“What’s so remarkable about the Nordic countries is that they manage to pull off their systems despite the considerable handicap of small populations and small market sizes. Despite all the pressures being small puts on having lower wages and lower taxes in order to remain competitive, the Nordics consistently post the highest unit labor costs in Europe and highest taxes in the developed world. Yet they flourish.”

(This is a weird argument…X has drawbacks, but X works great, therefore the benefits must come from Y not X, so Z should try Y?)