7 ms·

You Can't Have Denmark Without Danes

46 points by DanAndersen 9y ago

joncrane 9y ago
I've been a fan of the Scandinavian model for government for a while, and I used to be one of those guys who would say something like "in NORWAY they blah blah blah" when discussing some social/governmental in a small group. But later on I realized more deeply that Norway is a tiny fraction of the population of the USA as well as a very culturally (and let's face it, racially) homogeneous population. Similar arguments can be made about Denmark, of course.
- timecube 9y ago
  Social democratic policies tend to become more efficient with increased scale, so why would it be negative that the US is larger than Norway?
  - lvh 9y ago
    What is the largest contemporary social democratic government? Sweden is about twice the size of Norway. Is there evidence that it's getting scale benefits out of that?
  - arghwhat 9y ago
    A smaller country with low diversity results in more uniform opinions, I suppose? But, comparing Norway to the U.S.A. would be odd. From over here, the U.S.A. can be compared to the E.U., in which case the comparison should be between American states and European countries. Specifically for Norway, it would be like a state in the middle of the U.S.A. that never actually became part of the union, but with really good ties with everyone regardless.
    - lod723 9y ago
      You mean Norway is the Canada of the EU?
      - arghwhat 9y ago
        Sort of, yes. Just smaller, and in a local unions with the closest states of the U.S.A.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - JonnyNova 9y ago
    One of the downsides is that a larger system collects more money and becomes a much more ripe target for individuals looking to corrupt it.
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  What arguments are those, exactly? What's the significance of a smaller population or homogeneity? Has any such relation been rigorously studied, or is it just speculation?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Culture drives attitude and perception. People who look, worship (or not), work and have other things alike then to cluster together and have a sort of herd mentality. In a place like the US, we have dramatically different groups of people all over the place. In Norway or Denmark, the differences are nonexistent to an American eye.
    - Max-q 9y ago
      >In Norway or Denmark, the differences are nonexistent to an American eye. In Oslo, capital of Norway, 32% of the population are immigrants.
      - rayiner 9y ago
        And half of those are Europeans (often other Scandinavians). In contrast, in D.C., the capital of the United States, 52% of the population is of a racial minority that (overwhelmingly) is in the U.S. only because white Americans brought their ancestors over from Africa in slavery.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - lvh 9y ago
    Sure: here's a recent longitudinal study[0] that covers some of the previous work on correlation between diversity and social cohesion. [0]: https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcv081 https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcv081
  - jeromegv 9y ago
    Americans always tend to use homogeneity as an argument when they compare themselves with other countries, like it’s somehow a good argument not to be as good as other countries in some aspects. Like you, I doubt that this is actually relevant. Canada is nothing but diverse, in a very similar way to the US and somehow it’s never used an excuse.
- danielvf 9y ago
  For example, LA county alone has approximately twice as many people as the entire country of Norway.
- lvh 9y ago
  Norway also has two giant sovereign funds, which they use to fund pensions. The oil fund alone is worth almost 200k per Norwegian. That's not an argument you can make for Denmark, but yes: Norway is doing great. All you need is a small homogeneous population and a trillion dollars.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Norway's "Government Pension Fund" is NOT used to actually fund pensions. It is actually not funding anything right now, but absorbs the government's budget surplus resulting from the oil sector. As such, it's a net negative for most economic indicators currently, since Norway has chosen to defer the use of their wealth in fossil fuels.
    - lvh 9y ago
      Are you suggesting it's unusual or undesirable for a pension fund to not be paying out currently? If a country creates a sovereign wealth fund for when the proverbial and in this case literal well eventually dries up and it doesn't need to tap into that currently, and there's $200k for every citizen in that piggy bank, that seems like a pretty good thing for preventing social unrest and perhaps even promoting social cohesion. A 25 year old in Belgium or Greece or Spain has a lot more reason to worry there won't be anything left by the time it's their turn than someone in a country that _doesn't even have to use their largest fund yet_. Also, when you say "chosen to defer the use of their wealth", you mean "invest at a rate of about 6% annually"? As long as they're otherwise meeting all of their commitments, I'm not seeing the problem.
      - matt4077 9y ago
        Maybe read the comment I was replying to? They made the argument that Norway's economic success is caused by the fund. Which it is not. Because the fund is, to repeat myself, "a net negative currently, used to defer the use of the fossil fuel windfall for future times". To more directly answer your question: the fund is the sort of level-headed strategic genius that only a sane country like Norway could pull off. Compare Alaska.
- countrybama24 9y ago
  I think the argument is that those countries prove the policies work and are affordable and cost-effective. Whether or not Americans can support those policies in light of their skepticism towards government, individualism, and a particular political strategy used historically to court southern voters is a good question - but one that doesnt necessarily disprove the benefits of greater spending on social programs in the United States per se.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The Scandinavian model is much more than just "greater spending on social programs." Sweden and Denmark outrank the U.S. in the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking. Their tax system is very flat, with the top marginal rates kicking in at just 1.2-1.6x the average income: https://taxfoundation.org/how-scandinavian-countries-pay-their-government-spending https://taxfoundation.org/how-scandinavian-countries-pay-the.... The top 10% in Sweden make 25% of the total income and pay 25% of the total taxes, while in the U.S. they make 33% of the total income and pay 45% of total taxes. Their corporate tax rates are around what the U.S.'s will be under the Trump tax plan. They're also highly deregulatory. Denmark just got rid of its version of the FCC: http://reason.com/archives/2017/04/04/deregulate-the-fcc http://reason.com/archives/2017/04/04/deregulate-the-fcc. Sweden's approach to building fiber in rural areas is a simple tax rebate of up to $600 for rural folks who choose to have a fiber line built. There's serious discussion in Sweden of things like water privatization. So the challenge to implementing the "Scandinavian model" isn't just our "southern voters," who oppose more social spending, but also our "San Francisco voters," who insist on a narrow tax base bankrolling that broad social spending, more government intervention, etc. And ultimately, it comes down to lack of trust. Americans don't trust each other, probably with good reason. Take abortion, for example. In Denmark, like most western European countries, abortion is only permitted up to 12 weeks absent special circumstances. And parental consent is required for minors. In Sweden it's 22 weeks, which is an outlier for Europe. In the U.S., 12 weeks with parental consent would probably be unconstitutional. Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, etc., match Sweden at 22 weeks, and most blue states are at 24-26 weeks. But in Scandinavia, there is some level of consensus, and abortions are readily available to women under 12 weeks. Even in "blue states," while one side has managed to wrangle 51% of the votes and get a 24-week deadline, the other side has managed to erect roadblocks like restrictions on abortion clinics, which make it very difficult for women to actually get an abortion when they're legally permitted to do so. We're a fragmented and distrustful society that doesn't trust each other, and our stalemates often leave us with the "worst of both worlds."
