• Social Democracy: A healthy, educated, equal economic system.

    I am a Social Democrat. The reasoning is simple, if you care about social equality, freedom, democracy, quality of life etc., then Social Democracy is the best way to achieve these. Many European nations apply Social Democracy to a certain extent but there are four nations which are truly Social Democratic: Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Let’s see how successful these nations are when it comes to what is important to a functioning society.

    I used images because there is a lot of information so using text would be incredibly long and boring. Plus, now even Libertarians can enjoy the post because it’s mainly pictures.

    And before the “Nordic countries aren’t perfect” crowd jump in, nobody says they are. The idea people think the Nordic nations are a utopia is a strawman. It’s easier to attack the idea that they are a utopia (which they certainly are not) than counter the idea that the Nordic countries perform consistently well over numerous criteria thanks to their economic and social system. Do they have their problems? Of course they do. But no other nation or economic system performs as well as them on a consistent basis across multiple criteria which are important to a functioning society, as you will see.

    CHILDREN

    CHILD MORTALITY

    infant-mortality-cdc

    CHILD POVERTY

    child-poverty

     

    WOMEN

    BEST PLACE TO BE A MOTHER

    Mother

    WOMEN’S EQUALITY

    Women's inequality

    BEST PLACE TO BE A WORKING WOMAN

    Working woman

    LGBT PEOPLE

    LGBT FRIENDLY LEGISLATION AND POLICY
    chart

    SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EQUALITY

    SOCIAL JUSTICE

    1027socialjusticeindexb

     

    GINI COEFFICIENT

    Gini

    DIVIDE BEWTEEN TOP AND BOTTOM 20%

    how-much-richer-are-the-richest-20-than-the-poorest-20

    CORRUPTION

    corruption

    ECONOMY

    GDP

    gdp

    DEFICITS

    deficits

    NATIONAL DEBT

    government debt 2015 vs 2007

    RECESSION

    recession

     

    UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

    Unemployment rate

    ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    I couldn’t find one graph that could adequately cover this topic, but Nordic countries do quite well across a range of issues dealing with entrepreneurship and encouraging enterprise. See here for more details.

     

    HEALTHCARE

    HEALTH OUTCOMES

    Healthcare outcomes

    Of course Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland all offer free health care.

     

    EDUCATION

    Education

     

    COST OF UNIVERSITY

    university

     

    QUALITY OF LIFE

    HAPPINESS

    Happiness

    Quality of life

    SUICIDE RATE

    suicide-rates-oecd1

    PURCHASING POWER

    purchasing power

    FREEDOM

    PERSONAL FREEDOM
    Personal-Freedom-Rankings

     

    FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

     

     

     

    World press freedom index
    World press freedom index

    I think that is enough, and I think my point is proven. Obviously the Nordic countries have their problems, but they are successful in so many categories, both economic and social. And are certainly ahead of Ireland in most of them. This shows Social Democracy works.

    Category: Uncategorized

    Article by: Humanisticus