It doesn't take long in talking about inequality, generous socialistic programs, economic competitiveness, and so forth, before Scandinavia comes up as the "it" region on the globe for striking the right balances. As an article in The Economist reports, some assumptions about what Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland are up to reflect the 90s, when the welfare state was still ascendant. But that model produced a decline in wealth (at least in Sweden, the example in the article), so since then the approach has been to pare down the state, reduce taxes (to levels still much higher than in the U.S. and most other EU countries), and look pragmatically and non-ideologically at whichever sector, public or private, can get the job done best.

"The main lesson to learn from the Nordics is not ideological but practical. The state is popular not because it is big but because it works. A Swede pays tax more willingly than a Californian because he gets decent schools and free health care. The Nordics have pushed far-reaching reforms past unions and business lobbies. The proof is there. You can inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations. But you need to be willing to root out corruption and vested interests. And you must be ready to abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum. The world will be studying the Nordic model for years to come."

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... supermodel