Scandinavia embraces freedom

Nobody in France ever brags about it. Most prefer to refer to Scandinavia as the socialist heaven. But the facts are much different.

Denmark fires workers easily but retrains them intensively. Sweden abolished lifetime civil servant status entirely in 1994. Norway caps housing aid at 24 months, no exceptions. They sanction nearly half of non-compliant jobseekers while France sanctions barely one in ten. This is straightforward respect for taxpayers and individual agency.

The Nordics spend less on social programs than France but get better results because they invest in economic freedom before organizing redistribution. They chose flexible labor markets over job protection, conditional solidarity over unconditional assistance, pragmatism over ideology.

France spends a world-record 59% of GDP on public expenses and wonders why services degrade and unemployment remaind high. Because “there is no such a thing as a free lunch” explained Milton Friedman.

Tocqueville said it another way: “Equality means helping the weak catch up, not preventing the strong from running”.

The Nordics learned this long ago, in their 1990s crises. When will France?