Norway, Sweden had least excess deaths 2020-22

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data indicates that Norway and no-lockdown Sweden had the lowest percentage of excess deaths in 2020 through 2022: 

No-Lockdown Sweden Seemingly Tied for Lowest All-Causes Mortality in OECD Since COVID Arrived | Reason - Eugene Volokh, Volokh Conspiracy:

January 10, 2023 - "COVID lockdowns could have saved lives, by decreasing COVID deaths (and also incidentally decreasing some other deaths, for instance from auto accidents, from other communicable diseases, and the like). They also could have cost lives — for instance, through drug abuse deaths or suicides or homicides stemming from people being cooped up for months, drug abuse deaths or suicides or homicides stemming from economic damage and unemployment caused by the lockdown, cancers not caught early as people delayed early screening (even if such early screening would have been officially excluded from the lockdown), and so on. What was the likely aggregate of all these effects?.... 

"[T]o look at just one data point ... how did Sweden, which basically didn't lock down, fare compared to other prosperous countries? Sweden did have a higher COVID mortality rate than ... neighboring Norway, Denmark, and Finland. But what about what is sometimes called 'all-cause excess mortality,' which is to say total mortality in the country compared, on a percentage basis, to the pre-COVID mortality? Moreover, some of the effects of lockdowns (positive and negative) could have lasted well after the lockdowns.... What then about the all-causes excess mortality from 2020 to the present, rather than just based on the 2020 data or the 2020-21 data?

"A recent UK Office of National Statistics report says that Sweden and Norway were essentially tied for the lowest '[p]roportional all-cause excess-mortality scores' (which 'measure[] the percentage change in the number of deaths compared to the expected number of deaths (based on the five-year average [from 2015 to 2019])' among the listed European countries, looking at data from Jan. 2020 to June 2022: Their excess mortality was up 2.7%, compared to, say, 5.2% for Denmark, 7.1% for Finland, and 11.8% for the Netherlands....

"I also tried to do a similar analysis myself, based on OECD data (which covers most of Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel), for Mar. 2020 to Oct. 2022 (the most recent data I could find). Based on that data, Sweden seems to have had the lowest rate, even below Norway.... You can check my data in this spreadsheet; I downloaded the 2020, 2021, and 2022 weekly data from the OECD site, deleted a few Latin American countries that didn't have data for all the years, calculated the average excess death percentages for each year (see row 8 of each sheet), and then calculated the average excess death percentages for all three years (see row 2 of the 2022 sheet).

"I also asked our UCLA School of Law Empirical Research Group people to check into that, and they confirmed; here are the aggregate excess mortality percentages they reported (or see the Excel spreadsheet [linked in Reason article - gd]), though I think my data excluded the first 9 weeks of 2020 (as basically pre-COVID) and their analysis included it:

"Of course, there are obvious limitations with such an analysis.... 

• this is based just on comparing one no-lockdown country to other countries; perhaps Sweden was an outlier for other reasons (what if, for instance, it had also improved various unrelated health care measures in the last couple of years, more so than other countries had?).
• It would of course be helpful to also control for other factors, such as immunization rates over time, the fraction of the country that lives cheek-by-jowl in major population centers, more precise measures of age, and more.
• The excess mortality data may be imprecise in some respects, though the COVID mortality data might be as well.
• Total excess mortality is a crude measure in various ways; one might want to consider years of life lost (reasoning that, say, the death of a child with 70 years to live is even more tragic than the death of an adult with 7 years to live), or one might want to exclude suicide, or do something else.
• One might also want to try to look at more than mortality, and include serious but not fatal long-term health results (both from COVID and other sources), lost educational opportunities for children, and many other things....

"This having been said, I thought the information on Sweden was worth noting, and of course I'd love to know whether there is more reliable information.

"I should note that I have neither been a strong supporter or strong opponent of lockdowns... Whether or not they are sound is an important empirical question, which deserves more study. And to the extent that Sweden's experiment seems to have been at least potentially successful (though contrary to the judgment of health authorities in other countries), I hope that it leads people to study the question more closely."

