Talk:Nordic model

Neutrality

I feel that the article is biased towards the nordic model. The criticism of the nordic model was poor, and even included a rebutual in the next sentence. I believe the article should include subjects such as "flexible labour markets", "incentives to work", hidden unemployment and "quality of services". Also, the article is biased towards economic growth in the nordic model. The growth rate of all nordic countries (excluding oil-rich Norway) is not very good, but average. Camlon1 (talk) 03:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

The article is one that needs to exist, as what other online information available on the topic is scant and skewed either one way or the other. I would love to learn more of the topic, but am a poor researcher, hence my reliance on things like Wiki and other online resources. While Wiki can't claim the authority of say Merriam's or Roget's, I do find it more expansive and useful. Even this article, poor as it is, was better than other materials I found on the topic. This article does need balancing, spell- and grammar-checking, even I can see that, lol. But it does exist, and it does give enough that it should stay, with the warnings and the option for completion and editing. Obviously there are enough folks interested in it to keep it from becoming a wholly unsuitable article. Perhaps, most likely, someone soon with enough knowledge and experience on the topic will have the time and inclination to work on it. 0²= infinity --Smokr (talk) 22:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

3 of the 4 links at the bottom go to the Mises Institute, a heavily libertarian think tank. Can someone please get some citations and expand the related articles and external sources section? Like Vergad said, this is already highly biased. --Autonomist (talk) 07:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Holy biased against the Nordic model!!! Verged 07:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

What an earth has happened to this article???? Several months ago it was a balanced, correct view on the Nordic model, now it reads like from somebody who has no idea of the benefits that the model has brought and has a certain grudge against the idea it has lead to anything good. I suspect the changes have some relation to the Mises Institute links that have appeared.

Biased censorship!!! Hobbyman 20:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it needed some balancing links to pro-Nordic Model professional research sources, but a certain reader has deleted sections that they disagreed with, and this type of censorship is in no-ones interest. Last time I read this it mentioned High Taxes (unarguably true), the migration of high net-worth society members such as Ingvar Kamprad and Mikkel Kessler for tax reasons (also true), and the links to the Mises have gone. Maybe the Mises articles present biased interpretation to some, but their facts are normally accurate, and the three articles were actually even written by a Danish economics professor.

I suspect this is either a copyvio or original research. The original editor has only made this one contribution. RedWolf 16:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a much better page following re-editing. Funny that someone had taken the "high taxes" bit out, and the entire section on threats to the nordic model. I have amended the section saying "a few Danes and Swedes", to say "some Danes and Swedes". 50,000 (out of a population of 5 mil) Danes live in London alone, while it is estimated only 13,000 British citizens (out of 60 mil, live in Denmark). Dunwidda (talk) 11:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Poor Article ConXII 25 June 2008

I was happy to see this article on the Nordic Model, however, I'm afraid it's turned into just another example of why Wikipedia is not always a trustworthy source for information. The grammar on the page is poor and the author's bias against the Nordic model is clear as is his/her preference to, as has been said, Libertarian alternatives.

Several factual errors also present, including:

"The Nordic countries have been leaders in privatisation" <- Untrue. In the 1980's and 90's the Nordic model was largely able to survive economic turbulence without witnessing the same deregulation that occured in the UK. The Nordic countries to this day maintain strong public sectors, particularly when compared to, for example, Britain where everything from public transport and care for the elderly to the maintenance of roads has been heavily outsourced and in some cases monopolised by private companies. To illustrate, public transport in Sweden remains government owned whether it be by the individual Län (who hold jurisdiction over the various Lokal Trafik in operation throughout Swedish Counties e.g. Skåne Trafik or Hallands Trafik) or by the central government as in the case of the SJ state railways. It is the fact that privatisation of state-held assets has occurred less in the Nordic countries than elsewhere that is key to the distinction of the Nordic Model to my mind.

Reading through the rest of the article, the quality is strkingly subpar. The text is poorly written and becomes bogged down far too often in the rigmarole of percentages. Claims go unreferenced or are not elaborated upon such as "Environment: The Nordic countries, and specially Sweden, claim to be defending these concepts in the international arena."

I am hopeful that the poor quality of this article will be corrected by someone with greater knowledge of the Nordic model and access to appropriate references..

Nordic countries are on the top of Europe in terms of government outsourcing, just look at the referenced papers. And by the way, as far as I know, 100% of road maintenance is outsourced in Nordics and majority of transport sector is privately owned. And saying that Britain is heavily outsourced is not true in sectors, since Britain is behind Nordic countries in terms of privatizing health care and education.Turkuun (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure where you live but as a citizen of Britain I can say that it'd be pretty difficult for a nation to be ahead of us in outsourcing. For example, the majority of Rail Transport in Sweden remains government owned, as another of your references states, whereas in Britain by far the majority is monopolised by Private enterprise. As for Health care etc. what you say contradicts everything I have learned about Sweden from my numerous visits there, from my own reading and from Swedes themselves and I unfortunately don't have the time to read the 167 page document in your references. However, if you yourself are a native of the Nordic countries you probably know better the intricacies of the government than I do. Still, I do not understand why then it seems that Swedes and Finns on here have complained about your edits as misrepresenting their nations.

