Dartblog

Bruce Bawer: “The Economist Intelligence Unit, associated with the Economist magazine, has awarded the title of world’s most democratic country to Sweden. For many observers, this is not only wrong — it’s staggeringly, outrageously misinformed.”

Mr. Bawer goes on to make a heaping pile of important observations. But here’s a very basic one that’s often forgotten when devoted Leftists paint for their audiences an image of Nordic and European paradises: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are small states that happen to be, at the present moment, pockets of enormous wealth. They are as close to sealed socialist breeding chambers as one could imagine, and yet socialism hardly works even there. To suggest that the lack of thundering failure of their radically collectivist policies commends such policies to the United States is, in a word, stupid. The United States is expanding in wealth and population. We have massive immigration. We are young. We have the most diverse economic engine in the world—from corrugated boxes to broccoli to BlueGene/L. This is a country which lives on dynamism. Sweden we aren’t.