Thanks for writing this. It is one of my pet peeves when ignorant people (some of them presidential candidates) cite Sweden or Denmark, as “socialist”, when in fact (and as you document) both nations are more rabidly capitalist, and regulate the economy less, than the USA.

Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are easily defined as fully capitalistic economies where the citizenry has agreed on a social welfare system, paid for by high tax rates, which is more expansive than the US’. That’s pretty simple to say and to understand.

The underlying lesson of these nations is that marginally regulated capitalism produces ample, good paying jobs which can then be used to fund a broad base of social services. The US, on the other hand, opts for a more highly regulated form of capitalism, which doesn’t limit the number of available jobs, but seems to stifle wage growth, resulting in greater income disparity,