Read more: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/01/10/no-lockdown-sweden-seemingly-tied-for-lowest-all-causes-mortality-in-oecd-since-covid-arrived/

Norway, Netherlands ending Covid restrictions

Norway drops almost all COVID-19 restrictions | Politico Europe - Hanne Cokelaere:

February 12, 2022 - "Norway is dropping most COVID-19 measures, including distancing, mask-wearing and quarantining requirements, the government announced Saturday. 'The coronavirus pandemic is no longer a major health threat to most of us,' Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Saturday. 'The Omicron virus causes far less serious illness and we are well protected by vaccines,' he argued.

"From Saturday morning, requirements to keep a one-meter distance and wear a face mask are lifted; infected adults no longer have to quarantine, but are advised to stay home for four days, Reuters reported. The government also eased travel restrictions, dropping remaining requirements to carry proof of a negative test. But the government carved out an exception for travel to the archipelago of Svalbard, arguing health services are limited there.

"The shift follows advice by Norway's Institute of Public Health that there aren't clear benefits to delaying the spread of the coronavirus with restrictive measures. The government is expecting an uptick in infections as restrictions are eased, but said the country is well-placed to handle an increase. Norway already removed a large number of measures earlier in February."
Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/norway-drops-coronavirus-restrictions/

The Netherlands to scrap all coronavirus restrictions | Politico Europe - Lukas Kotkamp:

February 15, 2022 - "The Dutch government today announced that it will lift all COVID-19 restrictions starting on February 25 despite several thousand confirmed daily cases of the coronavirus, mostly of the less severe Omicron variant. 'The country will reopen,' Health Minister Ernst Kuipers said during a press conference, the first such briefing since the start of the pandemic to take place without Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

"All public venues — including cinemas, restaurants and bars — will be able to resume normal operations at full capacity for the first time in almost two years. Face coverings and social distancing will no longer be mandatory in most places but will still be required on public transport and at airports.

"The government still advises against shaking hands and told people to get tested if they show 'flu-like' symptoms, with Kuipers saying that 'corona is not gone, keep that in mind'' and adding: 'Luckily, hospitalizations do not increase like the number of infections does.' About 86 percent of the adult Dutch population is fully vaccinated, one of the highest rates in Europe.... 

"The Netherlands is one of several European countries that have decided to scrap all pandemic restrictions, following Denmark, Sweden, England and, from Saturday, Norway."
Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-netherlands-to-scrap-all-coronavirus-restrictions/ 

Norway ends Covid restrictions

Rowdy celebrations erupt in Norway as COVID-19 restrictions end | CTV News - Associated Press:

September 26, 2021 - "The Norwegian government abruptly announced Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped beginning Saturday and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal. The unexpected announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg to drop coronavirus restrictions the next day took many Norwegians by surprise and led to chaotic scenes in the capital, Oslo, and elsewhere in the country.

"'It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime,' Solberg said on Friday at a news conference. 'Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.'

"Rowdy celebrations by hundreds of citizens across Norway started Saturday afternoon and lasted until the early hours of Sunday. Police said unrest was reported in several places, including in the southern city of Bergen and the central city of Trondheim, but the situation was the worst in Oslo. Long lines were seen outside Oslo's nightclubs, bars and restaurants late Saturday and police registered at least 50 fights and disturbances during the night. Neither vaccination status certificates nor negative test results are required to enter such venues in Norway....

"Solberg responded to criticism of the sudden move to reopen society by saying that Norwegian health experts had supported the measure. 'We shall not have strict (coronavirus) measures unless they are professionally justified. People must be allowed to live as they wish,' Solberg told VG late Saturday.

"Norway is the second country in [the] Nordic region to lift COVID-19 restrictions after Denmark did so on Sept. 10. More than 76% of Norway's population have received one vaccine dose, and nearly 70% have had both shots, according to official figures."

Read more: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/rowdy-celebrations-erupt-in-norway-as-covid-19-restrictions-end-1.5601080

I'm worried about Norway's reopening - I hope I'm wrong

by George J. Dance

I am glad to see another country end its Covid restrictions. As a libertarian, I am philosophically biased against limiting freedom; and as a Torontonian, I have had more than enough of life under lockdown. In the spring I was urging countries to do this. Still, I have a nagging worry about Norway doing it now at the beginning of fall, just in time for virus season. 

