The examples given are from Sweden, so I guess that's where they're from. I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country. Capitalism is very strong here, you're mostly free to invest capital in whatever you want with many ways to avoid taxes, just like in the USA, for example. There's higher taxes for the average, salaried person (though it's not at the highest levels compared with similar OECD countries[1]), but for investors, it's not so bad.

Also, salaries vary wildly between professions, lots of things, like rail lines, which are usually thought of as government concerns are privatized, neighbourhoods are more and more unequal (in Stockholm, you can go from a place where the humblest dettached house costs above 12 million SEK - around 1.3 million USD) to another where the starting price is more like 3 million SEK without travelling very far). It's definitely not "the same" everywhere (segregation based on ethnicity is crazy high, but that's another story).

So, I find it hard to consider Sweden to be anything like what you would associate with socialism (the only "socialist" thing in my opinion is the sales of alcohol - which is monopolized by the Government - but even that started opening up recently as they allow producers to started selling directly to the public from their production locations - like breweries).

[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-issue...

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jghn 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country.

This is where I was going with my question. It seems unlikely that they live in a truly socialist environment

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PaulHoule 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The difference is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

as opposed to the "workers control the means of production" idea of Marx, Lenin and such. You tax individuals and businesses and use those provide certain services. There's also the idea that you have legislation to protect workers (minimum wage, 40 hour week), consumers (air bags in cars) and the environment (no lead in gas.) Other than that you let capitalists do what they do best.

What I can't get is that so many people get so angry at the idea that poor people, or at least poor people younger than 65, could have access to health care in the US.

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delichon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> What I can't get is that so many people get so angry at the idea that poor people, or at least poor people younger than 65, could have access to health care in the US.

That's a pretty glib dismissal for real pain. Before Obamacare, in the nearest major city I could make an appointment with a gastroenterologist on a Thursday and see him on the following Tuesday. Now it is over six months for an appointment, and then for every subsequent appointment ... to see a nurse, not a doctor. There used to be five doctors in my rural county, now there are zero. While insurance premiums have skyrocketed. From my point of view healthcare has crumped. You then summarize my dismay as anger at the idea of poor people getting access to healthcare, like what else could it be other than class bigotry?

	▲	PaulHoule an hour ago \| parent [-]
		So what you're saying is that the services are oversubscribed and if more people have access to them than you won't have access to them?

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piva00 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> There's also the idea that you have legislation to protect workers (minimum wage, 40 hour week)

Just an addendum that most Nordic countries don't have that, those are set on collective agreements between employers and employees, typically through an union.