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Observing this American debate from Norway, one of the supposed big government types of countries, I notice an inability to distinguish the size of a government

Observing this American debate from Norway, one of the supposed big government types of countries, I notice an inability to distinguish the size of a government in terms of employees and taxes on one side and the complexity of the legal system and regulations on the other side. Norway as many other Nordic countries have high taxation levels and many government employees, but this is primarily because education and health care and a lot of child care is run by the government. It does not imply a larger bureaucracy. However this does not stop us from having efficient and simple government. We have much simpler tax code than the US e.g. Despite health care being public, our health care bureaucracy, regulations and rules are much simpler. You actually need some regulations to stop complex regulations from creeping in. E.g. we have strict rules regarding political advertisement and campaign contributions which means money is not an important thing in Norwegian politics. Consequently politicians are not bought and we have much less of this business initiated regulations and red tape that the US has. Yet we have stronger regulations with respect to workers rights, unions, environment etc. But that does not mean it is more complex. Having a "bigger government" does not necessarily mean a more complex one. In fact it often reduces complexity by setting more common standards.

chumali 7y ago
Until Citizens United is repealed there is little hope for anything resembling the arrangement which you describe.
bigcostooge2 7y ago
Norway has the population of a small state.
testpostpls 7y ago
The US has 60x the population of Norway on 25x the land. Honest question: given what you know about politics in Norway, do you personally believe Norway’s complexity reduction through agreement on common standards can scale to a country the size of the US? Could 60 Norways mutually agree on common standards?
- geezerjay 7y ago
  The US is a federation of 50 states and in theory is highly liberal. Therefore at most your example should scale at the state level. As most states have fewer inhabitants than Norway then I don't see your point.
  - testpostpls 7y ago
    There’s no point for you to see. I asked a question: whether the original poster could see the political climate in Norway realistically scaling. Maybe they’ve figured out something we in the US haven’t.
    - geezerjay 7y ago
      The case for this hypothetical scaling problem is baseless and absurd. It's a silly scapegoat. That's it.
  - JBlue42 7y ago
    People always bring out the population or area size of the US as an excuse against why we can't try to do better.
    - citrablue 7y ago
      I think people bring out the population or area size in order to explain where facile comparisons fall down. Scale matters.
      - geezerjay 7y ago
        This fictional scaling problem makes as much sense as correlating the effect of some public policies on the height of the political leader or average temperature. It's a silly scapegoat that makes no sense at all.
mikojan 7y ago
> E.g. we have strict rules regarding political advertisement and campaign contributions which means money is not an important thing in Norwegian politics. Consequently politicians are not bought [...] This is not true if Norway is anything like Germany. A few years ago the German government commissioned a study on the public's influence on policy.[0] It concluded decisively that political decision making aligned the closest with the wants of the wealthiest while there was even a negative trend with regards to the poorest in that policies favored by a majority of them were especially unlikely to be enacted. Europe isn't as insane as the US in that regard but that's not a high standard. [0]: https://www.bmas.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/PDF-Publikationen/a-305-4-endbericht-systematisch-verzerrte-entscheidungen.pdf https://www.bmas.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/PDF-Publikatione...
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
> Consequently politicians are not bought There's zero chance of this being true, even despite strict campaign contribution regulations. Arguably, it makes buying politicans more effective because corrupt people can easily skirt the rules "i.e. getting groups of people to donate on your behalf", etc. Of course corrupt people will always try to skirt the rules and rig the game in their favour, so the harder you can make it the better. And strict campaign contribution rules are definitely better than not having them there, but to suggest that no Norwegian poltiicans are bought is absurd to the point of naivete.
webninja 7y ago
How do you take the money out of politics?

chumali 7y ago

Until Citizens United is repealed there is little hope for anything resembling the arrangement which you describe.

bigcostooge2 7y ago

Norway has the population of a small state.

testpostpls 7y ago

The US has 60x the population of Norway on 25x the land. Honest question: given what you know about politics in Norway, do you personally believe Norway’s complexity reduction through agreement on common standards can scale to a country the size of the US? Could 60 Norways mutually agree on common standards?

geezerjay 7y ago
The US is a federation of 50 states and in theory is highly liberal. Therefore at most your example should scale at the state level. As most states have fewer inhabitants than Norway then I don't see your point.
- testpostpls 7y ago
  There’s no point for you to see. I asked a question: whether the original poster could see the political climate in Norway realistically scaling. Maybe they’ve figured out something we in the US haven’t.
  - geezerjay 7y ago
    The case for this hypothetical scaling problem is baseless and absurd. It's a silly scapegoat. That's it.
- JBlue42 7y ago
  People always bring out the population or area size of the US as an excuse against why we can't try to do better.
  - citrablue 7y ago
    I think people bring out the population or area size in order to explain where facile comparisons fall down. Scale matters.
    - geezerjay 7y ago
      This fictional scaling problem makes as much sense as correlating the effect of some public policies on the height of the political leader or average temperature. It's a silly scapegoat that makes no sense at all.

mikojan 7y ago

> E.g. we have strict rules regarding political advertisement and campaign contributions which means money is not an important thing in Norwegian politics. Consequently politicians are not bought [...] This is not true if Norway is anything like Germany. A few years ago the German government commissioned a study on the public's influence on policy.[0] It concluded decisively that political decision making aligned the closest with the wants of the wealthiest while there was even a negative trend with regards to the poorest in that policies favored by a majority of them were especially unlikely to be enacted. Europe isn't as insane as the US in that regard but that's not a high standard. [0]: https://www.bmas.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/PDF-Publikationen/a-305-4-endbericht-systematisch-verzerrte-entscheidungen.pdf https://www.bmas.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/PDF-Publikatione...

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

> Consequently politicians are not bought There's zero chance of this being true, even despite strict campaign contribution regulations. Arguably, it makes buying politicans more effective because corrupt people can easily skirt the rules "i.e. getting groups of people to donate on your behalf", etc. Of course corrupt people will always try to skirt the rules and rig the game in their favour, so the harder you can make it the better. And strict campaign contribution rules are definitely better than not having them there, but to suggest that no Norwegian poltiicans are bought is absurd to the point of naivete.

webninja 7y ago

How do you take the money out of politics?