14 ms·

In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

awt 16y ago
Wheras in enlightened california, we only pa a measly 40% of our income in taxes.
- beoba 16y ago
  The first thing I learned is that Norwegians don't think about taxes the way we do. Whereas most Americans see taxes as a burden, Norwegian entrepreneurs tend to see them as a purchase, an exchange of cash for services. "I look at it as a lifelong investment," says Davor Sutija, CEO of Thinfilm[...].
  - michael_dorfman 16y ago
    Exactly. I've been living in Norway for over a decade, and I've never heard anyone complain about their taxes, or paying $9/gallon for gas.
    - dantheman 16y ago
      I'm not from norway, but here's a few articles I found in a minute of searching: * http://www.newsinenglish.no/2010/08/24/more-tax-trouble-for-the-government/ http://www.newsinenglish.no/2010/08/24/more-tax-trouble-for-... * http://www.norwaypost.no/news/higher-taxes-for-many-pensioners.html http://www.norwaypost.no/news/higher-taxes-for-many-pensione... I assume these don't represent the general view, but it does show that at least some people in norway dislike the level of taxation.
      - michael_dorfman 16y ago
        I'm sure they exist-- I just haven't crossed paths with any, in 13 years here.
    - tallanvor 16y ago
      Oh, come on, I hear it all the time. Generally they're either Americans or support the FrP (the so-called "Progress Party").
      - michael_dorfman 16y ago
        Must be different social circles. I don't know any FrP types, but I do know some other Americans, and I've yet to hear any complain.
        tallanvor 16y ago
        Probably, especially considering I'm fairly sure we've never met. :) Don't get me wrong, the Americans I talk to regularly (and work with) aren't complaining about this, but if you get enough foreigners in a room together, there always seem to be a few who like to complain about taxes. As for the FrP, the ones I know tend to be younger, and while they don't mind complaining about taxes, the real reason they tend towards the FrP is racism, even when they'd rather not admit it.
    - awt 16y ago
      What do you do in Norway? How did you come to live there?
  - dantheman 16y ago
    If that was what they truly thought then there would be no reason to use force to collect taxes, they could just have a recommended donation and collect that. For some reason, I don't think that would work. This form of mental gymnastics, is very comparable to Nietzsche's analysis of the slave morality - where one alters their values in reaction oppression, so that it becomes moral, or even desirable, to act in a subservient way.
    - beoba 16y ago
      Let's not forget that if it was such a bad deal, they could vote to change things. When's the last time a "slave", using your words, had a vote? But it takes more than perks to keep a worker motivated in Norway. In a country with low unemployment and generous unemployment benefits, a worker's threat to quit is more credible than it is in the United States, giving workers more leverage over employers. [...] "You can't just treat them like machines," [Bjorn Holte, founder and CEO of bMenu] says. "If you do, they'll be gone." This is "slavery"?
      - dantheman 16y ago
        Because a minority loses out in a democracy, they can either adapt and accept the situation or struggle to change it. Often times it's easier to just change ones own position than to actually do something, that most likely will not succeed and if it does provides limited benefit - the ROI isn't worth it. For example, I think the taxes are too high: 1. I can complain all the time, and be miserable. 2. I can work to change it - but lets say it takes me 10 hours a week to make any dent at all, and I'll only save 10k -- not worth it. 3. I can wish that it was lower, but do nothing and just live my life as it is. Though, I may feel anger or frustration - negatively impacting my life. or lastly 4. I can change my position - I guess the taxes are good, I get this stuff that I need, etc. Now I'm happy with my current situation and don't have any need to change it. By changing my perspective I've removed a source of pain in my life, even though it still exists -- I am no longer consciously aware of it. A little bit more on the concept of slave morality, it applies to Nietzsche's critique of Christianity: "By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master. Biblical principles of turning the other cheek, humility, charity, and pity are the result of universalizing the plight of the slave onto all humankind, and thus enslaving the masters as well." [1] He argues that in early Christianity instead of glorifying standing up to their oppressors, which was difficult and fraught with danger, that they glorified being subservient - when the master hits you turn the other cheek, don't defend yourself [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality
beoba 16y ago
I thought this line was particularly telling: "Although America remains near the top of the world in terms of entrepreneurial aspirations - that is, the percentage of people who want to start new things-in terms of actual start-up activity, our country has fallen behind not just Norway but also Canada, Denmark and Switzerland." Yet any mention of figuring out what they're doing right (and what we're doing wrong) is SOCIALISM - Reading this also reminded me of an interview I'd heard a few months ago: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/29/pm-zombie-economic-ideas-still-among-us/ http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/29/pm... QUIGGIN: After I wrote the book, I saw the movie "Zombieland," and rule number two is double tap. You always have to hit them twice. I talk about the trickle down theory, that when you help the rich that helps everybody. I think a theory so convenient to powerful people is never going to be cured permanently. RYSSDAL: And the theory about trickle-down economics is in some way coming back to the United States in this debate we're having about the Bush era tax cuts. QUIGGIN: Absolutely. It's suggesting that keeping on giving tax cuts to the top 1 or 5 percent of the population is going to help everybody else. The evidence is very clear that that's not the case. That the vast majority of benefits of economic growth have gone to people in the top 10 percent of the income distribution. Within that 10 percent, the top 1 percent has done much better than the remaining 9 percent, and within that 1 percent, the top tenth of a percent has done even better. - Moral of the story?: We've been had.
