We can argue about the ideology of “socialism” vs. “capitalism”, often without even clearly defining these terms. It’s harder to argue with an avalanche of clearly presented evidence. This article from Current Affairs lays out the numbers showing the United States gradually slipping behind it’s developed country peer group in all areas. Consistently, the Scandinavian and Northern European countries that combine high productivity with policies to redistribute some of the wealth do the best. Our Anglo-American cousins the UK, Canada and Australia tend to do a little better than the U.S. but have still fallen behind the leaders of the pack.

The U.S. does well on measures of average income and wealth, but very poorly on measures of median income and wealth. We do poorly on measures of free time, infant and maternal mortality, life satisfaction, and innovation. I’m sure you can argue about how some of these indicators are defined and measured, but the overall trend is clear – we are creating financial wealth, but not sharing it and not creating satisfying or healthy lives for the majority, and we are continuing to slip behind our peers.