Last night Anderson Cooper had his fun getting a dig in at Bernie with a cute debate about capitalism, and Bernie responded as we might have predicted: listing all the nice goodies in the Danish welfare state.

How should Bernie have responded? Well, he should have listed all those goodies -- and then he should have followed up that list by describing how all those goodies facilitate an incredibly vibrant Danish economy, one that is arguably more innovative than the United States.

But, wait, what is the conceptual framework for getting from free health care and generous unemployment insurance to a vibrant economy?

One word, one concept: flexicurity.

Here's what it means:



Flexicurity (a portmanteau of flexibility and security) is a welfare state model with a pro-active labour market policy. The term was first coined by the social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in the 1990s. Today, flexicurity is a key tenet of the Nordic Model. The term refers to the combination of labour market flexibility in a dynamic economy and security for workers. The Government of Denmark views flexicurity as entailing a “golden triangle” with a “three-sided mix of (1) flexibility in the labour market combined with (2) social security and (3) an active labour market policy with rights and obligations for the unemployed”. The European Commission considers flexicurity as an integrated strategy to simultaneously enhance flexibility and security in the labour market. Flexicurity is designed and implemented across four policy components: 1) flexible and reliable contractual arrangements;

2) comprehensive lifelong learning strategies;

3) effective active labour market policies; and

4) modern social security systems providing adequate income support during employment transitions. All this is done in a context of high minimum wage and high average wage, besides clear progressive taxation.

In short, Denmark isn't Italy (although Italy's social democratic prime minister, Matteo Renzi, is trying to adopt flexicurity-based reforms ) -- it isn't a country where it's almost impossible to fire people and young people suffer as a result. In contrast, in Denmark, it's very easy to be fired if you do a crappy job at work, but -- and this is key -- when you get fired, you will have some awesome supports in place, including lots of education and job training.

Flexicurity has been endorsed by the European Commission -- basically, Europe's executive branch -- as a model strategy for igniting growth while preserving social security.



Flexicurity, the strategy which aims to simultaneously strengthen flexibility and security in the labour market, has a key role to play in promoting jobs and growth – especially in these trying economic times. That is a key finding from the European Union’s “Mission for Flexicurity”, which toured five Member States during the summer of 2008. The awareness-raising visits to France, Sweden, Finland, Poland and Spain examined how flexicurity is being addressed and implemented in different countries, as well as helping the different labour market actors to take ownership of the process.

Basically, right now, those to the right of Bernie -- including Hillary -- will argue that the cost of the Nordic social model is high unemployment and slow economic growth. But that's just not true.

The secret sauce is flexicurity.

And if Bernie is serious about winning this primary as a true social democrat -- he's going to not only need to talk about the "goodies" of social democracy in isolation, but explain how those goodies transform both society and the economy for the betterment of everyone.

When Bernie starts having this discussion, he will demonstrate that he has a solid understanding of how to humanely and sustainably generate economic growth -- leveraging universal social security programs to create an ideal environment for entrepreneurs and job creators -- in an advanced post-industrial economy.