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Unlike Most Millennials, Norway's Are Rich (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Best known for its Viking history, snow sports and jaw-dropping fjords, Norway is making a new name for itself as the only major economy in Europe where young people are getting markedly richer. People in their early thirties in Norway have an average annual disposable household income of around 460,000 kroner (around $56,200). Young Norwegians have enjoyed a 13% rise in disposable household income in real terms compared to Generation X (those born between 1966 and 1980) when they were the same age. These startling figures come from the largest comparative wealth data set in the world, the Luxembourg Income Database, and were analyzed in a recent report on generational incomes for the UK Think Tank The Resolution Foundation.
Compare this with young people in other strong economies: U.S. millennials have experienced a 5% dip, in Germany it's a 9% drop. For those living in southern Europe (the southern Eurozone suffered the brunt of the global economic crisis in 2008), disposable incomes have plunged by as much as 30%. Norway's youth unemployment rate (among 15- to 29-year-olds) is also relatively low at 9.4% compared to an OECD average of 13.9%. According to the BBC, this can be attributed to the country's rapid economic growth, thanks largely to their huge oil and gas sectors. "After seeing the biggest increase in average earnings of any large high-income economy between 1980 and 2013, it now leads multiple global rankings for wealth and wellbeing."
Compare this with young people in other strong economies: U.S. millennials have experienced a 5% dip, in Germany it's a 9% drop. For those living in southern Europe (the southern Eurozone suffered the brunt of the global economic crisis in 2008), disposable incomes have plunged by as much as 30%. Norway's youth unemployment rate (among 15- to 29-year-olds) is also relatively low at 9.4% compared to an OECD average of 13.9%. According to the BBC, this can be attributed to the country's rapid economic growth, thanks largely to their huge oil and gas sectors. "After seeing the biggest increase in average earnings of any large high-income economy between 1980 and 2013, it now leads multiple global rankings for wealth and wellbeing."
As I've watched how Norway has been doing over the past 15+ years with their wise use and planning of oil revenues it has been clear that the Norwegian government has been planning for the future to ensure the prosperity of their citizens.
Now that technology is unlocking massive amounts of fossil fuels, it's unfortunate that other countries (I'm thinking of my country Canada) aren't following the example and planning for the future in the same way. I know that in Canada, there would be a major fight with Alberta to share tar sands revenue, but it would be nice if the Albertan government at least would follow Norway's approach and provide for their citizen's future.
Good on Norway, hopefully other countries will follow their lead.
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No, we don't have any free stipend or socialized income here in Norway.
Actually, Norway has been quite good about avoiding the temptation of spending like drunken sailors from that fund. Also, social democracies aren't Marxist. They're capitalist systems with a high tax rate and a strong social safety net. If you look at economic freedom ratings Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) are comparable to the U.S. as opposed to the countries that follow some form of Marxist philosophy (Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea). Those Scandinavian countries even have lower corporate tax rates than the U.S. as well.
Denmark absolutely deserves to be on that list. It is a social democracy in the Nordic model. Denmark has a wide range of welfare benefits that they offer their citizens, from universal health care to free education and family leave.. As a result, they also have the highest taxes in the world. Equality is considered the most important value in Denmark. Small businesses thrive, with over 70 percent of companies having 50 employees or less.
When Denmark was named the happiest country in the world, there was an effort by right-wing jackoffs to try to paint Denmark as not really a social democracy. They are trying to bullshit you. It is listed as one of the most successful socialist countries in the world.
You are welcome on my lawn.
As someone who lives in one of those communist utopias in Europe it always amuses me when American shitlibs call us socialist.
Yeah, we have high taxes and a safety net, but we are also very much capitalist.
The difference is that we use the government to ensure that we maintain healthy capitalism rather than just a single large company dominating the market.
Not at all. It's even more enlightening when you include the entire quote and not just the part that supports your assertion.
See, the mistake you are making is thinking that socialism and market economies are mutually exclusive. In fact, they work best in combination with each other.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, you idiot I kinda want to add, here in Sweden and in Finland and in Denmark too we also have not free but publicly funded education, generous parental leave and a blend of companies and also a mixture of government control and private companies if you want to add that as well.
Also neither Sweden or Norway have any minimum wage.
Even though we in Sweden, Finland and Denmark have all those other things you mention it's unlikely we have the same outcome as the Norwegians, at-least not here in Sweden thanks to massive shit-immigration instead ruining things.
But thanks for playing. But that isn't the reason and Norway just as Sweden likely already had all those things before too. Except minimum wage which we haven't had and don't have.
The difference between Norway and the rest of the Nordic nations is their oil and gas wealth which is stored into a fund which secure pensions and I think also other welfare things onward. In the 80s they found their oil and they have become richer because of the oil and gas not because of the stuff you likely are politically interested and make up is the reason they have become richer.
The oil and gas wealth is the difference.
Lots of European nations including the southern ones do have the other stuff you mention but clearly not the same development as Norway.
The thing to learn if anything is that if you sit on massive natural wealth resources don't let a private company and a few rich people get it all and the profits basically for free but rather invest it wisely into stock and only take some of the profits so that it can benefit everyone and last ~forever.
The one thing Norway have done differently is to wisely invest their money from natural resources and use it to fund their welfare / redistribute the profits to the population (in this case also by being able to have lower taxes than what we do in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, because here people have to WORK to generate all that money going into parliament spending and welfare.)
Find a valuable resource, give the gains to your people = they get richer. Amazing how that one worked? ...
