Although, in many aspects the Nordics often have more "free market" behaviours than the US. I am surprised by how many services are privatized (2/3 of roads in Sweden are privately operated!). And they face less arbitrary import restrictions!
No. The Nordic countries all have market economies.
dictionary.com: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.
merriam-webster.com: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy: Political system in which the (major) means of production are not in private or institutional hands, but under social control.
Wikipedia (just for the heck of it): Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership[1][2][3][4] of the means of production,[5][6][7][8] as opposed to private ownership.
I'm not "confusing socialism with communism". You're confusing "market economy with high levels of government spending" with "socialism".
Socialism is defined as the means of production owned by the state. So the Nordics aren't socialist by the classical definition. Welfare state or social democracy are better terms.
Owned or controlled by the state. You can have socialism without state ownership if the state has sufficient control. (And that means that socialism isn't binary - you can have degrees of state control.)
And ease of doing business isn't any less in these countries: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.EASE.XQ?most_rec...