Norway has the lowest per capita deaths in continental Europe, just 850 in total or 155 per million people. As such, it gives the lockdown lobby a great comparison with the non-lockdown European country with the highest deaths (Sweden, with almost 10 times as many per capita deaths as Norway). Norway's lockdown was very light – the government never issued stay at home orders; they closed gyms and hair salons, but not restaurants or other 'non-essential' businesses – and lasted for only three weeks; for the most part, since then, its "lockdown stringency" has been less than in Sweden. Still, that three-week lockdown was enough for the lobby to claim that lockdowns are what kept Norway's death toll low, without actually testing that or any competing hypothesis. 

An obvious alternative hypothesis is that Norway just has not really been hit by the virus so far. The country is isolated on the northern edge of Europe, cut off much like an island with its one passable land border (to Sweden) closed for much of the pandemic. The government took advantage of the country's geography, by restricting air travel and quarantining newcomers, to keep earlier waves low enough to eliminate through contact tracing and quarantine. That is a strategy that has worked around the world, from Iceland to Taiwan, to keep deaths down in a country without resorting to lockdown. By itself it does nothing to solve a nation's Covid problem; however, it does provide a window in which something else (like vaccination) could do so. 

It takes a while for a virus to move through a continent, and it has taken Sars-Cov-2 time to move through Europe. It hit western Europe in March, burned through central Europe in the fall, and hit the Balkans and Baltic States only at wintere's end. I expect that this fall and winter it will hit the few remaining European states that have so far avoided it, including Nordic Europe. Vaccination rates in the Nordic countries are as high as in Canada, and I hope that is enough to keep deaths down dramatically. Even with that, though, I expect Norway to suffer most of its Covid deaths this coming virus season. All of which will be blamed on the loosening of restrictions, and used to argue erroneously that those restrictions do in fact save lives.   

Nordic nations reject lockdown consensus

by George J. Dance

Good morning, Toronto and the world. Welcome to Monday, November 23, 2020: Another day and another week in the ongoing struggle between lockdowners and libertarians. On a grim note, I am locked down again as of today, as is the rest of my city. CBC News has the story: 

November 23, 2020 - "Toronto and Peel Region have officially moved into 'lockdown' as Ontario tries to curb the province's steep rise in COVID-19 cases. The shutdown will last a minimum of 28 days and could result in fines as high as $750 for people caught breaking public-health rules. Confused about what those rules are? This guide will help." 

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/open-closed-peel-toronto-lockdown-covid19-1.5812048 

Things look grim all over today. For the past two months the coronavirus has resurged in the northern hemisphere, with case rates soaring in both Europe and North America. The media panic has surged right in step, followed in turn by a new wave of lockdowns. At least 13 European nations have been locked down again. Here in Canada, Manitoba and Nunavut are closed, while regional lockdowns have been imposed on parts of Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario. 

For a libertarian, it is hard to find any good news on this front. But there is good news out there, if one can only find it. Perhaps the best is that two Nordic countries, Finland and Norway, have rejected a second lockdown. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has that story: 

November 18, 2020 - "While the U.S. and Europe struggle to contain an autumn surge in coronavirus infections, two small nations are bucking the trend, keeping cases under control without stringent restrictions. In the north of Europe, Finland and Norway boast the West’s lowest rates of mortality linked to Covid-19 and a low incidence of coronavirus infections even though they have kept their economies and societies largely open while lockdowns returned to the continent.

"While Sweden has captured global attention with its refusal to adopt mandatory restrictions – a policy now being reversed in the face of spiraling infections and deaths – its two northern neighbors now stand out as the closest Western equivalents to Asian nations that have managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic. Their recipe: a brief, targeted lockdown in March, followed by tight border controls with mandatory testing and quarantine for all travelers."

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/finland-and-norway-avoid-covid-19-lockdowns-but-keep-the-virus-at-bay-11605704407

Denmark has had one regional lockdown this fall, thanks to a species jump by the virus to mink and back to humans, but there is no sign of a national lockdown there, either. There is a rumor that the Danish state had to withdraw a draconian Covid bill in the face of widespread public protests (more good news if true) but I have not been able to confirm any of that. Meanwhile, the other two Nordic nations – Iceland and Sweden – were never locked down at all. So it could be that the whole Nordic region has turned its back on the lockdown craze. 