I'd really need to hear what your definition of socialism actually is to square it with the notion being compatible with (or as you later suggest required for) a market (I'm assuming you mean a free one, or one that is reasonably so) economy. Otherwise I suspect you're guilty of choosing your definition of socialism post priori so that you can find one that doesn't look like a miserable failure.
Private exchange doesn't make sense if you have communal ownership. Maybe you're envisioning something like all private companies being employee owned (i.e., you can't hold stock if you don't work there and if you work there you must hold stock) but I don't think that's ever been tried. It's almost like a guild system, only with multiple competing guilds. This system also says nothing about personal income tax or social safety nets either as you could just as easily use this system regardless of how that's handled.
The only other thing you could possibly mean is that everyone acts as a capitalist agent, but the government takes most or all of their earnings. Essentially you seem to have private exchange in name only up since as soon as you make an exchange whatever benefit you gained from it becomes communally controlled. I suppose that works if you have a group of people that like playing free market just for the sake of playing free market. It would be a bit like playing Monopoly endlessly, only with real money that you never get to keep since just goes back in the tray. I don't know if there's a group of people on the planet weird enough to play by those rules. Maybe if the group were entirely self-selecting, but to suspect it on a population level for any ethnic group is suspect at best.
Socialism is by definition incompatible with Nordic Social Democracy model. We categorically reject all main cornerstones of socialism, and instead go for market economy with high taxation that funds the baseline income level and services.
We do have socialist in every Nordic state by the way. They're the marginal far left parties, rejected by overwhelming majority of the populace. Here in Finland for example, far left openly socialist Vasemmistoliitto holds between 5 and 8% of the vote, and is a minor party. They also have some communists in their party, but their leadership generally denounces communism and sticks to socialism. I can provide citations for that as well.
It would be very helpful if wannabe far leftists from across the pond would stop insulting our countries, our politicians and our ways of life by maliciously branding them as "socialist" for their own political purposes. Have your class war if you want, but leave us well out of it.
alvinrod challenged:
I'd really need to hear what your definition of socialism actually is to square it with the notion being compatible with (or as you later suggest required for) a market (I'm assuming you mean a free one, or one that is reasonably so) economy. Otherwise I suspect you're guilty of choosing your definition of socialism post priori so that you can find one that doesn't look like a miserable failure.
Private exchange doesn't make sense if you have communal ownership.
Social democracy isn't socialism. Hell, even socialism isn't socialism.
Theory be damned, socialism in practice is a philosophy that holds societies ought to provide the essentials for life (food, clean water, shelter, education, health care) for all their members, regardless of their income level, as fundamental rights. The definition of "pure" socialism-as-economics isn't really even worth discussing, because there is no such functioning economic system in existence. And there won't be, ever, as long as human beings are fallible creatures.
Communal ownership of some basic resources (infrastructure, for instance) is baked into western democratic practice. That's the case because it makes sense that those resources be held in common. Worker-owned companies can and do thrive in hyper-capitalist America, as long as their underlying business models are realistic and responsive to their markets.
Yes, you can build a wall of rhetorical purity around the term - or you can simply acknowledge that social democracy is the modern face of socialism, and it is not failing (at least, in the Scandanavian and Benelux countries) by any objective measure.
Life is complicated. Much too complicated, in fact, to be adequately modeled by rigid, ideological absolutes ...
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The entire EU is like that and Denmark by no means has the highest taxes. The Norse have it good because of natural resources despite their social policies. A bit like Saudi Arabia and other such places. With good investments and diversifying their future (like the Emirates and Norway are doing) their population can enjoy socialized (in one way or another) governments. Places that waste that potential (eg Venezuela and the USA) are worse off.
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I use the dictionary definition:
Well, the income tax rate in Denmark is just over 60%, so it fits that definition, too.
Denmark. Denmark plays by those rules. More than 60% of income in Denmark goes to taxes. Last time I checked the definition of "most", 60 percent meets the definition.
Face it: The happiest countries in the world are the countries that have struck a balance between socialism and market economies.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What in the world are you on about?
There are private practices in all these countries. There isnâ€(TM)t even anything that says you have to be a government employed doctor after the country pays for your education. You donâ€(TM)t even have to stay in the country.
As for salary, some countries like Lithuania have very poor pay for doctors and dentists as part of their socialistic system. But the Nordic countries still have doctors and surgeons being paid very well for their time. And even better, you donâ€(TM)t have an army of idiot doctors checking each room just to add an hour to their billing because theyâ€(TM)re buried under student debt.
There is no indentured servitude or slavery. No serfs. Itâ€(TM)s a competitive market and doctors can job hop freely to increase their income just like anywhere else.
There are even things like serving as a doctor in backwoods places like Longyearbyen which pays very well and entirely tax free to make it so that you can be damn near rich within a few years of graduation and move back to civilization.
But Iâ€(TM)m guessing you have some picture in your mind which makes you think that socialism is some sort of forced work or labor. Soviet Socialism was not socialism. It was simply sold that way.
I was raised American and I am now in Norway. I am on a 5 week long vacation traveling first class by train with my wife, kids and a niece. We have been to Hamburg, Brussels, Paris and London and weâ€(TM)re continuing on tomorrow... and itâ€(TM)s thanks to socialism that I can market myself in a free market socialist economy and do this.
Oh and I happily pay 50% income tax on a BIG FAT salary and bonuses.
Though... you probably know better. You heard about it on Fox News.