Will Democrats End Up Falling Back on Failed 19th Century Ideas?

Many of the Democratic Presidential candidates who seemed less ideological and more about solving problems are now out of the race.  Most of the remaining candidates are those stuck in the ideological battle between Capitalism and Socialism that bedeviled the 19th and 20th Centuries.

I like most of the policies Bernie, Elizabeth and Joe advocate.  But I believe, as James Carville famously said, "its the economy stupid."  If we choose a candidate who cannot stabilize and increase long term economic growth as they level the playing with all their other proposals, Democrats could cede control back to the folks that caused all the problems they want to fix.

Bernie seems the most worrying.  Elizabeth at least professes to be a Capitalist.  Joe seems to have no particular economic ideas that aren't broadly held by all the Democratic candidates. 

From his campaign rhetoric Bernie seems incapable of thinking beyond the brand of socialism that ignores incentivizeing production in a favor of top down regulation by supposedly wise government regulators.  That was all the rage in Scandanavia in the 1970's.  But in the end they have retained a basic Capitalist model.  They have more humane models of capitalism but they are based primarily on private ownership of business, the state has a stake in relatively few companies.  

One of Bernies signature economic issues, requiring companies to provide stock to employees, was proposed and rejected in Scanadanavian countries.  Bernie  (and Elizabeth) want to tax corporations, financial transactions and create special taxes on wealth, all ideas that raise money by making life hard on entreprenuership and production, or tax static wealth easily hidden or moved out of the country.  

Scandanavians tend to follow the model the US followed from the 1930's to 1980 or so - they impose high taxes of wealth coming out of business into peoples pockets, less on the business and static wealth.  Why does Bernie want to flirt with Socialism when his own party has a highly successful history of economic performance rooted in graduated income tax rates?   

But there is another factor that suuggests what works in Scandanavia may not work here.  Social science research suggests that small countries that are dominated by one ethnic group are happier and more willing to support government programs for general public welfare.  Since the wave of immigrants began washing up on Scandanavian shores the last couple years even Scandanavian versions of social democracies are fraying at the seams.

Probably no country in the world is such a hodge-podge of ethnic and religious groups as we are.  Add a large population of citizens whose ancestors endured generations of slavery as our Constitution looked the other way and we have the polar opposite of scandanavian society.  Is Bernie the kind of unifying figure that can bridge all those gaps?  

Can he move beyond his fundemental (apparent) belief that rich folks are bad and need to be taxed and ignored?  Those nutcases that work 16 hour days to try to make a bajillion dollars provide much of the energy that drives our economy.  Sure we need better rules, but we should develop rules that channel their energy, not distract or frustrate it.