They Say Scandinavia But They Mean Venezuela
What do Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want America to look like? They say they want America to emulate Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden. But do their proposed policies reflect that? Or do they point down a darker path? Debbie D’Souza, a native Venezuelan and political commentator, investigates.
Scandinavian countries are capitalist in wealth creation and socialist in wealth distribution.
TrueFalseThe Scandinavian country with a government-set minimum wage is ______________.
NorwaySwedenDenmarkNone of the aboveIn Nordic countries, who pays into the welfare system?
the richthe middle classthe pooreveryoneIn America, “the rich,” the top 10 percent, pay about ________ of all income taxes.
25%40%70%95%What destroyed Venezuela?
decreased regulationsocialismcapitalismillegal immigration
- Scandinavian countries are capitalist in wealth creation and socialist in wealth distribution.
Scandinavian countries — Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden — are not actually “socialist” countries, as often claimed. Rather, they are fully capitalist in their approach to creating wealth. Unlike America, neither Norway, Sweden nor Denmark has a government-set minimum wage. They also make it very easy to start a new business and most of them provide private healthcare and education options.
View sourceScandinavian countries have relatively low corporate tax rates, around 20 percent — about the same as America and below the worldwide average for corporate tax rates.
View sourceNordic countries distribute the wealth acquired from their capitalist economies through extensive welfare states funded by heavy taxation. “Nordic countries focus on combining a free market system with several social programs,” the Foundation for Economic Education explains. “This nexus gives way to programs such as free education, free health care, and a guaranteed pension program for retirees. For this to take place, the citizens must place an enormous amount of trust in their government and their policymakers.”
View source- Scandinavian countries fund their expansive welfare states by imposing heavy taxes on everyone—rich, middle class and poor.
“Scandinavian income taxes raise a lot of revenue because they are actually rather flat. In other words, they tax most people at these high rates, not just high-income taxpayers,” the Tax Foundation explains. “The top marginal tax rate of 60 percent in Denmark applies to all income over 1.2 times the average income in Denmark. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $60,000 (1.2 times the average income of about $50,000 in the United States) would be taxed at 60 percent. Sweden and Norway have similarly flat income tax systems. Sweden’s top marginal tax rate of 56.9 percent applies to all income over 1.5 times the average income in Sweden. Norway’s top marginal tax rate of 39 percent applies to all income over 1.6 times the average Norwegian income. Compare this to The United States. The top marginal tax rate of 46.8 percent (state average and federal combined rates) kicks in at 8.5 times the average U.S. income (around $400,000). Comparatively, few taxpayers in the United States face the top marginal rate.”
View sourceScandinavian countries also impose a hefty 25% value added tax (VAT) to most purchases. These taxes are regressive in that it falls much more heavily percentage-of-income-wise on the poor and middle class than it does on the rich.
View source- Do the rich “pay their fair share” in America? The top 10 percent pay about 70% of all income taxes. The top 50 percent pay 97%.
As summarized by the Tax Foundation in 2020, the most recent data from the IRS showed the following: “In 2017, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent. The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.9 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 26.8 percent average individual income tax rate, which is more than six times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (4.0 percent).”
View sourceThe tax burden in Nordic countries are far more evenly distributed than in the U.S.
View sourceRelated video: “Democratic Socialism Is Still Socialism” – Steven Crowder
View source- Socialist policies, like those imposed by Venezuela’s socialist government, result in economic ruin, suffering and oppression.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez initially portrayed himself as a moderate in his early presidential campaigns, but once he gained power, he began to expropriate private companies and industries. His successor Nicolas Maduro continued with his increasingly tyrannical methods.
View sourceIn 2010, Venezuelan socialists started a campaign — called "Desarma la violencia" — to disarm law-abiding citizens under the guise of stopping gun violence.
View sourceWhen citizens, now unarmed, began to protest the corruption and tyranny of the socialist government, Chavez and then Maduro unleashed a group of criminal thugs to terrorize them. Their specific targets included small business owners, entrepreneurs, farmers, and clergy. The campaigns resulted in widespread “brutality, torture and political persecution,” as Human Rights Watch reported in 2017.
View sourceThe socialist policies imposed by Chavez and Maduro have led Venezuela into economic ruin. “Socialism always works in the beginning, so people are fooled...in the beginning,” Venezuela-born Debbie D’Souza explains. “It’s easy for governments to confiscate money, but eventually there’s no more money to confiscate. In the case of Venezuela, I mean that literally: People who could get money out of the country, did. Many left the country altogether – nearly 2 million, according to Venezuelan sociologist Tomás Páez. The wealth creators continued to create wealth, but they created it somewhere else – Miami or Madrid and other places around the world.”
View source- Venezuela once had a promising future, but after two decades of socialist rule, 82% of Venezuelan households live in poverty.
In 1976, Venezuela was the fourth richest nation in the world per capita.
View sourceAlthough corruption was a constant problem, Venezuela had a functioning democracy.
View sourceVenezuela has more proven oil reserves than anyone else in the world, including Saudi Arabia, and eight times as much as the US.
View sourceIn 1998, when Hugo Chavez was first elected, oil represented 77 percent of Venezuela’s exports. By 2013, it had risen to 96 percent of exports, thus making the economy far less diversified.
