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Interesting article about how a social democracy works in a market economy in the real world:
Do you know how to get an American company to grant you excellent wages and amazing benefits, even for an entry-level job? Move to Norway and take the job there.
Construction workers, hotel maids, gas station attendants and store cashiers will typically earn more than $20 an hour plus evening or weekend bonuses, about five weeks’ paid vacation each year, a pension, maternity and paternity leave that add up to a year and paid leave when a child is sick. You may even get paid time off if you move homes.
...What unfolds here is a result of the Nordic social and economic model, which aims to reduce inequality, boost opportunity and optimize the quality of life — providing a lift, in particular, for those at the lower end of the income scale. What we tend to think of as “low wage” jobs aren’t truly low-earning in Norway, and they also come with state-provided health care and child care, plus strong unions that ensure that layoffs or firings are rare.
You want security, health care and the American dream? Look to Scandinavia.
“We actually live the American dream,” Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway who is now the finance minister, told me. “The American dream, it’s more reality in the Nordic countries than in America.”
Construction workers, hotel maids, gas station attendants and store cashiers will typically earn more than $20 an hour plus evening or weekend bonuses, about five weeks’ paid vacation each year, a pension, maternity and paternity leave that add up to a year and paid leave when a child is sick. You may even get paid time off if you move homes.
...What unfolds here is a result of the Nordic social and economic model, which aims to reduce inequality, boost opportunity and optimize the quality of life — providing a lift, in particular, for those at the lower end of the income scale. What we tend to think of as “low wage” jobs aren’t truly low-earning in Norway, and they also come with state-provided health care and child care, plus strong unions that ensure that layoffs or firings are rare.
You want security, health care and the American dream? Look to Scandinavia.
“We actually live the American dream,” Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway who is now the finance minister, told me. “The American dream, it’s more reality in the Nordic countries than in America.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/opinion/norway-nordic-social-democracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vFA.Hu9s.YNtUo4nd7Y2y&smid=url-share
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