- matt4077 9y ago
  What do you mean by "let's face it, racially"? Are people incapable of trusting others of a different skin colour?
  - lvh 9y ago
    It is objectively true that Norway, compared to the US, is a racial monoculture. Sociological evidence suggests ethnic diversity correlates negatively with social cohesion, though recent studies also suggests that while causal, the effect depends significantly on their prior preferences. That's not saying "people can not trust others of a different skin color", but it is saying that generally speaking, people in more ethnically diverse communities are less trusting of each other. Call that what you will :)
  - JonnyNova 9y ago
    It isn't just about skin color, it is about in-group favoritism. Most people tend to seek out similarities to others in groups depending on the context. Could be sex, race, profession, hobbies, interests, etc. There definitely is a scale of how people treat those they have categorized as out-group as well.
- jacobr 9y ago
  It's not true that Scandinavian countries are homogeneous. 30% in Sweden are either born abroad or have at least 1 parent born abroad. Even more obviously have some non-Swedish cultural background or influence.
  - circadiam 9y ago
    I see this point raised a lot but the stat is fueled by Western immigrigants—not non-Western immigrants. You can’t count a bunch of blonde German & French doctors and engineers as disrupting the fabric of society. Denmark has less than 4% non-Western immigrants while the US has nearly 25%.
  - jchb 9y ago
    This is a pretty recent phenomena. The first large immigration wave came in the end of the 60s [0]. Before that, the few foreign born citizens where mostly from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. Until 2017, the largest group among foreign born Swedish citizens where.. Finnish. Now, that although that has changed, the article mentions the large immigrant population isn't well integrated in society in Denmark, well they aren't in Sweden either. It would be fair to say that there are multiple parallel societies. Political and business life is to a large extent dominated by ethnic Swedes. [0] http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/the-future-population-of-sweden-20162060/immigration-and-emigration-and-forecast/ http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subjec...
  - prepend 9y ago
    Foreign born includes Danes and Norwegians so trying to disprove the claim that Sweden is socially homogenous by pointing out that there are Finns and Danes, doesn’t make your argument convincing. I think what makes a comparison difficult with the US is the difference race and ethnicity make between countries (eg, Sweden and US). In the US there are many negative correlations with race and ethnicity that make diversity comparisons simple to make (although not necessarily accurate). So people can easily look for diversity by just checking race demographics. It’s also difficult because some people talking about race are racists who have incorrect beliefs, but it’s hard to tell who’s who at first. When looking at Sweden it’s not straightforward to look at race and I couldn’t even find solid numbers that describe Sweden by race, although only spent a few minutes googling. But in the US, racial demographics are immediately available. If you compare nation of birth != Sweden that’s not necessarily useful comparing to the US as it includes other culturally similar peoples (eg, Norwegians). It would be like saying New York is diverse because it includes lots of people born in Connecticut while not breaking out those born in Somalia. The comparison that is relevant is what are the diverse cultures, specifically those from lower socioeconomic status. Unless you can check that mix, then it’s not very useful to compare and make claims. Of course, the purpose of comparison isn’t to achieve some sort of purity goal, that’s insane. But to identify what interventions are most effective based on cultural composition. While theoretically a country would higher social cohesion by getting rid of all the different peoples (Denmark pretty much did this is WW2 with the help of the Nazis). This is short sighted (hurts World to help country) and immoral (genocide is bad).
- Eupolemos 9y ago
  Dane here. I think this article gets something right, pointing out trust. Another word would be "solidarity" - believing you 'owe' your fellow countryman and that you are on the same team. What's good for you is good for me. In Denmark, we pay something like 50% tax but we also get a lot of things covered by our state which other countries let the individuals get through expensive insurance. This means that if my neighbour get rich, I'm happy since that means a better school for my (and his) children, help for my (and his) old parents, roads that gets fixed etc. (Edit: some of the money goes to the state and EU, while a healthy chunk stays in the municipality - this keeps the money close) My point: it only works if people are indeed on the same team. That is why big nations are a detriment to this model. If the taxes disappear into black holes, negligent waste and corruption the system crumbles quickly. And as we all know, it takes much longer time to build trust that to kill it. It is a constant battle (which right now, it feels like we're losing, but that doesn't matter for this post). Can big nations like the U.S. copy this? Well, Denmark is about the size of your average state. So yeah, if each state made an effort to make the public sector make sense internally on state level, it could. I don't think it will, though. The cultural gap is too wide and expecting people to always be looking out for number one isn't seen as a bad thing. Just remember that Danes/Scandinavians aren't better people than others (except Swedes; we're ALL better than Swedes!). It is a matter of choice and goals.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > Just remember that Danes/Scandinavians aren't better people than others I'm not sure I buy that. Say you're tasked with planning and building a whole new city in an isolated place. Do you want to bring along 10,000 randomly-selected Bangladeshis, or 10,000 randomly-selected Danes? As a Bangladeshi myself, I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat. I think you can fairly blame circumstance for it, but at the end of the day, Bangladeshi culture has a higher tolerance for corruption, theocracy, opportunism, etc., than European cultures I have experienced. (But I'm biased--2/3 of Bangladeshis think I should be executed for apostasy. The odds are not in my favor!) Also, in Denmark, the standard sentence for murder is like 12 years, while in America you can get 12 years for far less. We voted for that. Doesn't that make Danes better than Americans?
