General Discussion

..ownership of the factors of production. Oh, that's right, I did say that.

You and others, argue that the government must outright own the companies. Such as the government owing a controlling interest in GM. It does not have to own a controlling interest. It only has to effect control. Such as make gasoline vehicles illegal and requiring them to produce only electric vehicles. Sure if it owned a controlling interest it could make the same requirement...but the result is the same. Now how much a government decides to effect control, that's up to them. They very well may decide, the market is working fine by itself and won't intervene...but when it doesn't work, they can.

You also defeated your own argument, "strong social safety net"? At one time those safety nets were in the private market. The government decided it was in the public interest to control those industries directly. Those are socialist policies.

And yes, in the Nordic Model you are allowed to have private property, its preposterous to think Socialism outlaws private property. Outlawing private property is a feature of Communism. And yes they use a corporatism model on labor, however, again the government mediates the negotiations at the national level and to say they don't influence this, is silly.

Now, if you want to say free market capitalism within a welfare state, were just splicing hairs. Not to mention an oxymoron.

There is no such thing as pure capitalism...although the GOP is trying desperately to march that way. There is no such thing as pure socialism either but often the pure definition is applied erroneously when the pure version of capitalism would also fail. And attempts at communism on a centralized national scale have failed, spectacularly.

The Nordic Model is form of Socialism, now if you want continuously want to argue that it isn't. It's well within your right to do so, even economists still argue over this. In my view, the government effects enough control over the economy, thus socialism. Others will say there are still enough free market systems in place to call it capitalism, I disagree with this.

Then of course, "socialism" has a negative stigma so many don't like using the term, but that's a whole different story.