Rise and Fall of the Danish Welfare Society – or the Myth of Socialism in Denmark

It often happens that Denmark is referred to as a kind of model for a certain democratic socialism. In the USA, left sectors of the Democratic Party such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have claimed themselves as fans of Denmark and its “socialist welfare system.” In fact, the economy of Denmark – and the other Scandinavian countries – is not socialist, but capitalist. Former Danish prime minister, now foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, during a U.S. visit in 2015 said: “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear: Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy ...” In this article I will show that the state-owned sector and the cooperative sector don’t play a decisive role in the Danish economy. The decisive sectors of capital are private. It is true that the public sector for the reproduction of the labor force is relatively big, but this does not alter the capitalist nature of the society. Thus, the contradiction between the private ownership of the productive forces and the social character of the relations of production still remains in the center of the Danish society. Likewise, I will walk the readers through the Danish welfare system, why it appeared, what is its essence and how it has been systematically dismantled during the last 40 years. The welfare system emerged as a result of class struggle and has been an important achievement of the Danish people. The ruling classes accepted it, for as long as a class compromise was needed for the administration of capitalism. With the collapse of European socialism and the triumph of neoliberalism, the need for this class compromise faded away and a process for dismantling the welfare system took its beginning.