[untenured]

Not many, to the best of my knowledge. Nordic countries do have much higher tax rates, which they use to pay for healthcare and retirement. But in terms of ease of hiring and firing, starting businesses and special-interest influence in spending and regulatory decisions, by my understanding the people in Nordic countries are at least as free, and maybe freer, then Americans.

The US may have an advantage in terms of the freedom to provide housing and charge what the market will bear for it, but there are many parts of the country (the West Coast, notably) where that freedom is increasingly under assault.

[KarlInOhio]

Also the Nordic culture was relatively uniform and had a general attitude "the nail which sticks up gets hammered down". You don't want to be seen as too different from your neighbors and even if you are significantly richer you don't show it off. Given those, it's a lot easier to agree X will be more efficient if we let the government do it rather than do it individually and not see "I'm paying much more than before and getting a lot less".

Break the cultural uniformity and you suddenly get people seeing "I and my people are paying a lot in and getting much less out, while they are producing nothing but consuming from the country's smorgasbord." Watch for Nordic socialism to break down in the next generation.

[Mollypitcher1]

healthcare and retirement.
.............................................
My husband was Swedish who moved to America. When he fell ill in his 80’s he told me many times that if he was still in Sweden when he had a heart attack in his 70’s, that he would have never lived to see 80. Socialized health care is a disaster. Take a look at England’s waiting lists for everyday, ordinary problems. Besides they recently condemned a child to death and wouldn’t let the parents decide the child’s future. It wasn’t the first time. There are a lot of horror tales regarding socialized medicine.