effrey Sachs refutes the claim that economic security must be traded for economic performance by looking at countries that have successfully combined economic security with high economic performance in this Project Syndicate commentary. He also looks at some of the factors such as the use of relatively non-distorting value added taxes combined with redistributive policies that he argues have allowed this to occur:
Lessons From the North, by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Project Syndicate: Fewer debates over economics would be needed if the world spent more time examining what actually works and what does not. Almost everywhere, debate has raged about how to combine market forces and social security. The left calls for an expansion of social protection; the right says that doing so would undermine economic growth and widen fiscal deficits.
But the debate can be moved forward by examining the successful economies of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. While no regional experience is directly transferable, the Nordic countries have successfully combined social welfare with high income levels, solid economic growth, and macroeconomic stability. They have also achieved high standards of governance.
To be sure, there are also differences among the Nordic states... Nevertheless, whereas the taxes at the national level in the United States are equal to around 20% of GNP, in the Nordic countries the ratio is more than 30%. High taxation supports comprehensive national health care, education, pensions, and other social services, resulting in low levels of poverty and a relatively narrow income gap between the richest and poorest households. ...
American conservatives argue that a large public sector is subject to inefficiency and mismanagement, corruption, and bureaucratic abuse, while the taxation needed to support it blunts economic efficiency. But each of these propositions is refuted by the Nordic experience.
Consider the claims of inefficiency and waste. As a result of government-funded national health insurance, the Nordic countries have a higher life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate than the US ... where the government does not guarantee national health insurance and millions of families are too poor to pay for it on their own. Ironically, the ... US system is so inefficient that Americans pay a larger share of GNP for health (14%) than do the Nordic countries (11%), but get less. ...
Nor has high taxation in the Nordic countries impeded economic performance. Rather than relying mainly on income taxation, as in the US, the Nordic countries rely on value-added taxation, which provides a relatively high amount of revenue with relatively low rates of evasion and few distortions to the economy.
The Nordic experience also belies conservatives’ claim that a large social welfare state weakens incentives to work and save. National saving in the Nordic countries averages more than 20% of national income, compared to around 10% in the US.
Moreover, economic growth in the Nordic countries has been similar to that in the US in recent years. Income levels are higher on average in the US, but mainly because the Nordic countries work fewer hours per week. In any case, all of the Nordic countries have very high incomes, and Norway’s per capita income actually exceeds the US.
Several factors appear to explain the Nordic countries’ economic success. Taxation is broad-based and relatively non-distorting, while open international trade, market forces, and private ownership of industry are relied on to maintain incentives. The Nordic countries are not “socialist” economies, based on state ownership and planning, but “social welfare” economies, based on private ownership and markets, with public provision of social protection. Importantly, they invest heavily in higher education and in science and technology, so they remain at the cutting edge of high-technology industries.
Half a century ago, the free-market economist Friedrich von Hayek argued that a large public sector would threaten democracy itself, putting European countries on a “road to serfdom.” Yet the Nordic states have thrived, not suffered, from a large social welfare state, with much less public-sector corruption and far higher levels of voter participation than in the US. ...
But how replicable are the Nordic successes? These countries have small populations, easy access to international trade, natural resources, and peaceful neighbors. Most notably, they are ethnically homogeneous, so that social divisions are more amenable to compromise. However, this means that the challenge of maintaining a strong social welfare state in ethnically and racially diverse societies such as the US is not economic, but one of promoting respect and inclusiveness.
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