A widely reported speech by Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen last week and a Washington Post article by Ana Swanson on Tuesday questioned the nature and viability of democratic socialism in Denmark.
Rasmussen’s comments are irrelevant - neither Sanders nor anyone else has suggested that Denmark doesn’t have a market economy, and the right-wing Rasmussen is hardly the best spokesperson for democratic socialism.
Swanson’s article is a brief gloss of British writer Michael Booth’s The Almost Nearly Perfect People. Swanson disingenuously identifies Booth as a “journalist,” which is technically true, but she fails to mention that he is mainly a food and travel writer. Probably food writers shouldn’t be our go-to experts on Nordic economies. Swanson also doesn't mention that Booth is actually a huge fan of the Nordic countries and a believer in their democratic socialist systems.
Still, it is fair to question whether the Nordic model can easily be adapted to the United States. More below....