Investigating the Lutheran Roots of Social Democracy in Ingeborg Holm

Abstract

The United States is among the developed world’s most incomeunequal countries, American health care and education are uniquely expensive, and youth depression is on a sharp rise1 (Twenge et al. 2019). The Nordic countries are among the most income-equal, health care and higher education are generally free, and Scandinavians rank among the happiest people in the world (Oxfeldt, Nestingen, and Simonsen 2017). These differences could explain why 50 percent of young Americans would “prefer living in a socialist country” (Harris Poll 2019). The Nordic Model is not socialist by the term’s original definition of “state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production.” In America, socialism has generally become understood as “liberal social democracy which retain[s] a commitment to social justice and social reform.” The Oxford English Dictionary has adjusted its definition accordingly.2 Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both denounce Soviet or Cuban-style socialism, emphasizing their preference for Scandinavian welfare (CBS News 2019; Washington Post 2015). With liberal economics under global challenge, the United States is only one of many places where the Nordic Model has been suggested as an alternative that could reform capitalism. If these Northern European countries produce