To be clear, Norway and Finland have not decided to "be like Sweden." Instead, it looks like their plan is to be like Iceland and keep the virus out by quarantining everyone who enters the country, at least until the deus ex machina of a safe and effective vaccine arrives. Sweden, which has resigned itself to the coronavirus becoming endemic, is still the outlier on that point. However, that makes no difference to libertarians, who can live with either strategy and either end. What is important to us is their rejection of forcibly disrupting their own societies as a means.  

The Swiss government, too, has rejected a new national lockdown. Only the Financial Times, hidden behind its paywall, has carried that story that I can see, so I can give merely a headline and link: 

"Switzerland holds out against following its neighbours into new lockdown". https://www.ft.com/content/7a29da5b-2110-4773-8320-6b344da37a6e  

Meanwhile, in the lockdown-loving media there has been a full-court press on Sweden, the non-lockdown state with the most fatalities. (Notice the snark in even the WSJ 's reporting.)  Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have all increased sharply in Sweden this month: there may be 600 deaths there in November, as opposed to just 60 in October. Stories about the failure of "the Swedish experiment"  are ubiquitous on the web. Surely that failure is proof positive that lockdowns, and only lockdowns, can prevent mass death? Surely the country will lock down any day now? 

Surely not. For one thing, 600 deaths (while tragic) does not equate to mass death. For another, there is no reason to assume that a lockdown could have prevented any of those deaths. Whether lockdowns save lives is precisely the hypothesis in question in this experiment, in which Sweden (the only country to stick with traditional disease mitigation) is not the outlier but the control. The test is not how well Sweden does, but how well it is doing compared to the countries that locked down. And in some double-lockdown countries, the  death toll has been far higher. 

At the end of summer, Sweden had the fifth largest number of deaths with Covid per capita in Europe, behind only Belgium, Spain, Italy and the UK (not counting microstates with less than 100,000 people). Since then it has fallen from #5 to #10 in rank, being overtaken successively by France, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Czechia. All of #1 through #9 are in lockdown. All of them but North Macedonia have been locked down twice. And all of them are doing worse, per capita, than Sweden.  

Graph courtesy CTV News

In fairness, that is not the end of the story. At least four double-lockdown nations – Austria, Germany, Ireland, and Poland –  currently have less deaths per capita than Sweden. Deaths in those four countries are rising, though, just as they are rising in the Nordic nations and Switzerland. We need more data before judging the ability (essential to judging the need) of lockdowns to save lives.  

No national lockdown in Norway

 Norway PM Urges ‘Stay At Home’ To Fight Coronavirus Spread | Forbes - David Nikel:

November 5, 2020 - "Authorities in Norway have introduced the country’s strongest coronavirus infection control measures since the initial lockdown in mid-March, as positive Covid-19 test results and hospital admissions continue to rise. Stopping short of a second lockdown, the new measures nevertheless recommend everyone to stay at home if they can, avoid unnecessary domestic travel and impose stricter limits on public gatherings.... The latest news comes just a week after the announcement of new restrictions on gatherings and events.

"'We do not have time to wait and see if the measures we introduced last week are sufficient. We must act now to avoid a new shutdown,' said Norway’s prime minister Erna Solberg in a speech to the Norwegian parliament. She asked Norway’s 5.3 million residents to stay at home whenever possible and 'have the least possible social contact with others'."

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/11/05/norway-pm-urges-stay-at-home-to-fight-coronavirus-spread/?sh=48ef926861ac

Norway handled Covid better than Sweden – but it had nothing to do with lockdowns or masks | The Telegraph - Mallika Aryal:

October 30, 2020 - "Our neighbour Sweden is often criticised for not locking down, with many pointing to Norway’s lower Covid death rate. What most fail to mention is that we didn’t have a full lockdown either. 

"Yes, schools, kindergartens, higher education institutions, hairdressers and gyms were shut, we were encouraged to work from home, non-essential travel was discouraged, and restrictions were imposed on international arrivals. But shops, restaurants and bars stayed open, we did not impose any kind of curfew, and there have been no rules about when or how many times one can go out. 

"As with Sweden, face masks are not mandatory – and very few people wear them.