View sourceVenezuela was home to 14,000 private companies in 1998. That number fell to 9,000 by 2011.
View sourceAfter two decades of socialist rule, 82 percent of households in Venezuela now live in poverty.
View source- In the name of fighting “inequality,” Hugo Chavez seized control of oil companies and farms. Now Venezuelans wait for hours in food lines.
Socialist President Hugo Chavez looted private oil companies that brought massive profits to Venezuela and the farms that provided food. In the early years, when oil prices were high, it seemed his policies might work. The World Bank even approved of Chavez’s regime and what it reportedly did to fight “inequality.”
View sourceChavez assured the people they would share in oil profits, which already funded 50% of the Venezuelan government.
View sourceNow, the government is only importing about 25% of the country’s needed wheat and millions are forced to stand in lines for hours to get food.
View sourceRelated Video: “How Socialism Ruined My Country” – Felipe Moura Brasil
View source- Since Chavez began to build his socialist utopia, 2 million Venezuelans have fled the oppressive, poverty & crime-plagued results.
After Hugo Chavez rose to power in Venezuela, Hollywood celebrities—including Sean Penn, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore—flocked to see his “socialist utopia.”
View sourceWhile Hollywood was visiting, however, Venezuelans were leaving en masse. According to one Venezuelan sociologist, around 2 million Venezuelans have fled the country due to the government oppression and widespread poverty and crime.
View sourceRelated Reading: “From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship” – Paul Hollander
View source
Venezuela—where I was born and still have family—bad.
Cuba—bad.
Zimbabwe—bad.
Soviet Union—bad.
China under Mao—bad.
Sweden, Denmark, Norway—good.
This is the socialist report card as it currently stands.
Never mind that Venezuela, Cuba, Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China were once good. Once they go bad, they stay bad and are quickly forgotten, lost down the memory hole.
But those Nordic paradises? They never let you down.
Whenever Bernie, the “Squad”, and the growing horde of Democratic Socialists ever get cornered, there’s always “like Denmark” to come to the rescue.
“No, no, we don’t want anything like what’s going on in Venezuela. Denmark is what we have in mind.”
Except they don’t.
And it’s time we all figured this out.
Before it’s too late.
Here’s what you need know about Scandinavian countries:
They are capitalist in wealth creation and socialist in wealth distribution.
They have low corporate taxes, around 20 percent, no higher than in America.
Unlike America, neither Norway nor Sweden nor Denmark has a government-set minimum wage.
Most make it very easy to start a new business.
Most have private healthcare and education options.
Yes, the Nordic countries have an expansive welfare state, but everyone pays into the system—rich, middle class and poor.
Nobody escapes the tax man: because nobody escapes the 25% value added tax. This sales tax, a tax on what you buy is regressive, meaning it falls much more heavily percentage-of-income-wise on the poor and middle class than it does on the rich.
This concept is a complete non-starter for American socialists who want only “the rich” to pay more, even though America’s tax system is already steeply progressive: “The rich,” the top 10 percent, pay about 70% of all income taxes. But for the socialist it never seems to be enough.
So, if the American Left has rejected the Scandinavian model, which model is it embracing?
Well, where do the leading figures on the American Left, from Sean Penn to Michael Moore and Bill Ayers go when they want to praise socialism? Here’s a hint: When was the last time you saw Bernie in Copenhagen?
First it was the Soviet Union. Then it was Cuba. Then it was Venezuela.
Venezuelan socialism, like current American socialism, is based on sowing social division. The Left in Venezuela divided the country not merely between the rich and the poor, but white and black or brown—between Europeans, Africans, and indigenous people. Hugo Chavez made much of his black and Indian roots. Venezuelan socialists were bringing down statues of Columbus long before American leftists did.
Once you establish the villain class, taking away their wealth is not hard to do. Whatever Chavez and now his successor Nicolas Maduro wanted, they took—or, if you care about moral clarity, they stole—always, like the French and Russian Revolutions, in the name of “equality.”
It didn’t start out that way, of course. It never does. Chavez portrayed himself as a moderate in his early presidential campaigns. Expropriations came later. What Chavez and Maduro achieved at the end of a gun, the American Left would achieve through extremely high taxation on income, wealth, and inheritance.
But we shouldn’t leave guns out of the discussion. In 2010, Venezuelan socialists started a campaign to disarm law-abiding citizens under the guise of stopping gun violence. They called it Desarma la violencia.
When citizens, now unarmed, began to protest the corruption and tyranny of the socialist government, Chavez and then Maduro unleashed a group of criminal thugs—the colectivos—to terrorize them. Their specific targets included small business owners, entrepreneurs, farmers, and clergy. There are no colectivos or Antifa in Scandinavia.
Venezuela is now a cautionary tale. All the people you see on the news rummaging through garbage cans or standing in line to get food, toilet paper, and gas—those are the ordinary citizens. The country’s leaders aren’t missing any meals. The socialist elite, the so-called Chavistas, eat in fine restaurants and go on European vacations. Miraculously, it always works out that way.
The American Left keeps telling us they want to take us to Stockholm, but its policies point in the direction of Caracas. My birth country was once prosperous and free, but socialism destroyed it.
Take heed, America.
I’m Debbie D’Souza for Prager University.
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