• honey_im_meat_grinding
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    1 year ago

    If you like markets you might be more interested in learning about democratic market socialist countries and how they operate. The Nordics lean in that direction - after all, social democracy spawned out of orthodox marxism. The core idea in OG Nordic economics is simple: more democracy. You don’t need a min. wage, let unions bargain for their salaries, which is why McDonalds famously pays such a massive min. wage in Denmark. Fund and support democratically owned housing (housing coops, of which 20% of Norway resides in and still growing vs pop. growth despite no more gov. funding) or democratically run grocery stores (Finland has the highest density of consumer coops in the world) - housing coops usually have democratically agreed policies like not being able to treat your property like a commodity/investment by primarily renting it out (thus not contributing as much to rising housing prices), and consumer coops have been at the forefront of more environmentally and labour friendly behaviour. All the Nordics have worker board representation - workers make up a percentage of the board and help steer the company. There’s also the social wealth funds in Norway that give the government the power to guide corporations towards more ethical behaviour by owning significant amounts of shares in businesses, both domestically and internationally - although some argue Norway could learn from the Alaska SWF which pays its citizens dividends from the SWF. All of this builds towards economic democracy, or more commonly known as “socialism”, but in a way that has had great success. They’ve reeled some of those things back in recent decades, and the negative effects are clear to see - Norway stopping its funding of housing coops has meant a growing housing crisis much like the rest of Europe (with few exceptions, like Vienna (Austria) and Finland where socialised housing plays a bigger role).