Too often the "Nordic states" are held up as the success of socialism. Collectively, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have a population of 20 million with a combined area twice the size of California but concentrated in less than a third of that. Much of it is forrest or tundra. They have relatively uniform populations that for their unique historical reasons led to socialism or "social" democracy. It was an indulgence afforded them living under the protective umbrella of the US, who defeated the Axis, rebuilt a devastated Europe and protected it from predation during a half-century Cold War by creating a world order of mutually-beneficial trade and cultural rebirth after the utter devastation (see: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Germany).
Want to understand why so many are terrified about the specter of Socialism? In the 20th century it rotted out country after country from the inside out (see: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Algria, the former USSR and some of its satellite states, sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam as well as India for 50 years after independence) with legacies of corruption, tyranny, scant individual opportunity, decrepit economies, crumbled infrastructure, erasure of individual rights and left tens of millions dead, imprisoned, enslaved or in abject poverty. China evolved into something more sinister; an authoritarian regime with an absence of personal liberty for its people or rule of law and a true Big Brother surveillance state. The more "benign" form, social democracy, left Britain by the 1980's a broken, has-been, post-industrial mess with legions dependent upon government for basic needs and a bleak future.
Anyone who has lived under such systems or whose parents escaped it, have no illusions about it nor an eagerness to "try our hand at it".
