able to go back to their jobs and not be financially penalized. The organization Save the Children does an annual analysis of the best places to be a mother. And again, five of the six top nations in the world are the Nordic nations of the best places to be a mother. Life is better when you have universal services states, when you have workers that are treated well and have great mobility if they need it in their careers. So that's the second question: do these economies work? The third question is: how did this happen? This is something that George Lakey emphasizes quite a bit in the book Viking Economics, and that is. The countries didn't always have so much equality, the Nordic nations. They didn't always have so much equality and universal supports. A century ago, they had huge wealth gaps, and most people lived in economic hardship. What changed? Social movements. Social movements made them change. And these these systems that are created now were not something that a politician or a king or anybody else decided was the right thing to do. The people pushed for it. And as George Lakey points out, the United States, what universal support systems we have, Social Security, Medicare, et cetera, that came about because of social movements, too. And so George pushes back pretty strongly on this idea that the Nordic economies, the Nordic countries are so much better than we are economically, because of some kind of unique culture. He said that when he's talked about this over the years, when he goes and gives talk, people will say, well, it's just This is the a cultural thing, that they're different than we are. And so Lakey says this. Let me go ahead and quote him directly. Quote Merely a century ago, these cultures were just as Scandinavian, but their countries suffered widespread misery and injustice. Their backwardness then and their progressive leadership now are not inherently cultural. He said absolutely will not accept the idea that these Norwegian nations are are better because of culture. Which leads to the question, can we replicate the success in the United States? As Lakey points out, and we've talked about it a lot on the podcast and in writing, etc., is that the reason we don't have Nordic practices of universal health care, of universal child care, of living wages, better union representation, more autonomy in the workplace and and life. is not because the people don't want it. It's because or because some kind of cultural differences between the United States and the Nordic countries. It's because we have allowed corporate interests to dictate our policies. we look look at healthcare. We've talked about this on the podcast before. People have long wanted universal healthcare, but the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the healthcare industrial complex has pushed back on that. And that's why we don't have it. So the reason we don't have Nordic practices is more about corporate interests and cultural differences. And we've adopted good practices by other nations in the past. There's no reason we can't do so again. Urban transit was first developed in France, not the United States. We followed. Libraries, first developed in Britain, not the United States. We followed. Germany created Social Security before we did. We followed. And in fact, in the past, we once had far stronger unions. In the past, we've once had middle twentieth and mid-20th century in particular for most of these indicators. We had stronger unions, we had more higher taxes on the wealthy, we had more housing supports, and we were far more equal economically. So there is precedent to replicate this in the United States. Another aspect that Or another counter argument, I guess, is the best way to put it that George Lakey pushes back on is the idea, well, here in the United States, we distrust our government, and therefore we wouldn't accept our government doing so having so many services, et cetera, connected to the government. And of course, we do have a high level of distrust in our government. But as Lakey points out, Nordic countries, the people in Nordic countries distrusted distrusted their government a century ago as well, when they realized that the government was serving the economic elite. instead of the people as a whole, which is what we have in the United States. Now, people don't trust our government for good reason. The government has been serving the interests of the richest people and the richest corporations for quite some time here in the United States. But to quote again, quote George Lakey, quote, the people in Nordic countries are quote, happy to pay high taxes because they trust the new political class they have installed. Economic democracy produces governments people can trust. Economic democracy produces governments people can trust. So absolutely we can replicate this in the United States. And if we do so, the benefits are going to be enormous. Blakey quotes or or cites the work of medical epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, analyzing that if we reduced income inequality in the United States to the levels that they have in Nordic countries. We would reduce our prison population by 75%. Crime rates would go way down. Mental illness would go way down. Obesity rates would go way down. Healthier lives, longer lives. The the benefits as we s as we see in the global happiness in indicators, we would be happier. We would be healthier and a safer nation if we could replicate the Nordic economies. So absolutely we can, absolutely we should. But the final question is how do we get there? And the hint that George Lakey points out as a lifelong activist is that we can't do it with elections alone. We're recording this on November 5th, 2026, where we just had a terrific

midterm elections, which is wonderful. We're putting people into office that we have high hopes for, but they are not going to make the change on their own. As Lakey points out, with The Citizens United ruling still being the law in the United States, the money that's allowed in politics as a result of that Supreme Court decision, that the research shows what we all can understand intuitively. And that is the policy outcomes in the United States better reflect the will of the elec economic elite, not the majority. And we see that in tax policy, we see that in healthcare policy, we see that across the board. But what happened in the Nordic countries is they didn't just vote in. new leaders. In each country, the people took to the streets and there was enormous social pressure to force an opening for the will of the majority. Then they had the political space to create a new economic model. So we can't just be this vote and that's the end of it. And I think it's a great lesson for us to take in November 2026, where we've had some good outcomes at the national level in particular and in many states, that we can't just sit back and expect These trusted elected leaders to do the right thing. We have to organize, we have to be advocates. So then the final points I want to make is that I think that the Nordic countries show us just so well and so conclusively and so broadly how we can do better. There is the saying that of people have probably heard that the this is pie in the sky, right? So pie in the sky refers to colloquially. the idea that a promise that's not really real realistic. It comes actually from Joe Hill, who was a labor organizer and musician who wrote the the song in nineteen eleven, Preacher in the Slave, where he talked about you get pie in the sky when you die, as a promise that some religious groups were saying, Yeah, it's okay to be poor. In fact, in the past they would say it's okay to be a slave because you're gonna get your eternal reward. And so pie in the sky is a reference to the idea that you're that we're talking about something that's very unrealistic. But imitating the Nordic countries and following their leads is not unrealistic. If we talk about a universal services state, which is how we started, we know the money is there. We have s we have had on past episodes discuss tax policy where the wealthiest people in the United States are essentially not taxed at all. especially people who are just inheriting their money, not taxed at all. That can be changed. It's it's not it has not been that way in the past where we did make the wealthy pay their fair share. We talked about in past episodes how we are spending trillions of dollars on war industries, which we don't have to be spending the money on. We have the dollars, the resources available to have health care for all, to have housing for all, to have universal. childcare and parental leave for parents when they when they need it when when they leave the workplace for the for the birth of their child and and we're raising their children. So for instance, we spend so much of our gross domestic product on healthcare, we spend 16% of our gross domestic product on healthcare here in the United States. That's twice of what they pay in places like Norway and Iceland. But the latter are healthier because they're not diverting that money to for-profit health insurance companies, et cetera. So We absolutely can do this financially and fiscally. We also know that the public support is there. The United States people support job guarantees. The United States people support housing and food as human rights to be fulfilled by the government. The United States people support raising minimum wages, raising taxes if those taxes are used for services. So we see that the support is there. We see historically that in the United States, social movements did create our social security system, which is terrific. Our child labor laws were created by social movements, Medicare, civil rights laws, etc., etc. And that's George Lakey's big picture closing point, and we'll want to close with that today, too. Is that we can do the same. We can follow in the footsteps of those successful social movements in the Nordic nations and our own successful social movements here in the United States. And create universal health care, create living wages for all, create childcare for all. Create strong union rights, et cetera. So that's the closing argument here is that we have at a national level five different nations. There's some others who do good things too, but the Nordic nations in particular are the wonderful national level proof that we can, in fact, do better. So please consider looking up George Lakey's wonderful book, Viking Economics. Thank you to George for all your work. And thank you to others who have written about and analyzed Nordic economies, which we've relied upon for this podcast as well. And we appreciate you listening and we appreciate you following the podcast. And thank you. We will see you soon. Until then, remember, we can do better, and our Nordic friends are proving it every day.