The Myth of Scandinavian Socialism

[krazy_kaju]

Some people replying to this thread clearly need to read it before responding.

@Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu

Yes, that’s what I always say when debating taxation. Basically, one pays the following taxes: income tax, social security and VAT. Social security might be optional, depending on the nature of your income. However, the VAT applies to all personal consumption. One can sometimes get around the income tax for some products if they own a company, as it can be considered reinvested profit, which gets deducted. But generally, most people pay all of these plus certain special taxes (where it applies). So the total taxes can easily amount to 40-50% of the income even in the least socialist European countries (flat, “low” income tax).

This was refuted already before Eduard posted:

@krazy kaju

I’m pretty sure it’s covered when the index says:

In the most recent year, overall tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was 43.3 percent.

That said, economic freedom indices do have their problems. It is indeed impossible to measure how harmful certain regulations are and then to compare them to other regulations and taxes. But generally speaking, we can say which economies are more or less regulated. As we’ve seen, for the most part, Scandinavian countries are less regulated than the U.S.

Of course, that isn’t to say that Finland and other Scandinavian countries don’t have their own problems, which is why I included the links at the bottom.