Sanders Misleads Students on Scandinavian Socialism

His collegiate followers are receptive to Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders exhortations that the United States should be more like Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbors. Yet and still, the self-identified socialist should be careful what he asks for: He may not want to get it.

“Although Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have social-welfare states, they outrank the United States on a variety of other economic-freedom indices calculated by the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute; they have, for example, less business regulation, lower corporate tax rates, and more trade freedom,” Emily Ekins writes in the May 23, 2016 issue of National Review. “Their liberal markets are what enable them to accommodate massive social-welfare spending.”

“If Sanders says that America should be more like Sweden, he should acknowledge what it takes to be more like Sweden: freer markets, not more government control.” Ekins is a research fellow and the director of polling at the Cato Institute.

Indeed, Sen. Sanders may be on a collision course with his youthful acolytes. Ekins notes that one poll, “Reason-Rupe has found that, the label ‘socialism’ aside, Millennials prefer, by a ratio of two to one, a ‘free market-economy’ over a ‘government-managed economy.’”

This last tidbit should not surprise the truly observant: When was the last time you saw a Millennial riding in a cab as opposed to Uber?

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