Those countries have the opposite of that austrianism prescribes:
high taxes
a lot of regulations and burocracy
then how come they performed good?
“Good” for whom?
North sea oil boom.
And they are among the most free market capitalist countries in the world. Looking for an example of socialism? Try Haiti.
Good is relative to who, where and when, I doubt the Swedes felt things were good when their benevolent country made the highest marginal tax rate 100% and almost destroyed the economy.
But to your point. The reason why the “More Free Market” countries like USA, Canada, Australia, etc are about the same as the Baltic countries is because the Baltic are not that much more socialist in nature than the ones that are supposedly freer.
And if you want proof, the Baltic countries are trying to work their way out of the socialist trap while the USA and UK in particular are digging themselves deeper into a socialist trap.
… the USA and UK in particular are digging themselves deeper into a socialist trap
Sorry what? The UK has spent the last 30 years moving more and more over to the right. We are as far away from what you call ‘socialism’ than we have ever been.
That is just incorrect, Government debt in the UK has continued to rise since the second world war and it has been exponential. I would say there are more regulations and taxes and laws than there has ever been. Business is more restricted now that it has ever been. Even today they want to continue by regulating the internet, turning it in to a socialist internet. They even suggested a 50p tax on internet that would “fund next gen internet projects”. Many industries have a high amount of government subsidies.
I speak to a lot of people on the internet from Norway, Finland and Sweden and there are people in those countries that say the exact same thing that I say about the UK. They tell me that the socialized education, medicine and industry regulation is causing problems. Just the same there are people singing the praises of socialism in the UK as there are in those countries. There was swedes complaining about the state of the economy on this other forum i visit last week. They were saying it costs 4x as much for a bottle of coke than it does in the UK and they pay 40% tax.
They are not socialist. They are social market economies.
There is a difference.
Government debt in the UK has continued to rise since the second world war and it has been exponential
Firstly and most importantly, Socialism is not defined as high government debt. Secondly, debt has not increased since WW2 - it has substantially decreased.
I would say there are more regulations and taxes and laws than there has ever been
And you base this on what?
Even today they want to continue by regulating the internet, turning it in to a socialist internet. They even suggested a 50p tax on internet that would “fund next gen internet projects”.
Who is doing this exactly?
Many industries have a high amount of government subsidies.
Privatisation has been going on since the early 80’s. There are less subsidised industries nowadays as a result of this process. If you can prove otherwise I would be grateful.
I speak to a lot of people on the internet from Norway, Finland and Sweden and there are people in those countries that say the exact same thing that I say about the UK. They tell me that the socialized education, medicine and industry regulation is causing problems. Just the same there are people singing the praises of socialism in the UK as there are in those countries. There was swedes complaining about the state of the economy on this other forum i visit last week. They were saying it costs 4x as much for a bottle of coke than it does in the UK and they pay 40% tax.
So other people have expressed opinions. Did they provide evidence for these supposedly widespread problems?
I’m not sure what your coke example is supposed to prove.
If the therapeutic-managerial nanny state of Blair, Brown and the rest of the New Labour bunch is a move to the right from Margaret Thatcher, I don’t even want to know what her predecessors must have been like. Not to mention the utterly spineless attitude of David Cameron towards the globalist warming hoax, and the equally pathetic kowtowing to Islamic interests on behalf of the BBC (I still get a kick out of these clowns describing every Islamic terror attack as done by “Asians”. I know it means folks from the Subcontinent there, but aside from it not being racially but religiously motivated, it gives me the mental image of angry Koreans blowing themselves up in public places over their poor BattleNet rankings).
I do not believe that a move from Democratic Socialism to Semi-Democratic Police State-Militaristic Fascism constitutes becoming freer. So the UK moved several industries out of full government ownership to semi-private government regulated ownership (Which is positive but not that big of a deal) while cranking up the police state and the military interventions around the world all the while keeping the money creation and debt increasing mess going. Hell the UK won’t even let Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland govern themselves.
I’m a Swede and can provide some information/opinions about Sweden.
First off, the foundation of our wealth was laid in the 19’th century, when Sweden was one of the most laissez-faire countries in the world (the most?). We started walking away from capitalism in the beginning of the twentieth century, just like the United States, but it didn’t get really bad until the 70s. Soon after that we were forced to change direction, and since the 90s we’ve taken many steps in the right direction, although I would of course prefer a much higher pace. Anyway, our socialistic period is an aberration when looking at the last 200 years. For most of the time we’ve been a very open and free-market-oriented country.
Second, although several important sectors such as education, health care and the labour market are very heavily regulated, most other sectors are not that bad, to the best of my knowledge. Watching Stossel on YouTube I am in fact often chocked by how heavy the regulation is in the United States. Florists don’t need to be certified here AFAIK and fish pedicure is legal =)
Third, I believe our government tends to tax consumption rather than production, and individuals rather than companies. According to a friend of mine who works with procurement for a multinational candy producer, energy is very cheap here for businesses relative to other European countries (due to how our tax system works).
Fourth, the small size of the country and the population makes lobbying less effective and interesting. A small country makes the potential advantages for special interests smaller and the resulting disadvantages to each individual citizen greater. It’s easier to keep politicians in check in a small country.
