Bernie Sanders often cites Denmark as the kind of country he would like America to be under his ideology of “democratic socialism.” Well, here’s a news flash: Bernie Sanders, with his hostile attitudes toward free trade, free markets and multinational corporations, probably couldn’t get elected to a municipal council in Denmark today. Ironically, Joe Biden, with his more balanced views on trade, corporations and unions, probably could....

As the former Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen once remarked in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to those who might not fully grasp the Danish model: “I would like to make one thing clear, Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state, which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”....

Denmark did not become Denmark because of a revolution. It evolved where it is today through a steady iteration — unleashing its entrepreneurs on the world to generate as much wealth as they could while constantly forging a dialogue at home among all the stakeholders about how best to share enough of the profits to have a truly just safety net, while not destroying the free-market, free-trade engines of growth, and while maintaining a high sales tax so everyone contributes something.

If Denmark’s social contract is your model — and it’s a good one — then I’d trust Biden much more than Bernie to head us there.