Andreas Møller Mulvad holds a PhD in political science from the University of Copenhagen and is currently employed as a public servant.
Throughout decades of neoliberal counterreforms, the most resilient parts of the Nordic welfare state have been the ones under direct popular control. Their experience shows that the best way to push back against capital is to democratize power in society.
The Nordic social democracies are rightly praised for their robust welfare states and worker protections. But the aspirations of early Social Democrats like Denmark’s Frederik Borgbjerg went far beyond the welfare state: they wanted to liberate humanity from the shackles of capitalist domination.
The Nordic countries aren’t socialist. But they’re still a living, breathing falsification of the US right’s anti-socialist talking points.
What accounts for the Nordic countries’ strong welfare states? Hint: it’s not white homogeneity.