- acct1771 9y ago
  And it works incredibly well for them. It's almost as if trying to centrally plan for dozens of drastically different types of societies and regions isn't efficient, or as effective as a smaller, actually representative government or something. Just ask the USSR. Maybe we could break up the US into some sort of territories, so like-minded people could gather, and govern themselves based on local needs...
  - Thriptic 9y ago
    The problem with this is that there are clearly certain groups who are far more economically productive than other groups. It would only be a matter of time before conflict broke out.
    - acct1771 9y ago
      Counterpoint: the EU.
PhilipA 9y ago
Being from Denmark, but living in the US now, I see the main problem with Denmark that a lot of people are complacent. While the system works now, I doubt it will be positive in the long run. We are not hungry enough, and for too many people right now it isn't worth it to work (Too little difference between working wage and welfare). Again, this is just a few negative statements, there are lot of positive areas (Free hospitals and education comes to mind). If we could just be less complacent we would have a lot better future.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  You say that the main problem with Denmark is that people is complacent, but you don't explain why being complacent is a problem. Is it so bad that people have "complacent" lives when there is enough resources? Maybe, people should aspire to a life of heroic struggled nevermind the circumstances?
  - PhilipA 9y ago
    Being complacent is 'perfect' from a state of mind - don't get me wrong, this is why we are happy. The issue is that people who are complacent are not as hungry, and we need a bit of the hunger and drive to continue to have the wealth that we have been used to.
    - RobertoG 9y ago
      It seems to me that wealth come from two sources: capital accumulation (I'm not talking about money here) and knowledge accumulation. How do you expect to lose those? If something, I would expect they increase and that allowing people to be even more 'complacent'.
- arghwhat 9y ago
  At the same time, being from Denmark, I also think we have a strong tendency for never being satisfied. I do have a negative mindset against I welfare system and its lack of work incentive, though. I feel like it should be handled differently, such as through not giving you money, but rather feeding you directly. A system that ensures health and survival, nothing more. I still remember the voice of some people being interviewed when some welfare rates fell: "I have to sell my car now!", "Why does my living standard have to be reduced just because I don't have a job?", "I'm not going to accept a job at Netto, I'm too well educated for that"... (For outsiders not understanding the "sell my car thing": Denmark is very bicycle oriented, and have very good public transportation. Cars are only a necessity if you live in the middle of nowhere.)
mrweasel 9y ago
The trust that Danes have towards other people is slowly eroding, and it is making us increasingly xenophobic. It's not that there aren't criminal or untrustworthy Danes, of cause there is, but it's easier to blame outsiders, like immigrants and roaming eastern European gangs. As the article points out, we're struggling to absorb outsiders. Teaching a Romanian immigrant, or a refugee from the middle east that it's completely safe to trust others is extremely hard. Likewise when an outsider break that trust Danes become extremely upset and hostile. We're also becoming increasingly distrusting of other Danes, as people seem to become increasingly self-centred. This was a debate in a radio show a few weeks ago, sadly the reason wasn't discussed, only the danger of losing trust. Trust is hard to build, and our government is increasingly looking towards control and surveillance to ensure safety instead. Stores are moving certain items up to the register, because thieve simply walk out with entire boxes of Nutella or instant coffee. As a Dane this is extremely disheartening to watch. The feeling that the safe, stable, equal and embracing society, you grew up in, is slowly evaporating isn't a pleasant one.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  So, here's what I don't understand? If it causes societal trouble why let all these troublesome groups in? Does Denmark have some long history as a "nation of immigrants" like the United States does or is this some sort of self-inflicted punishment?
  - nextos 9y ago
    Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated. The problem comes from the recent wave and semi-open borders within EU that make it easy for some mafias to move into the country to commit crime. It's a tought problem.
    - rsync 9y ago
      "Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated." I met a group of young, liberal, well-educated Danes on a trip to Japan once and later, accepted their invitation to visit Denmark, where I stayed for about ten days. Make no mistake - these were picture-perfect Copenhagen Danes with exactly the liberal and progressive bent that you would expect and they were quite well educated and relatively wealthy (one of them even had a car!). These people did not beat around the bush: they can't stand "the turks", they don't understand why they are there or why they behave the way they do and they cannot believe that their society has been infiltrated in this way. It wasn't hateful, or even racist per se ... just a very pragmatic rejection of events. This was in 2004 - I can't imagine they feel any better now.
giovannicarruba 9y ago
I wonder why five islamic terrorist attacks didn't seem to have any impact on Denmark, while France and Germany have escalated their police states to incredible levels. Is it also because of all the trust? Do people in Denmark maybe trust that the police will catch the perpetrators, while we in Germany know that the Police no longer even tries to catch petty thieves and could never be trusted to avoid a terrorist plot?
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  "Keep calm and carry on" isn't just a UK thing. If we let ourselves live in fear, we've lost.
- scarlac 9y ago
  Dane here. I live 500 meters from one of the attacks. I've been happy with how the police has handled the terrorist situations. I do not fear going past the place of the attack - it's not a trend. We have no guns allowed, no large knives, no pepper spray, etc. In terms of effective anti-terrorist means, I don't see what I could ask of politicians. What usually happens is terrorist attacks put immigration on the political agenda. In that sense I don't see Denmark reacting much differently than USA, France, or others, where immigrants are sometimes directly accused of being terrorists, stealing jobs, stealing the women, stealing welfare, etc.
torpfactory 9y ago
I think you see these effects in microcosm throughout the US as well. I grew up in Wisconsin and there were definitely many similarities: * Campfire wood for sale next to the highway with an unlocked mailbox for your payment (everyone else's payment just sitting there...). * Car stuck in the snowbank? Every time it happened to me, the very first car to come along has stopped to help dig it out. * At least in rural areas: many people did not lock their doors. Why would they? No need to. Definitely the best piece of writing I have seen in some time about one of the Scandinavian countries that American liberals (of which I count myself a member) always hold up as ideals. The model only works in the context of a society that doesn't _need_ as much assistance, regulation, or policing. The author makes a persuasive argument that high levels of trust are an important, or maybe the defining feature of this society.
