The White House CEA put out a fairly deranged report on socialism Tuesday. Alongside its discussion of the ways in which a national health program is reminiscent of Mao and Lenin, the report authors also spend a considerable amount of time on the Nordic countries.

The report’s overall position on the Nordic countries is a bit perplexing. On the one hand, they say that the Nordic countries are not actually very socialist. On the other hand, they spend a lot of the report saying the countries have terrible outcomes.

I have grown accustomed to seeing conservatives waffle between the claims that (1) the Nordic countries are socialist and have terrible outcomes and (2) the Nordic countries have good outcomes but are very capitalist. But I have never seen a conservative synthesize the two statements into the claim that (3) the Nordic countries are capitalist and have terrible outcomes. This statement neither makes the case for capitalism nor against socialism. If anything, it appears to say that capitalism is bad.