Scandinavia might CURRENTLY have a fairly robust and controlled capitalism, but the question MUST be asked, for how long? Norway, et. al. could QUITE possibly look like us in 20 years.
For the better part of the century, Scandinavia has resisted the urges to run with Anglo-Saxon Capitalism, it is not buying the "austerity"medicine that London or Berlin is trying to push. Sweden manages to even have a monarchy and the social support system that is held up as the world's exemplar, one that even makes the French jealous.
However, there is a greater point, of course the capitalists will try to destroy social support systems, and even if they call themselves communists, they still will, because when ANY group of people are held unaccountable, they will GAME the system. After all, who would have thought that the Chinese, the nation that keeps Marx's grave clean, the last nation to affirmatively hold on to Communism, would become the world's great enabler of the robber barons, the great source for cheap, disposable, union-free labor? Even the Chinese are worrying about Vietnam, because that other great hero of Communism is actively trying to undercut their labor cost, attracting people who want even CHEAPER labor.
The reason I support the Social democratic model is that no one group is really in a position to take the money and run; they have to work with each other. Communism does need to be added to the soup of ideas, but it cannot be the whole recipe, any more than Capitalism will be, because, call them Suburbans Silver Spoons, call them Soviet Nomenklatura, there will always be elitists whose main skill is learnign to rig a system to their favor, and the only defenses against that is a system that is too varied and too complex for any one group to infect.
I do look forward to your second reply.
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