- DanAndersen 9y ago
  A couple summers back, I went to a state park in rural Indiana, where there was a working farm set up to resemble historical 1920s Midwestern life. The farm and its farmhouse were almost completely deserted except for myself, and I remember being struck by the fact that there was a large amount of homegrown produce for sale in the house completely on an honor system. Just a pile of squash on a kitchen table with a sign indicating price and a glass jar with money in it. It was a small thing, but it was great to see that that was possible, and it felt good for me to join in.
namlem 9y ago
Denmark is not the only country we should be comparing to. What about Canada and New Zealand? Both Anglosphere countries with pretty diverse populations.
- JonnyNova 9y ago
  Is we referring to the United States?
deleted 9y ago
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DanAndersen 9y ago
A tangential concept that might be of interest to the commenters is the Arabic term "asabiyyah" [0]: >`Asabiyya or asabiyyah (Arabic: عصبيّة) refers to social solidarity with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness and sense of shared purpose, and social cohesion,[1] originally in a context of "tribalism" and "clanism". The 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun talked about it in a cyclical sense, related to rise and fall of civilizations, and had dire descriptions about when societies lost asabiyyah. In general, it's a sort of group feeling or solidarity, a sense that you and those around you are on the same side and have each other's backs -- as opposed to a society where you don't know your neighbors and you just happen to live among a bunch of other people who have no aligned interests or goals. Even the so-called "rugged individualism" mythos of early pioneer/settler American colonists still was embedded in nested layers of communal structure, layers that can seem invisible when you're constantly immersed in it. What I think makes this and the Denmark article interesting is that they're trying to point at a concept that is inherently fuzzy and qualitative (how do you measure units of social cohesion?), and yet seems to play an important role in how a social system works. Tweaking a policy knob here or adjusting a legislative knob there may have influences on this, but the possible effects are constrained and filtered through the ever-present culture. Everything is part of the system (think about the laws we have in which implicit expectation of selective enforcement is what makes it even functional, like speeding). People are both code (their DNA) and its expression in the environment (epigenetics). Programming teams are both the tools they use (IDEs, source control, Agile, etc) and the fuzzy culture that makes it work well in Company A and fail utterly when trying to apply it to Company B. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asabiyyah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asabiyyah
rdiddly 9y ago
I notice the absorption of outsiders is portrayed as a goal, implying that it's an unalloyed good, beyond question. Is there some good reason to think that? I mean America prides itself on it, but is there any good reason to think that (for example) Danes should be responsible for non-Danes? Or on a basic level, what's wrong with having places exist in the world where the people there are mostly from there? Isn't that what a nation is? And wouldn't the people of such a place tend to exercise their sovereignty to decide, based on whatever criteria they want to use, how many and which people they allow to join the club? I dunno... Sure wish we could have a rational discussion about it, without it degenerating into nationalist race-baiting on the one side and jumping to conclusions and cries of xenophobia on the other.
- rayiner 9y ago
  If you're going to accept outsiders, you need to integrate them. That's always been one of America's strengths--putting together a somewhat governable country out of ethnic groups that had long been at war with each other in their home countries (German, English, Irish, etc.), oh, and had enslaved each other's ancestors (African Americans). You don't need to accept outside immigration. Japan and Korea are very nice countries that are almost completely ethnically homogenous. They're not good at integrating foreigners, but they don't accept them anyway so it's moot. But on the flip side, that probably dooms you to dying out as a civilization as your birth rate falls below replacement levels...
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    > You don't need to accept outside immigration. Japan and Korea are very nice countries that are almost completely ethnically homogeneous. You need to accept immigration if you want your economy to grow and be sustainable. Japan is an example of what happens if you don't--just look at the Nikkei 225 after 1990.
- Thriptic 9y ago
  I don't think it's a problem at all for places to be culturally or ethnically homogenous. I would say the primary advantage of integration and diversity is that no culture is perfect in every way, and cross pollination allows for the best parts of each culture to be recognized and used. That being said, cultural exchange relies on a decently high degree of overlap between cultures to establish kinship and trust. There are definitely cultures which are so different that they cannot exist well in close proximity, and so it's inefficient to try to force them to.
hirundo 9y ago
The internet is trumping geography. As we live progressively more of our lives online, we interact with progressively more different people. It becomes progressively less important how much trust we have for our meatspace neighbors. Most of us have had oodles of conversations and economic transactions with people on other continents while the people next door remain strangers. With all of that online interacting, global interpersonal trust may rise, but won't approach Danish levels in our lifetimes. We cannot base our social systems on trust. But we can base them on transparency, which, eventually, builds trust.
rsync 9y ago
You can have perfect trains and bicycles everywhere or you can invent jazz and snowboarding. You can't do both. As someone who lives in the US but does business, and travels, in Europe frequently, I would prefer that the immigrants come to the melting pot (the US) and that the European countries retain their distinctiveness.
- justin66 9y ago
  > You can have perfect trains and bicycles everywhere or you can invent jazz and snowboarding. You can't do both. Baffling.
sprash 9y ago
High trust societies are the way they are because of genetic traits of its citizens. Especially in Scandinavian and other northern countries for tens of thousands of years the individual was only able to survive the long winter when it was able to think ahead and to cooperate in large groups. Like the skin color that fact must have some evolutionary impact for behavior. However those are things of the past. Bringing in migrants from low trust societies will once and for all destroy this culture of trust. Every integration measure so far has failed the past and will fail in the future as long as people ignore the fact that it takes certain strictly inheritable traits to be part of those communities.

