Socialism and Capitalism in Venezuela and Norway

Does AOC and Bernie Sanders Represent a Norwegian or Venezuelan Future for the US?

Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city

As a Scandinavian married to an American I’ve been looking with great interest at the surge in popularity of candidates advocating a more Scandinavian style approach to economics.

However there are two competing narratives emerging in the US. The American left speaks of turning the US into a sort of prosperous Scandinavian welfare state, with high wages for workers, free health care and education paid for by taxes.

The right prefer instead to speak of how AOC and Bernie Sanders are going to turn the US into a failed state like Venezuela. Who is right?

Let me just start by saying, that the whole Venezuela idea is ridiculous, but there is still a value into going through the details of why this idea is so wrong.

What is Socialism?

The first fundamental problem is agreeing on what socialism is. When the success of Scandinavian countries are pointed to the American right has four typical counter points:

1. Scandinavian countries are not socialist, but rather capitalist.
2. All their wealth was produced back when they were capitalist and they have been going downhill ever since they went socialist.
3. Scandinavians themselves, don’t call themselves socialist.
4. Scandinavia is social democratic, not socialist, which is totally different.

The claim is essentially that Scandinavian countries are not real socialism but Venezuela is. To which I would ask, by what metric?

Instead of arguing over which country “feels” more socialist, let us look at the data.

But before doing that it is important with some disclaimers. Venezuela has been through a turbulent time since Hugo Chávez died in 2013. The reality on the ground has changed rapidly since then and statistics will not always be up to date. So what I am really comparing here is The Venezuela that existed under Hugo Chávez, or right after his death.

However I don’t think this is an unfair comparison, as the claim is that Hugo Chávez…