Problem with "socialism" is that it's defined pretty vague no?
In the case of Sweden, Israel, and Argentina, The state owned or heavily taxed and regulated many of its industries. And government would set things like wages and price controls
Sweden has a generous safety net. But it’s now a free market economy, along with Israel and, fingers crossed over time, Argentina
In fact, Sweden no longer has a federally mandated minimum wage and there are less regulations to start a business in Sweden than there is even in the US
There is just one problem: Sweden is not socialist.
If Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez really want to turn America into Sweden, what would that look like? For the United States, it would mean, for example, more free trade and a more deregulated product market, no Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the abolition of occupational licensing and minimum wage laws. The United States would also have to abolish taxes on property, gifts, and inheritance. And even after the recent tax cut, America would still have to slightly reduce its corporate tax. Americans would need to reform Social Security from defined benefits to defined contributions and introduce private accounts. They would also need to adopt a comprehensive school voucher system where private schools get the same per-pupil funding as public ones.
If this is socialism, call me comrade.
So why is it that so many people associate Sweden with socialism? For the same reason they associate it with ABBA and free love: their perceptions are stuck in the 1970s. At that time, it was reasonable to say that Sweden was moving toward socialism. But that was an aberration in Sweden’s history — an aberration that almost destroyed the country.https://www.cato.org/policy-report/january/february-2020/swedens-lessons-america
