The real socialism

Back in Sweden again - 6 months since my last trip here. It was actually snowing yesterday here, something very rarely happen in Beijing in late Feb. And today it feels colder with the wind chill. Working in this half Swedish company for three years, I have come to much better understanding of this Nordic country. It is a socialist country in reality, even it never claim itself as a socialist country.

It is a fairly balanced society, you still find poor people, but overall people have a good life and their welfare are taken care of by the government. It is actually a smart system in a way that people are motivated to work for 10 years before they decided to have kids because by doing that they will be able to fully enjoy the benefits of the social welfare - the government make sure you can raise your family in a fairly decent way. It makes sense to me, people work hard and pay tax for ten years, then they are entitled to receive those benefits as the payback. You contribute, you will be helped out. Simple logic but has proved to work well.

Then of course, this kind of system has to have certain foundations - well educated population supported by well established infrastructure. We don't have either of those elements in China. But the Nordic socialism has its drawbacks too, people are fairly laidback. lacking of the sense of crisis which sometimes leads to losing competitive edge. And certainly lazy people find their wam bed under the procetion of the welfare system, but it is not always fair for hard working people who have to pay heavy tax to feed them.