Americans tend to view our own winner-take-all system as the genuine form of capitalism, while dismissing the Nordic variant as nanny state socialism. But this is backward. Capitalism as practiced in the United States has been hobbled, not promoted, by the nation’s minimalist social safety net. How many laid-off steelworkers might be able to train for more productive careers if a year of college did not cost as much as a BMW? How many startup companies never come into being because Americans are dependent on employers for health care, making people afraid to try something new?
