So I was cruising around the Cato Institute archives yesterday and came across a 2007 policy analysis by Daniel Mitchell titled "What Can the United States Learn from the Nordic Model." It (unknowingly) provides great insight into our country by discussing the "medium-size" U.S. welfare state and the "large-size" Nordic welfare states.
The Executive Summary includes the following paragraph:
"[The big] burden of government hurts Nordic competitiveness, both because government spending consumes resources that could be more efficiently allocated by market forces and because the accompanying high tax rates discourage productive behavior. A smaller state sector is one reason why the United States is more prosperous. Per capita GDP in the United States is more than 15 percent higher than it is in the Nordic nations. The gap is even larger when comparing disposable income, private consumption, and other measures that reflect living standards."
This implies that the measure of an effective economy is prosperity, more or less defined by a high GDP, a large "disposable income, private consumption, and other measures that reflect living standards."
Herein lies a problem. Anyone professing to be a follower of Christ must have a different measure of effectiveness than this version of prosperity. I mean, even most bellicose Evangelicals will decry the "prosperity gospel" as a farce. However, those same Evangelicals support the Tea Party and the Republican Right; THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WROTE THIS ANALYSIS AND/OR AGREE WITH IT 100%.
There is a disconnect between the true Gospel (action helping the marginalized), how it is preached and discussed on Sundays (occasionally talking about helping the marginalized), and how it plays out in the U.S. economy (the marginalized need to help themselves). Christians can't judge an economy on ostensible prosperity- they have to evaluate it based on the following Biblical requirements:
To feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to visit the sick; to comfort the afflicted.
I'm willing to bet that the above 'Biblical requirements' transfer over to a majority of non-Christian folks. They are the basics of morality.
The article also states that:
"America has a medium-size welfare state and the Nordic nations have large welfare states. That explains, at least in part, why the U.S. economy generally outperforms the Nordic Model."
Again "outperform" here ostensibly means in terms of prosperity (and economic "growth") and the data is EXTREMELY biased (see below).
"Measures of per capita GDP from the World Bank, the OECD, the IMF, and the CIA all show that Americans have about $6,000 of additional economic output per person."
This is the mother of all statistical lies. Per capita GDP and its "economic output per person" simply do not take wealth distribution into account. It must be taken into account when the vast majority of wealth in the United States is in the hands of 1% of the population. Let's use a more accurate measure: median per capita income. What is the median per capita income in the United States? $15,480. That ranks us sixth. Who ranks first? Norway. Second? Sweden. Third? Luxembourg (can't win em all). Fourth? Denmark. Fifth? Finland. So, in fact, the Nordic nations, at a per capita level, economically "outperform" the U.S.
Oh, one other thing. Most of these "large welfare states" (used as a derogatory term in the analysis) also provide health care and college education to their citizens for free. So they are healthier, smarter, AND have more money, you ask? Yes. But, republicans think there isn’t enough competition and thus people will not work as hard and everyone will become dependent on government handouts. That seems like a foolish reason to write off the Nordic Model.
If we are to run our economy in a way that honors the Constitution, we need to look at it with three basic criterion in mind: the ability to enjoy Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Let's turn our attention to the Legatum Prosperity Index. This index is often cited by Forbes, NYT, WP, and many others. The Legatum Prosperity Index website says the following:
"Is a nation’s prosperity defined solely by its GDP? Prosperity is more than just the accumulation of material wealth, it is also the joy of everyday life and the prospect of an even better life in the future. This is true for individuals as well as nations. The Prosperity Index is the only global measurement of prosperity based on both income and wellbeing. It is the most comprehensive tool of its kind and is the definitive measure of global progress."
(Note the difference between this definition of prosperity and the Cato Institute’s).
Who ranks first on their index? Norway. Fourth? Sweden. Sixth? Denmark. Eighth? Finland. Where does the United States rank? Eleventh.
The Cato Institute works hand in hand with people across the republican spectrum, from Romney to Palin; middle of the road to the Tea Party. Many of the supporters of these republicans are Christians who are brainwashed into thinking that unregulated competitive free market capitalism is a moral requirement. It is not. It is suppressing the Gospel and shredding the Constitution it holds so dear.
But hey, communism is the devil.