In “Vermont-style ‘crunchy conservatism’ is what the country craves” (11/29/20), Betsy Dorminey of the Capitalist League praises Governor Scott for avoiding the extremes of our national politics, defined as “fusty Republicans, seemingly committed to Ebenezer-Scrooge-style selfishness; and wild-eyed Democrats insisting that we reject market economics and embrace economically suicidal crypto-Marxist schemes.”
Scott’s moderate approach, which includes some social spending, has supposedly pushed Vermont in the direction of “countries like Denmark and Sweden” without abandoning “Reaganite economic conservatism.” Dorminey’s piece belongs to a genre of conservative commentary that points to the Nordic countries as proof of capitalism’s merits while eliding the bold socialistic policies that have made these nations successful.
In fact, even the Democratic Party’s “crypto-Marxist schemes” fall well to the right of the Nordic model. If a U.S. politician proposed that we adopt its hallmarks – a mixed economy with relatively high levels of state ownership, powerful unions, codetermination, and government-administered healthcare – we can be sure that the Capitalist League would label them the next coming of Stalin.
In January, Scott vetoed legislation that would have created a statewide paid family leave program. In Sweden, a society without paid family leave would be unthinkable. Scott is liberal for a Republican, but he hasn’t somehow discovered a new way to create a high standard of living for all without raising taxes or interfering with corporate profits. The Nordic people owe their happiness to social democracy, which cannot be reconciled with American capitalists’ vision of the “free market.”
