More on America vs. Scandinavia
AEIdeas
Yes, more on Scandinavia! Now GDP growth isn’t the end all of economic policy. But it’s pretty important in raising living standards.
It’s also pretty important for the US given its indispensable global security role. So it’s perhaps worth noting for Democrats with a social democratic crush on Scandinavia that over that past generation, US real GDP growth has been twice that of Denmark and about 25% faster than Sweden. (See above chart tweeted by economist Christian Odendahl.) Only petro-Democracy Norway comes close.
And remember, the US economy is generating faster growth despite being a wealthier economy and one that’s 17 times as large. Note that the second and third largest advanced economies — German and Japan — are at the far right of the above chart. France, too. Now you can cut the numbers different ways and with different start point, but even so US economic performance remains impressive — even more so if official stats are understating GDP.
Let’s not forget about Scandanavian eugenics. All of the Scandanavian countries (especially Sweden) engaged in forced sterilization to keep their race pure, weed out undesirable and unproductive individuals, and keep the cost of Socialism under control. They cheated for nearly 80 years.