Economic Foundations of Denmark's Welfare State and Future Challenges

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The Nordic countries have come to play an outsized role in the American political imagination. Denmark, a country of six million people, roughly the size of Wisconsin, is by now used to being called out by both the American left and right as an example of a socialist country.

For Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it’s an example of an ideal system worth trying to emulate at home. For Fox News commentators and the Trump administration, it’s mentioned alongside Venezuela and has been featured in an administration report on the opportunity costs of socialism.

There’s just one problem. The Nordic countries don’t see themselves as socialist. In fact, that $1,000 a month Ozempic prescription everyone’s talking about? It comes courtesy of Novo Nordisk, a Danish company listed on the Copenhagen and New York Stock exchanges with the highest valuation of any company in Europe.

While its profits are taxed to help fund government programs, if that’s socialism, then maybe America is already socialist. The U.S. corporate tax rate is 21 percent and the Danish corporate tax rate is 22 percent. Danish companies can hire and fire at will and there are no minimum wage laws.

On Today’s podcast we get a different perspective on the Nordic countries and socialism from an actual Nordic socialist. Pelle Dragsted is a member of Danish Parliament and leader of the country’s furthest left party in parliament, the Red-Green Alliance.

In 2021, he wrote the book “Nordic Socialism: The Path Toward A Democratic Economy” in response to the attention his country’s system was getting and as an argument for socialism. It’s now been translated into English.