46 points by DanAndersen 9y ago

I've been a fan of the Scandinavian model for government for a while, and I used to be one of those guys who would say something like "in NORWAY they blah blah blah" when discussing some social/governmental in a small group. But later on I realized more deeply that Norway is a tiny fraction of the population of the USA as well as a very culturally (and let's face it, racially) homogeneous population. Similar arguments can be made about Denmark, of course.

timecube 9y ago
Social democratic policies tend to become more efficient with increased scale, so why would it be negative that the US is larger than Norway?
- lvh 9y ago
  What is the largest contemporary social democratic government? Sweden is about twice the size of Norway. Is there evidence that it's getting scale benefits out of that?
- arghwhat 9y ago
  A smaller country with low diversity results in more uniform opinions, I suppose? But, comparing Norway to the U.S.A. would be odd. From over here, the U.S.A. can be compared to the E.U., in which case the comparison should be between American states and European countries. Specifically for Norway, it would be like a state in the middle of the U.S.A. that never actually became part of the union, but with really good ties with everyone regardless.
  - lod723 9y ago
    You mean Norway is the Canada of the EU?
    - arghwhat 9y ago
      Sort of, yes. Just smaller, and in a local unions with the closest states of the U.S.A.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- JonnyNova 9y ago
  One of the downsides is that a larger system collects more money and becomes a much more ripe target for individuals looking to corrupt it.
0xcde4c3db 9y ago
What arguments are those, exactly? What's the significance of a smaller population or homogeneity? Has any such relation been rigorously studied, or is it just speculation?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Culture drives attitude and perception. People who look, worship (or not), work and have other things alike then to cluster together and have a sort of herd mentality. In a place like the US, we have dramatically different groups of people all over the place. In Norway or Denmark, the differences are nonexistent to an American eye.
  - Max-q 9y ago
    >In Norway or Denmark, the differences are nonexistent to an American eye. In Oslo, capital of Norway, 32% of the population are immigrants.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      And half of those are Europeans (often other Scandinavians). In contrast, in D.C., the capital of the United States, 52% of the population is of a racial minority that (overwhelmingly) is in the U.S. only because white Americans brought their ancestors over from Africa in slavery.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lvh 9y ago
  Sure: here's a recent longitudinal study[0] that covers some of the previous work on correlation between diversity and social cohesion. [0]: https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcv081 https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcv081
- jeromegv 9y ago
  Americans always tend to use homogeneity as an argument when they compare themselves with other countries, like it’s somehow a good argument not to be as good as other countries in some aspects. Like you, I doubt that this is actually relevant. Canada is nothing but diverse, in a very similar way to the US and somehow it’s never used an excuse.
danielvf 9y ago
For example, LA county alone has approximately twice as many people as the entire country of Norway.
lvh 9y ago
Norway also has two giant sovereign funds, which they use to fund pensions. The oil fund alone is worth almost 200k per Norwegian. That's not an argument you can make for Denmark, but yes: Norway is doing great. All you need is a small homogeneous population and a trillion dollars.
- matt4077 9y ago
  Norway's "Government Pension Fund" is NOT used to actually fund pensions. It is actually not funding anything right now, but absorbs the government's budget surplus resulting from the oil sector. As such, it's a net negative for most economic indicators currently, since Norway has chosen to defer the use of their wealth in fossil fuels.
  - lvh 9y ago
    Are you suggesting it's unusual or undesirable for a pension fund to not be paying out currently? If a country creates a sovereign wealth fund for when the proverbial and in this case literal well eventually dries up and it doesn't need to tap into that currently, and there's $200k for every citizen in that piggy bank, that seems like a pretty good thing for preventing social unrest and perhaps even promoting social cohesion. A 25 year old in Belgium or Greece or Spain has a lot more reason to worry there won't be anything left by the time it's their turn than someone in a country that _doesn't even have to use their largest fund yet_. Also, when you say "chosen to defer the use of their wealth", you mean "invest at a rate of about 6% annually"? As long as they're otherwise meeting all of their commitments, I'm not seeing the problem.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Maybe read the comment I was replying to? They made the argument that Norway's economic success is caused by the fund. Which it is not. Because the fund is, to repeat myself, "a net negative currently, used to defer the use of the fossil fuel windfall for future times". To more directly answer your question: the fund is the sort of level-headed strategic genius that only a sane country like Norway could pull off. Compare Alaska.
countrybama24 9y ago
I think the argument is that those countries prove the policies work and are affordable and cost-effective. Whether or not Americans can support those policies in light of their skepticism towards government, individualism, and a particular political strategy used historically to court southern voters is a good question - but one that doesnt necessarily disprove the benefits of greater spending on social programs in the United States per se.
- rayiner 9y ago
  The Scandinavian model is much more than just "greater spending on social programs." Sweden and Denmark outrank the U.S. in the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking. Their tax system is very flat, with the top marginal rates kicking in at just 1.2-1.6x the average income: https://taxfoundation.org/how-scandinavian-countries-pay-their-government-spending https://taxfoundation.org/how-scandinavian-countries-pay-the.... The top 10% in Sweden make 25% of the total income and pay 25% of the total taxes, while in the U.S. they make 33% of the total income and pay 45% of total taxes. Their corporate tax rates are around what the U.S.'s will be under the Trump tax plan. They're also highly deregulatory. Denmark just got rid of its version of the FCC: http://reason.com/archives/2017/04/04/deregulate-the-fcc http://reason.com/archives/2017/04/04/deregulate-the-fcc. Sweden's approach to building fiber in rural areas is a simple tax rebate of up to $600 for rural folks who choose to have a fiber line built. There's serious discussion in Sweden of things like water privatization. So the challenge to implementing the "Scandinavian model" isn't just our "southern voters," who oppose more social spending, but also our "San Francisco voters," who insist on a narrow tax base bankrolling that broad social spending, more government intervention, etc. And ultimately, it comes down to lack of trust. Americans don't trust each other, probably with good reason. Take abortion, for example. In Denmark, like most western European countries, abortion is only permitted up to 12 weeks absent special circumstances. And parental consent is required for minors. In Sweden it's 22 weeks, which is an outlier for Europe. In the U.S., 12 weeks with parental consent would probably be unconstitutional. Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, etc., match Sweden at 22 weeks, and most blue states are at 24-26 weeks. But in Scandinavia, there is some level of consensus, and abortions are readily available to women under 12 weeks. Even in "blue states," while one side has managed to wrangle 51% of the votes and get a 24-week deadline, the other side has managed to erect roadblocks like restrictions on abortion clinics, which make it very difficult for women to actually get an abortion when they're legally permitted to do so. We're a fragmented and distrustful society that doesn't trust each other, and our stalemates often leave us with the "worst of both worlds."