"Instead, authorities put a strong emphasis on [voluntary] social distancing, the importance of taking care of the vulnerable, and the need to avoid burdening the health system. Norwegians have criticised the confusing Covid-19 messaging from the Swedish health authorities, and many view Sweden’s efforts in this regard as a failure....

"Many in the country came to accept early on that travelling abroad was not an option in 2020. So, we have stayed close to our families and met friends outdoors. As people began to realize there would be nowhere to go, boat sales went up, and by mid-summer the fjords were packed with people from various parts of the country, hopping from island to island.... Others rafted and kayaked. 'Norwegians could not go anywhere, so they decided to explore their country and spend money here,' said one rafting business owner....

"Norway has kept the rate of Covid-19 infections low – it has registered 19,000 coronavirus cases since February, and 281 people have died so far. Over the months, the government has refined its testing and tracking capabilities. The fortnight following the first positive case was uncertain, but when the government tells the people that they need to practice caution, Norwegians listen. There is a deep sense of trust here towards the political system, the government, the leaders, and, most importantly, the information they share with the public. A survey from September shows that seven out of 10 Norwegians trust the government’s coronavirus messaging....

Earlier this week Norway tightened travel restrictions again. The new rules advise against international trips until mid-January.... In the meantime, as we wait for the vaccine, we will dust off our skis and hope for snow."

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/norway/articles/postcard-from-norway/ 

Norway's lockdown was unnecessary and harmful, PM and experts conclude

Norwegian Prime Minister Admits Lockdown Was Mistake, Says Sorry | Lockdown Sceptics - Toby Young:
May 31, 2020  - "Last Wednesday night, Norway’s prime minister Erna Solberg went on television to make a confession: she had panicked at the start of the pandemic. Most of the tough measures imposed in Norway’s lockdown were steps too far, she admitted. 'Was it necessary to close schools?' she asked. 'Perhaps not'....

"An expert committee charged with carrying out a cost-benefit analysis into the lockdown measures in April estimated they had cost Norway 27 billion kroner [$2.8 billion US - gd] every month. The committee concluded last Friday that the country should avoid lockdown if there is a second wave of infections.....

"Steinar Holden, an Oslo University Economics Professor, told the Sunday Telegraph. 'We should start with measures at an individual level – which is what we have now – and if there’s a second wave, we should have measures in the local area where this occurs, and avoid measures at a national level if that is possible'....

"Margrethe Greve-Isdahl, the doctor who is NIPH’s expert on infections in schools, tells the Telegraph that if schools hadn’t been closed they could have played a role in informing people in immigrant communities – which were hit disproportionately hard by the epidemic – of hygiene and social distancing rules."
Read more: https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/05/31/

Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame Covid | The Spectator blog - Fraser Nelson, Coffee House:
May 27, 2020 - "Norway is assembling a picture of what happened before lockdown and its latest discovery is pretty significant. It is using observed data – hospital figures, infection numbers and so on – to construct a picture of what was happening in March. At the time, no one really knew. It was feared that virus was rampant with each person infecting two or three others – and only lockdown could get this exponential growth rate (the so-called R number) down to a safe level of 1. This was the hypothesis advanced in various graphs by Imperial College London for Britain, Norway and several European countries.

"But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered. 'It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on 12 March, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1.... We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down'....

"This raises an awkward question: was lockdown necessary? What did it achieve that could not have been achieved by voluntary social distancing? Camilla Stoltenberg, director of Norway’s public health agency, has given an interview where she is candid about the implications of this discovery.

"'Our assessment now, and I find that there is a broad consensus in relation to the reopening, was that one could probably achieve the same effect – and avoid part of the unfortunate repercussions – by not closing. But, instead, staying open with precautions to stop the spread.' This is important to admit, she says, because if the infection levels rise again – or a second wave hits in the winter – you need to be brutally honest about whether lockdown proved effective.... And in Stoltenberg’s opinion, 'the academic foundation was not good enough' for lockdown this time."
Read more: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/norway-health-chief-lockdown-was-not-needed-to-tame-covid

Libertarian commune founded in Norway

The libertarian commune made cryptocurrency the official means of payment - The Cryptocurrency Post:

February 17, 2019 - "The inhabitants of the libertarian commune of Liberstad made the City Coin coin the official currency of their town. Libertarians believe that digital money perfectly matches their values and allows them to become independent of the state.

