See? Socialism isn’t so bad

Whereas most entrepreneurs in Dalmo’s position develop a retching distaste for paying taxes, Dalmo doesn’t mind them much. “The tax system is good—it’s fair,” he tells me. “What we’re doing when we are paying taxes is buying a product. So the question isn’t how you pay for the product; it’s the quality of the product.” Dalmo likes the government’s services, and he believes that he is paying a fair price.

That’s from a January Inc magazine piece, In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism.

This is what I like about Norway, Breivik aside: it’s an open, honest, fairly cosmopolitan, fairly egalitarian society. People pay a lot into the system and the system in turn offers all sorts of support. There’s true class mobility, in part because the gap between poorest and richest is much smaller compared to the United States.

In Norway, service industry workers are paid a living wage. Yes, this means in Oslo take-out Thai curry costs $20, and a 10″ pizza and beer costs $35. But it also means that service people can work one job waiting tables or cleaning hotel rooms instead of working two or three as in the U.S.

Norway’s generous social welfare program means the cost of failure is low. Until I married, I was deeply fearful of starting my own business because if I failed, it would mean starting over with even less and moving back in with my parents. Entrepreneurship only seems like an option only now because my husband’s salary can easily support us both.

But in Norway? There, people can take these chances because there’s a generous social safety net. Failing doesn’t mean you lose everything. It means you go get another job. Or some job training. Or start another business.

Young people can go to college for free. Healthcare is free. You’d have to really, really, seriously, and thoroughly fuck up to be destitute in Norway. In the U.S., lifting a too-heavy box can spell the end of everything.

But this may be the kicker: in the midst of the 2009 economic crisis, Norway’s economy grew by 3%.

Indeed it seems that high taxes, free public education, and a generous welfare state — socialism — makes for stable, successful countries and economies.

[Via Feministing]

Also see: 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang.