They Say Scandinavia But They Mean Venezuela

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.

Scandinavian countries have relatively low corporate tax rates, around 20 percent — about the same as America and below the worldwide average for corporate tax rates.

Nordic 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.”

“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.”

Scandinavian 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.

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).”

The tax burden in Nordic countries are far more evenly distributed than in the U.S.

Related video: “Democratic Socialism Is Still Socialism” – Steven Crowder

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.

In 2010, Venezuelan socialists started a campaign — called "Desarma la violencia" — to disarm law-abiding citizens under the guise of stopping gun violence.

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 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.

The 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.”

In 1976, Venezuela was the fourth richest nation in the world per capita.

Although corruption was a constant problem, Venezuela had a functioning democracy.

Venezuela has more proven oil reserves than anyone else in the world, including Saudi Arabia, and eight times as much as the US.

In 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.

Venezuela was home to 14,000 private companies in 1998. That number fell to 9,000 by 2011.

After two decades of socialist rule, 82 percent of households in Venezuela now live in poverty.

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.”

Chavez assured the people they would share in oil profits, which already funded 50% of the Venezuelan government.

Now, 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.

Related Video: “How Socialism Ruined My Country” – Felipe Moura Brasil

After Hugo Chavez rose to power in Venezuela, Hollywood celebrities—including Sean Penn, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore—flocked to see his “socialist utopia.”

While 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.

Related Reading: “From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship” – Paul Hollander