Carl Bildt (former Prime Minister of Sweeden) said "Bernie Sanders was lucky to be able to get to the Soviet Union in 1988 and praise all its stunning socialist achievements before the entire system and empire collapsed under the weight of its own spectacular failures." [0]
Lars Løkke Rasmussen (former Prime Minister of Denmark) said "I know that some people in the US 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. Denmark is a market economy" [1]
Seems like they both reject the idea of them being socialist countries. They are both non-socialist countries that have market economies. They just happen to have a larger welfare state than a lot of countries. Having a large welfare state has nothing to do with socialism though.
[0] https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/1100039769810235393 [1] https://www.thelocal.dk/20151101/danish-pm-in-us-denmark-is-...
We certainly don't have central planning, and if that was inherent in the word socialism I guess Lars Løkke wouldn't have had to say "far from a socialist planned economy". It is far from that. It is also, as I see it, increasingly far from a social(ist) system, but we did use to have more of that, and in my opinion (not alone here) it was better.
I am fairly well educated and have had a good salary when I was working (voluntarily not working right now because I have lots of money and prefer to do other things), but like many others around here I prefer that my money gets spent having a functional society to having more pocket money to buy luxury items.
And I know that from a Liberal/libertarian pov I don't have the right to decide that for others, but from my point of view that kind of exaggerated individualism is dysfunctional and individuals don't exist any more or less than groups. We need both rights and pragmatic optimisation of general wellbeing. Everybody is better off when there is less poverty and misery around.
Seriously though, Scandinavia is proof that you can have a free market and social programs at the same time and have it work well. It's when bureaucrats get their fingers into planning the economy when things end up very poorly.
"Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.[1][2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free markets, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion."
In the US, the overton window is so far right that liberals are considered left of moderates. But liberals are not leftists, i.e. people who would support socialism. It's like
left --------------------- liberals --- moderates ---- right
^Scandinavian moderateAnd US liberals and European liberals have quite different ideas about taxes, immigration, climate change, law and order. Europeans would not call Biden or Warren liberals. (Who would Europeans call a liberal? Maybe Paul Ryan, or Bloomberg).