Norway is More "Socialist" than either Venezuela or communist China.
Norwegian workers are heavily protected, with 70 percent of workers covered by union contracts, and over a third directly employed by the government. The Norwegian state operates a gigantic sovereign wealth fund, and its financial assets total 331 percent of its GDP (as compared to an American figure of 25 percent).
Meanwhile, its state-owned enterprises are worth 87 percent of GDP.
Of all the domestic wealth in Norway, the government owns 59 percent, and fully three-quarters of the non-home wealth (as most Norwegians own their home).
Reliable statistics on the Venezuelan economy are hard to come by, but Norway is unquestionably more socialist than Venezuela according to the above definition.
Indeed, it is considerably more socialist than supposedly-communist China, where only 31 percent of national wealth is owned by the state.
Norway is not some destitute hellscape. Indeed, not only are Norwegian stores well-stocked with toilet paper, it is actually considerably more wealthy than the U.S., with a GDP of over $70,000 per person. Even when you correct for the moderately large oil sector (which accounts for a bit less than a quarter of its exports), it still has a cutting-edge, ultra-productive economy — far from some petro-state living off oil rents like Dubai.
Socially, it routinely ranks as the happiest (2017) or second-happiest (2018) country in the world. The rest of the Nordics are also usually among the top five as well — even more remarkable when you factor in the phenomenon of seasonal affective disorder and the extreme northerly position of the Scandinavian peninsula.
On a snapshot of other quality-of-life measures, Norway boasts:
A life expectancy of 81.7 years.
An infant mortality rate of two per 1,000 live births.
A murder rate of 0.51 per 100,000.
An incarceration rate of 74 per 100,000.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/29...out-socialism/