matt4077 9y ago
What do you mean by "let's face it, racially"? Are people incapable of trusting others of a different skin colour?
- lvh 9y ago
  It is objectively true that Norway, compared to the US, is a racial monoculture. Sociological evidence suggests ethnic diversity correlates negatively with social cohesion, though recent studies also suggests that while causal, the effect depends significantly on their prior preferences. That's not saying "people can not trust others of a different skin color", but it is saying that generally speaking, people in more ethnically diverse communities are less trusting of each other. Call that what you will :)
- JonnyNova 9y ago
  It isn't just about skin color, it is about in-group favoritism. Most people tend to seek out similarities to others in groups depending on the context. Could be sex, race, profession, hobbies, interests, etc. There definitely is a scale of how people treat those they have categorized as out-group as well.
jacobr 9y ago
It's not true that Scandinavian countries are homogeneous. 30% in Sweden are either born abroad or have at least 1 parent born abroad. Even more obviously have some non-Swedish cultural background or influence.
- circadiam 9y ago
  I see this point raised a lot but the stat is fueled by Western immigrigants—not non-Western immigrants. You can’t count a bunch of blonde German & French doctors and engineers as disrupting the fabric of society. Denmark has less than 4% non-Western immigrants while the US has nearly 25%.
- jchb 9y ago
  This is a pretty recent phenomena. The first large immigration wave came in the end of the 60s [0]. Before that, the few foreign born citizens where mostly from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. Until 2017, the largest group among foreign born Swedish citizens where.. Finnish. Now, that although that has changed, the article mentions the large immigrant population isn't well integrated in society in Denmark, well they aren't in Sweden either. It would be fair to say that there are multiple parallel societies. Political and business life is to a large extent dominated by ethnic Swedes. [0] http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/the-future-population-of-sweden-20162060/immigration-and-emigration-and-forecast/ http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subjec...
- prepend 9y ago
  Foreign born includes Danes and Norwegians so trying to disprove the claim that Sweden is socially homogenous by pointing out that there are Finns and Danes, doesn’t make your argument convincing. I think what makes a comparison difficult with the US is the difference race and ethnicity make between countries (eg, Sweden and US). In the US there are many negative correlations with race and ethnicity that make diversity comparisons simple to make (although not necessarily accurate). So people can easily look for diversity by just checking race demographics. It’s also difficult because some people talking about race are racists who have incorrect beliefs, but it’s hard to tell who’s who at first. When looking at Sweden it’s not straightforward to look at race and I couldn’t even find solid numbers that describe Sweden by race, although only spent a few minutes googling. But in the US, racial demographics are immediately available. If you compare nation of birth != Sweden that’s not necessarily useful comparing to the US as it includes other culturally similar peoples (eg, Norwegians). It would be like saying New York is diverse because it includes lots of people born in Connecticut while not breaking out those born in Somalia. The comparison that is relevant is what are the diverse cultures, specifically those from lower socioeconomic status. Unless you can check that mix, then it’s not very useful to compare and make claims. Of course, the purpose of comparison isn’t to achieve some sort of purity goal, that’s insane. But to identify what interventions are most effective based on cultural composition. While theoretically a country would higher social cohesion by getting rid of all the different peoples (Denmark pretty much did this is WW2 with the help of the Nazis). This is short sighted (hurts World to help country) and immoral (genocide is bad).
Eupolemos 9y ago
Dane here. I think this article gets something right, pointing out trust. Another word would be "solidarity" - believing you 'owe' your fellow countryman and that you are on the same team. What's good for you is good for me. In Denmark, we pay something like 50% tax but we also get a lot of things covered by our state which other countries let the individuals get through expensive insurance. This means that if my neighbour get rich, I'm happy since that means a better school for my (and his) children, help for my (and his) old parents, roads that gets fixed etc. (Edit: some of the money goes to the state and EU, while a healthy chunk stays in the municipality - this keeps the money close) My point: it only works if people are indeed on the same team. That is why big nations are a detriment to this model. If the taxes disappear into black holes, negligent waste and corruption the system crumbles quickly. And as we all know, it takes much longer time to build trust that to kill it. It is a constant battle (which right now, it feels like we're losing, but that doesn't matter for this post). Can big nations like the U.S. copy this? Well, Denmark is about the size of your average state. So yeah, if each state made an effort to make the public sector make sense internally on state level, it could. I don't think it will, though. The cultural gap is too wide and expecting people to always be looking out for number one isn't seen as a bad thing. Just remember that Danes/Scandinavians aren't better people than others (except Swedes; we're ALL better than Swedes!). It is a matter of choice and goals.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > Just remember that Danes/Scandinavians aren't better people than others I'm not sure I buy that. Say you're tasked with planning and building a whole new city in an isolated place. Do you want to bring along 10,000 randomly-selected Bangladeshis, or 10,000 randomly-selected Danes? As a Bangladeshi myself, I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat. I think you can fairly blame circumstance for it, but at the end of the day, Bangladeshi culture has a higher tolerance for corruption, theocracy, opportunism, etc., than European cultures I have experienced. (But I'm biased--2/3 of Bangladeshis think I should be executed for apostasy. The odds are not in my favor!) Also, in Denmark, the standard sentence for murder is like 12 years, while in America you can get 12 years for far less. We voted for that. Doesn't that make Danes better than Americans?
acct1771 9y ago
And it works incredibly well for them. It's almost as if trying to centrally plan for dozens of drastically different types of societies and regions isn't efficient, or as effective as a smaller, actually representative government or something. Just ask the USSR. Maybe we could break up the US into some sort of territories, so like-minded people could gather, and govern themselves based on local needs...
- Thriptic 9y ago
  The problem with this is that there are clearly certain groups who are far more economically productive than other groups. It would only be a matter of time before conflict broke out.
  - acct1771 9y ago
    Counterpoint: the EU.