Fifth, Sweden has lots of natural resources (I’m thinking about iron ore and lumber, not blonde women, although we have that too of course) and is a very export-dependent country, which makes us sensitive to competitive disadvantages (which helps to keep the unions rational).
Last, I think the climate helps too. Clearly demarcated seasons make people more future-oriented as saving for the future makes obvious sense when winter is coming.
Meezus,
Great informative post!
That’s a neat chart. It really diguises the increase in debt by displaying it as a percent of GDP, which has also been growing – faster than the debt, in fact. Here’s the same data in millions. Seems like a pretty large increase. I fail to see why an increase in GDP somehow makes the debt smaller.
That’s a neat chart. It really diguises the increase in debt by displaying it as a percent of GDP, which has also been growing – faster than the debt, in fact. Here's the same data in millions. Seems like a pretty large increase. I fail to see why an increase in GDP somehow makes the debt smaller.
Yes, a chart that ignores inflation is much more usefull. Cheers for that.
I do not believe that a move from Democratic Socialism to Semi-Democratic Police State-Militaristic Fascism constitutes becoming freer.
Neither do I. Is that what has happened?
So the UK moved several industries out of full government ownership to semi-private government regulated ownership (Which is positive but not that big of a deal) while cranking up the police state and the military interventions around the world
Yes, why oh why have we chosen to enlarge the Empire since the war?
all the while keeping the money creation and debt increasing mess going.
I agree we shouldn’t be creating money out of thin air.
Hell the UK won’t even let Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland govern themselves.
Have you fallen asleep and missed the process of devolution that was started in 1997?
If government spending and the size of government is not a way to gauge “how much socialism there is” then tell me, what is socialism?
Debt as a percentage of GDP is realy not a good way to calculate the current economic situation of a government/country.
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports)
Ok so if we are calculating the debt of government, why would private consumption be relevant? Why would exports and imports be relevant ?
Calculating government debt as percentage of gdp would be like calculating personal debt as a percentage of your neighborhoods income.
If every year they are adding to the debt via a deficit then the debt just keeps growing, so it does not matter how much the GDP is because it does not make the debt any less significant as they keep adding more debt. It reality the whole debt as percentage of GDP is used by socialists and big government fanatics and the spending-tax-payers-money that does not exist people, as an excuse to keep spending and an attempt to make the debt seem insignificant. The relative indebtedness of a government can be calculated by comparing the total government debt and looking at historic budget balance statistics.
Government debt by a percentage of GDP is a poor indicator of how in debt a government actually is. The mainstream economists use it, because they are educated by the government education. So they are pro government and pro socialism and pro government spending and in effect pro government debt. The same economists that want to keep spending money that has not been stolen from the population yet, are the same economists that use government debt as a percentage of GDP to marginalize the government debt.
I find the government budget balance historic data difficult to find, UK national statistics website is not very useful for finding historic (200 years) government information (not very useful website in any regards to be honest). But from what i was aware, the government debt has increased exponentially since socialism took hold in the UK. There might have been one year where they went in to surplus (which i was not aware of) but there was no long term trend of surplus in the UK. Most websites use the whole debt as a percentage of gdp and rarely release real government budget balance data, because that would not be within the interest of the government. Socialists Governments by their nature will always spend more than they steal from the population via taxation.
My limited knowledge of the statute database available online and my limited knowledge of law.
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/03/15/map-of-uk-next-generation-broadband-subsidy-requirements.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8270772.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8606639.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/16/digital-britain-broadband-tax
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/0210236/UK-To-Offer-PCs-For-pound98-Subsidized-Internet-Connections
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/07/broadband-digital-britain
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/uk-government-rolls-back-on-next-generation-broadband-pledge/5897
Ok tell me what is less socialized today, which industries, what we can then do is look at the total spent today by the government on those industries and adjust for inflation and see what we can find.
Yes, it was only to prove that not everyone is singing the praises of socialism, even in the Nordic countries.
If the therapeutic-managerial nanny state of Blair, Brown and the rest of the New Labour bunch is a move to the right fromMargaret Thatcher, I don’t even want to know what her predecessors must have been like.
This says it all really. If you knew anything about British political history you would understand that the New Labour project was a deliberate move by the Labour party to adopt neo-liberal policies and ditch their traditional values. That’s why clause IV of their constitution was removed in 1995. It is also why Margaret Thatcher, when asked what her greatest achievement was, she replied ‘New Labour’.
Whilst it is clear that NL are marginally to the left of the Tory’s in certain respects, this in no way detracts from the fact that the center point around which politics swings is further to the right than it has ever been.
Not to mention the utterly spineless attitude of David Cameron towards the globalist warming hoax, and the equally pathetic kowtowing to Islamic interests on behalf of the BBC (I still get a kick out of these clowns describing every Islamic terror attack as done by “Asians”. I know it means folks from the Subcontinent there, but aside from it not being racially but religiously motivated, it gives me the mental image of angry Koreans blowing themselves up in public places over their poor BattleNet rankings).
I really have no idea what you are gibbering on about. Sounds utterly bonkers though.
It’s certainly more meaningful than a percent of GDP. This one illustrates nicely the increase since the war until last year, displayed in billions of 2005 pounds. Inflation accounted for. Happy now?