A problem discussing topics like this is that we have gone through entirely different experiences with socialism. What you experienced is a top down dictatorship with a command economy. That is what you think of as socialism.

Social democracy in contrast has been pushed by bottom-up democratic socialists with very different ideas about how to build a socialist society.

When we talk about socialism in Nordic countries, what we mean is economic democracy. That is a different concept from what you are talking about it. What should be regarded as the "correct" label I think is less important. The important thing is to realize what people use the label in different ways.

In my opinion mixing socialism and capitalism in Nordic countries has been a runaway success story. But this has been built on democratic bottom-up socialism.

Even the Polish experience which you say failed, I would argue is not a good counterpoint. China took essentially the Polish route and introduced gradually more capitalism in country which was socialist on many of the same terms as Poland. Yet this has worked amazingly well. Much better than the captalist shock theraphy that Russia employed e.g. which made their economy collapse.

The devil is in the details. That one country fails at implementing an idea, does not prove that the idea is bad. Especially if you see many countries succeeding at it. Vietnam is another country which seem to be able to mix their socialist dictatorship with market reforms.

Please note I am not advocating dictatorship. I am just observing that among all oppressive regimes out there, the "socialist" ones seem to be among the more successful ones.

In fact I would turn on its head what you are claiming. You position Nordic countries as odd outliers which cannot be replaced elsewhere. Reality is that variants of the Nordic model has been replicated all over Europe with success. You find many elements of it in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, France and many other countries.

Instead I think the US is the outlier. This type of free wheeling capitalism does not seem to have worked very well many places. The US is not a normal country. It was founded almost entirely by immigrants and built in a very short time frame with very little history, and regionalism to deal with. Other countries have deep histories to deal with.

Look at Asian economies. Few of them have followed the American style path to prosperity. Almost all of them have had very active industrial policies and government involvement in growing their economies. South Korea on their path to prosperity broke pretty much every advice the US gave them.

I don't think countries a predestined to follow a certain recipe. Some paths can be harder than others. But ultimately it is about what citizens want and how hard they are willing to push to get there.

Look at Rwanda, it could not be more different than Singapore, historically and culturally and yet they have managed to follow many of the same principles as Sinapore with success.

The reason countries aren't copying Nordics isn't because they are incapble of doing it but because citizens seldom want to. Or perhaps more often because they simply don't understand what the Nordic model is.