PhilipA 9y ago

Being from Denmark, but living in the US now, I see the main problem with Denmark that a lot of people are complacent. While the system works now, I doubt it will be positive in the long run. We are not hungry enough, and for too many people right now it isn't worth it to work (Too little difference between working wage and welfare). Again, this is just a few negative statements, there are lot of positive areas (Free hospitals and education comes to mind). If we could just be less complacent we would have a lot better future.

RobertoG 9y ago
You say that the main problem with Denmark is that people is complacent, but you don't explain why being complacent is a problem. Is it so bad that people have "complacent" lives when there is enough resources? Maybe, people should aspire to a life of heroic struggled nevermind the circumstances?
- PhilipA 9y ago
  Being complacent is 'perfect' from a state of mind - don't get me wrong, this is why we are happy. The issue is that people who are complacent are not as hungry, and we need a bit of the hunger and drive to continue to have the wealth that we have been used to.
  - RobertoG 9y ago
    It seems to me that wealth come from two sources: capital accumulation (I'm not talking about money here) and knowledge accumulation. How do you expect to lose those? If something, I would expect they increase and that allowing people to be even more 'complacent'.
arghwhat 9y ago
At the same time, being from Denmark, I also think we have a strong tendency for never being satisfied. I do have a negative mindset against I welfare system and its lack of work incentive, though. I feel like it should be handled differently, such as through not giving you money, but rather feeding you directly. A system that ensures health and survival, nothing more. I still remember the voice of some people being interviewed when some welfare rates fell: "I have to sell my car now!", "Why does my living standard have to be reduced just because I don't have a job?", "I'm not going to accept a job at Netto, I'm too well educated for that"... (For outsiders not understanding the "sell my car thing": Denmark is very bicycle oriented, and have very good public transportation. Cars are only a necessity if you live in the middle of nowhere.)

mrweasel 9y ago

The trust that Danes have towards other people is slowly eroding, and it is making us increasingly xenophobic. It's not that there aren't criminal or untrustworthy Danes, of cause there is, but it's easier to blame outsiders, like immigrants and roaming eastern European gangs. As the article points out, we're struggling to absorb outsiders. Teaching a Romanian immigrant, or a refugee from the middle east that it's completely safe to trust others is extremely hard. Likewise when an outsider break that trust Danes become extremely upset and hostile. We're also becoming increasingly distrusting of other Danes, as people seem to become increasingly self-centred. This was a debate in a radio show a few weeks ago, sadly the reason wasn't discussed, only the danger of losing trust. Trust is hard to build, and our government is increasingly looking towards control and surveillance to ensure safety instead. Stores are moving certain items up to the register, because thieve simply walk out with entire boxes of Nutella or instant coffee. As a Dane this is extremely disheartening to watch. The feeling that the safe, stable, equal and embracing society, you grew up in, is slowly evaporating isn't a pleasant one.

mieseratte 9y ago
So, here's what I don't understand? If it causes societal trouble why let all these troublesome groups in? Does Denmark have some long history as a "nation of immigrants" like the United States does or is this some sort of self-inflicted punishment?
- nextos 9y ago
  Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated. The problem comes from the recent wave and semi-open borders within EU that make it easy for some mafias to move into the country to commit crime. It's a tought problem.
  - rsync 9y ago
    "Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated." I met a group of young, liberal, well-educated Danes on a trip to Japan once and later, accepted their invitation to visit Denmark, where I stayed for about ten days. Make no mistake - these were picture-perfect Copenhagen Danes with exactly the liberal and progressive bent that you would expect and they were quite well educated and relatively wealthy (one of them even had a car!). These people did not beat around the bush: they can't stand "the turks", they don't understand why they are there or why they behave the way they do and they cannot believe that their society has been infiltrated in this way. It wasn't hateful, or even racist per se ... just a very pragmatic rejection of events. This was in 2004 - I can't imagine they feel any better now.

giovannicarruba 9y ago

I wonder why five islamic terrorist attacks didn't seem to have any impact on Denmark, while France and Germany have escalated their police states to incredible levels. Is it also because of all the trust? Do people in Denmark maybe trust that the police will catch the perpetrators, while we in Germany know that the Police no longer even tries to catch petty thieves and could never be trusted to avoid a terrorist plot?

KozmoNau7 9y ago
"Keep calm and carry on" isn't just a UK thing. If we let ourselves live in fear, we've lost.
scarlac 9y ago
Dane here. I live 500 meters from one of the attacks. I've been happy with how the police has handled the terrorist situations. I do not fear going past the place of the attack - it's not a trend. We have no guns allowed, no large knives, no pepper spray, etc. In terms of effective anti-terrorist means, I don't see what I could ask of politicians. What usually happens is terrorist attacks put immigration on the political agenda. In that sense I don't see Denmark reacting much differently than USA, France, or others, where immigrants are sometimes directly accused of being terrorists, stealing jobs, stealing the women, stealing welfare, etc.

torpfactory 9y ago

I think you see these effects in microcosm throughout the US as well. I grew up in Wisconsin and there were definitely many similarities: * Campfire wood for sale next to the highway with an unlocked mailbox for your payment (everyone else's payment just sitting there...). * Car stuck in the snowbank? Every time it happened to me, the very first car to come along has stopped to help dig it out. * At least in rural areas: many people did not lock their doors. Why would they? No need to. Definitely the best piece of writing I have seen in some time about one of the Scandinavian countries that American liberals (of which I count myself a member) always hold up as ideals. The model only works in the context of a society that doesn't _need_ as much assistance, regulation, or policing. The author makes a persuasive argument that high levels of trust are an important, or maybe the defining feature of this society.