I maintain that this article is bias though, especially in its tone and entire handling of its subject matter. But this has already been listed by other users above me so I feel no need to repeat what they have said.

ConXII

Room for improvement

I agree Saluton. Too many facts in this article lack citations. The bulk of the article seems to have a blatant skewness towards the model, again, with no sources cited. It is clear this article is skewed just by conducting a simple word count on the pro and con arguments of the Welfare Benefits section, the pro argument consists of 168 words to the mere 55 words of the con. Indecisive monk (talk) 16:25, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

My feeling reading this, is that to improve the article and its neutrality, there needs to be less reliance on just two sources. Neither source is written from a neutral standpoint - they analyse the nordic model from a neoliberal perspective, judging it against neoliberal norms. This is reflected by in the article by POV statements, some of which even have normative content. eg. "The public sector's low productivity growth has been compensated by Europe's pioneering privatization and outsourcing programs". More sources and a major cleanup are needed in order to balance out the article. Saluton (talk) 23:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

While there are serious issues with the article, comparing word-counts is not a measure of bias. The article fluctuates between being heavily pro or heavily con the subject of the article, and the text is inconsistent as a result. Let's just get more references and monitor the article for vandalism. Carewolf (talk) 08:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Makes no sense

This article makes no sense at all. The nordic model is about a highly regulated financial market, and symbolizes a welfare model.

Norway is the best example. Sadly, the nordic model in Sweden has been nearly destroyed by right-wing parties. Island went bancrupt in the financial crisis because of extremely liberal economical politics. Therefore several people have started talking about the Norwegian model, instead of the nordic model.

As as 11/Apr/2010, Norway is mentioned once in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.2.97 (talk) 22:05, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is bullocks. The nordic model has nothing to do with high privatization and marked based thinking. It's all about the opposite. Keynes is also a key figure here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bthbt (talk • contribs) 09:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually you want to get technical; the nordic model is not used in the nordic countries. There is no common model the nordic countries are following for their welfare and economic policies. There is however an overlap in policies and success-stories that other countries might use as a model, which is referred to as the "Nordic Model". Privatization is a character of the Danish economic policies, and has also been used in Sweden. Both countries that have been pointed at as role-models. No one is pointing out Norway because they oil-income makes it hard to compare against. Iceland likewise have been too small and unique to use as a role-model. Carewolf (talk) 12:52, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Makes some sense, generous welfare state and capitalism not mutually exclusive

As a Norwegian who have lived abroad in the US and Netherlands, so I have some places to compare I would say that it is possible to have low regulation on many things and friendly business environment, while at the same time have generous welfare states. I found that living in the US there was often my impression that there were more rules and regulations. Just compare e.g. a Norwegian taxform with an American one. The Norwegian one is a lot simpler. Starting business is a fairly simple operation. I've done it so I know. Nordic countries have had a free market for electric power much longer than in the US (in fact I don't think they have one yet).

True labor regulations are stricter and there are more restrictions on business for things like opening hours, employing people etc. But it is still nothing compared to the kind convoluted mazes of rules and regulations you often find in say South American countries or Southern Europe which makes people chose to run businesses illegally, because cost of compliance is too high. I am not just making this up. Several indices published on ease of doing business, protection of property rights etch gives Nordic countries high listings. High taxes in and by themselves does not make it difficult to run business (taxes on companies are quite low anyway).

But one of the main differences between Nordic countries and say Anglosaxon ones like Britain and the US, is the lack of solidarity in the latter countries. Managers have no solidarity with workers and workers have no solidarity with the company. In Nordic countries everyone tries to work together, while it seems like that in e.g. Britain, US, Ireland etc workers and managers are supposed to be enemies and unions are supposed to come with unreasonable demands. Norwegian ship makers taking over shipyards in Britain tried to turn them around and the managers called in everybody including the workers to sit down and discuss how to turn things around. British unions did not understand the point and initially boycotted the whole thing. I have heard similar experiences from friends and family working abroad. It is not to pick on Britain or the US, but to point out that it is more than just politics but also a difference in philosophy and values.

Nordics will never be risk takers and entrepreneurs on the same scale as say as Americans and British. It is not part of the culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.225.110.114 (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Dealing with bad content.

I'm in a bit of doubt. This article is clearly in a very poor condition with lots for biased statements. I wonder if it would be better simple to delete all the bad, unverified parts of this article, or if its better keep it as it is, just to have something on the subject, and then hope for someone to come along and fix it. TheFreeloader (talk) 18:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

this article is crud and makes no distinction between the nordic model as seen pre-1990 or so and the very different model that has subesequently gradually emerged. 94.195.129.125 (talk) 01:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)