Shockingly Little is Rotten in Denmark by Yglesias

Jan 21st, 2011 at 11:27 am

Max Chafkin of Inc goes to the socialist dystopia of Norway and finds that it’s a hotbed of entrepreneurship. He makes various excellent points in the course of doing so, but I do always think people need to be careful when talking about Norway since they’re so rich (on a per capita basis) in terms of oil and gas reserves. The primary thing Norway is a good example of is excellent management of natural resources, a score on which many resource-rich countries have fallen down.
But what if Chafkin had hopped on a plane and flown to Copenhagen? I was struck to learn recently that a Heritage Foundation / WSJ op-ed page survey decided Denmark has more “economic freedom” than the United States of America. Well, it also has taxes as a much higher share of GDP, much less inequality, stronger labor unions, and it’s dramatically “greener” in terms of per capita (or per unit of GDP) carbon emissions. It seems to me that all things considered, progressives would gladly make the swap. And apparently conservatives would, too.