DanAndersen 9y ago
A couple summers back, I went to a state park in rural Indiana, where there was a working farm set up to resemble historical 1920s Midwestern life. The farm and its farmhouse were almost completely deserted except for myself, and I remember being struck by the fact that there was a large amount of homegrown produce for sale in the house completely on an honor system. Just a pile of squash on a kitchen table with a sign indicating price and a glass jar with money in it. It was a small thing, but it was great to see that that was possible, and it felt good for me to join in.

namlem 9y ago

Denmark is not the only country we should be comparing to. What about Canada and New Zealand? Both Anglosphere countries with pretty diverse populations.

JonnyNova 9y ago
Is we referring to the United States?

deleted 9y ago

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DanAndersen 9y ago

A tangential concept that might be of interest to the commenters is the Arabic term "asabiyyah" [0]: >`Asabiyya or asabiyyah (Arabic: عصبيّة) refers to social solidarity with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness and sense of shared purpose, and social cohesion,[1] originally in a context of "tribalism" and "clanism". The 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun talked about it in a cyclical sense, related to rise and fall of civilizations, and had dire descriptions about when societies lost asabiyyah. In general, it's a sort of group feeling or solidarity, a sense that you and those around you are on the same side and have each other's backs -- as opposed to a society where you don't know your neighbors and you just happen to live among a bunch of other people who have no aligned interests or goals. Even the so-called "rugged individualism" mythos of early pioneer/settler American colonists still was embedded in nested layers of communal structure, layers that can seem invisible when you're constantly immersed in it. What I think makes this and the Denmark article interesting is that they're trying to point at a concept that is inherently fuzzy and qualitative (how do you measure units of social cohesion?), and yet seems to play an important role in how a social system works. Tweaking a policy knob here or adjusting a legislative knob there may have influences on this, but the possible effects are constrained and filtered through the ever-present culture. Everything is part of the system (think about the laws we have in which implicit expectation of selective enforcement is what makes it even functional, like speeding). People are both code (their DNA) and its expression in the environment (epigenetics). Programming teams are both the tools they use (IDEs, source control, Agile, etc) and the fuzzy culture that makes it work well in Company A and fail utterly when trying to apply it to Company B. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asabiyyah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asabiyyah

rdiddly 9y ago

I notice the absorption of outsiders is portrayed as a goal, implying that it's an unalloyed good, beyond question. Is there some good reason to think that? I mean America prides itself on it, but is there any good reason to think that (for example) Danes should be responsible for non-Danes? Or on a basic level, what's wrong with having places exist in the world where the people there are mostly from there? Isn't that what a nation is? And wouldn't the people of such a place tend to exercise their sovereignty to decide, based on whatever criteria they want to use, how many and which people they allow to join the club? I dunno... Sure wish we could have a rational discussion about it, without it degenerating into nationalist race-baiting on the one side and jumping to conclusions and cries of xenophobia on the other.

rayiner 9y ago
If you're going to accept outsiders, you need to integrate them. That's always been one of America's strengths--putting together a somewhat governable country out of ethnic groups that had long been at war with each other in their home countries (German, English, Irish, etc.), oh, and had enslaved each other's ancestors (African Americans). You don't need to accept outside immigration. Japan and Korea are very nice countries that are almost completely ethnically homogenous. They're not good at integrating foreigners, but they don't accept them anyway so it's moot. But on the flip side, that probably dooms you to dying out as a civilization as your birth rate falls below replacement levels...
- pcwalton 9y ago
  > You don't need to accept outside immigration. Japan and Korea are very nice countries that are almost completely ethnically homogeneous. You need to accept immigration if you want your economy to grow and be sustainable. Japan is an example of what happens if you don't--just look at the Nikkei 225 after 1990.
Thriptic 9y ago
I don't think it's a problem at all for places to be culturally or ethnically homogenous. I would say the primary advantage of integration and diversity is that no culture is perfect in every way, and cross pollination allows for the best parts of each culture to be recognized and used. That being said, cultural exchange relies on a decently high degree of overlap between cultures to establish kinship and trust. There are definitely cultures which are so different that they cannot exist well in close proximity, and so it's inefficient to try to force them to.

hirundo 9y ago

The internet is trumping geography. As we live progressively more of our lives online, we interact with progressively more different people. It becomes progressively less important how much trust we have for our meatspace neighbors. Most of us have had oodles of conversations and economic transactions with people on other continents while the people next door remain strangers. With all of that online interacting, global interpersonal trust may rise, but won't approach Danish levels in our lifetimes. We cannot base our social systems on trust. But we can base them on transparency, which, eventually, builds trust.

rsync 9y ago

You can have perfect trains and bicycles everywhere or you can invent jazz and snowboarding. You can't do both. As someone who lives in the US but does business, and travels, in Europe frequently, I would prefer that the immigrants come to the melting pot (the US) and that the European countries retain their distinctiveness.

justin66 9y ago
> You can have perfect trains and bicycles everywhere or you can invent jazz and snowboarding. You can't do both. Baffling.

sprash 9y ago

High trust societies are the way they are because of genetic traits of its citizens. Especially in Scandinavian and other northern countries for tens of thousands of years the individual was only able to survive the long winter when it was able to think ahead and to cooperate in large groups. Like the skin color that fact must have some evolutionary impact for behavior. However those are things of the past. Bringing in migrants from low trust societies will once and for all destroy this culture of trust. Every integration measure so far has failed the past and will fail in the future as long as people ignore the fact that it takes certain strictly inheritable traits to be part of those communities.