"Liberstad municipality was founded in 2015 in Norway. The founders of the project want to gain independence from the state and to waive taxes in favor of the services of private companies.

"'We want to create a society in which people decide everything themselves and can live together without state authorities. We want to create a society without government coercion, blackmail, surveillance or unnecessary violence,' said the founder of the commune, John Toralf Holmsland.

"At the moment, the population of Liberstad has more than 120 inhabitants. Anyone can join the commune – for this you need to buy land for bitcoins.

"City Coin cryptocurrency was developed by the City Chain Foundation project.... City Chain has created a platform for a 'smart' city, which contains a number of functions for developing cities, such as Liberstad. Chief among these features is City Hub, an intuitive and easy-to-use control panel for smart city dwellers. Citizens can interact with the community, manage their virtual identity, create city-wide initiatives or vote for existing ones, register property, insure contracts and much more,' the project description says."


Read more: https://thecryptocurrencypost.net/the-libertarian-commune-made-cryptocurrency-the-official-means-of-payment/
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Scandinavia is 'a far cry' from actual socialism

Scandinavia is no socialist Valhalla - CapX - Madeleine Grant, Intitute of Economic Affairs:

June 28, 2017 - "Scandinavia occupies a special place in the minds of socialists around the world.... Over in America, all manner of people, from presidential candidates to Nobel-prize winning economists have argued that policy makers should take Scandinavia as a model for reducing inequality and promoting more balanced growth. But is it really the socialist Valhalla it’s feted to be?

"Addressing Harvard University last year, Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen tried to set the record straight. 'I know that some people associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism’, he said. 'I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.'

"Indeed, viewing Scandinavian countries as socialist – or even left-wing – overlooks an essential truth about how their economies are organised. While these nations do have high taxes and generous welfare, in many respects, their markets are unusually free, adopting exactly the kind of policies that the British Left, with its rigid adherence to central planning and intervention, spends its time fighting against....

"Neither Sweden, Norway nor Denmark actually has a minimum wage. Instead, wages are decided by mutual agreement between unions and employers, which usually vary according to the industry or occupation in question. In this respect, Scandinavian labour markets are far more flexible and decentralised than Britain’s....

"Corporate tax rates in Scandinavia compare favourably with those of overtly capitalist countries. Sweden and Denmark’s are among the lowest in the EU 15, while Finland’s, at 20 per cent, is on a par with Britain. Norway has the highest rate of the five countries, but, at 27 per cent, is still significantly lower than America’s (nearly 40 per cent).

"In a recent count, about 20 per cent of public hospital care and about 30 per cent of public primary care [in Sweden] was provided by private companies – compared with around 6 per cent in Britain.... Sweden’s education system – inspired by the ideas of that well-known socialist thinker Milton Friedman – allows parents to top-up the cost of private schooling with government-funded vouchers, and has led to a surge of choice and competition in schools.

"Norway, another nation often held up as an example of a “better way” by the British Left, is also something of a red herring.... Norway’s vast oil reserves ... allowed it to build up the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2020). Thus is Norwegian 'socialism', ironically, funded by investment in capitalist projects around the world.... Last year, for the first time ever, Norway’s government took more money from the fund than the fund itself derives from oil revenues....

"Scandinavia’s prosperity has only ever been threatened when its nations have embraced genuinely socialist policies. In the 1970s, the size of the Swedish state began to expand in earnest under successive socialist governments. Punitive taxation, including effective marginal rates that topped 100 per cent in some cases, prompted a mass exodus of wealthy citizens and entrepreneurs.... By 1993, when public spending had reached 67 per cent of GDP, Sweden had dropped from being the 4th richest nation in the world in the 1970s, to the 14th. Both Swedish and Danish citizens have since begun to reject 'tax and spend' at the ballot box and recent years have seen a growth in support for centre-right parties, promising fiscal restraint....

"The success of the Nordic Model hinges on its embrace of free-market capitalism, competition and defence of private property – a far cry from the centralised planning system espoused by the socialist Left."

Read more: https://capx.co/AAaKu
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