- true_religion 16y ago
  > Yet any mention of figuring out what they're doing right (and what we're doing wrong) is SOCIALISM I don't understand this. Just because some Americans consider "socialism" to be a poor fit for their country, doesn't mean we shouldn't accept it when other countries self-describe their actions as "socialism". To do so, would be to adapt language to pander to the American world view (e.g. we think something is good, so avoid calling it socialism so Americans may adopt it without bias) rather than retain concise accuracy in discussion.
- _corbett 16y ago
  Switzerland is by no means socialist and is rather an example of many libertarian ideals. Taxes are done by canton (city/state) and in some one can pay as little as no income tax. Health care is required, decoupled from employment and well regulated, but private. I've lived in all of the aforementioned countries and prefer the socialist model, but Switzerland is another example of there being many ways to reach the same ideal. I only hope the US can make it there too one day so that I could feel comfortable living in it.
svlla 16y ago
In USA, start-ups say yes to DoD money...
zdw 16y ago
If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Thus having the government take care of basic welfare and health care benefits frees people to be entrepreneurial, in a sense. Compare to the US, where people are tied to a job based on the benefits they have through that job, and before the health care legislation's removal of preexisting conditions clauses, if you had a medical condition and lost your job, you could very easily end up in financial distress. Personally, I would have transitioned to being independent a full year earlier if it wasn't for health care coverage issues.
- nightlifelover 16y ago
  > If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Completely disagree, social security has rather a negative on the willingness of the population to take risks. In countries with high social securities, such as Switzerland or Germany there are less startups founded on average. People instead are in a kind of security thinking and take the most safe jobs, get an insurance for everything, etc..
  - Norse 16y ago
    Did you miss the bit of the article where it wsas pointed out that those countries have the highest number of startups in the world? Not "less on average" but "the most".
    - Symmetry 16y ago
      Its possible we shouldn't be too quick to infer too much from this article, however. Norway is a major oil producer and if Norway's startup creation rate is very different from Sweden and Denmark's maybe we should be looking at other factors.
      - Norse 16y ago
        Didn't the article mention that Denmark was number 2 in startups after Norway? So not very different at all. And I suspect Finland is quite up there too. Along with the fact that Norway saves all its oil in a fund for a rainy day, I don't think oil figures that much.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lawfulfalafel 16y ago
This was posted 9 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2124799 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2124799 I do congratulate you on linking to the mobile site to bypass the url conflict, that is pretty smart.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  That was inadvertent, not clever. The person who sent me the link did it via mobile phone, so he used the mobile link, and I didn't see it when it was posted previously.
  - limmeau 16y ago
    I enjoyed the lean layout and thought you had chosen the mobile version for that purpose.
cromulent 16y ago
Norway is not a socialist country. Social democracy != socialism.
- tallanvor 16y ago
  It's all in how you define a term, but traditionally Norway is a very socialist country - The major businesses were owned by the state, and while that has changed, the government does still hold large stakes in telecom, oil, and transportation companies. Private businesses also generally have a much flatter hierarchy than you find in the US, and income distribution is much more equally. And, of course, the member parties of the ruling coalition consider themselves to be socialist parties.
  - cromulent 16y ago
    Of course you can slice the definitions in different ways, but the common definition is that the capitalist ideal of all means of production being in private hands and socialism is the opposite of that - they are all in public hands. Norway is a mixed economy. I think that the USA and Norway are not at the poles of that continuum but much more close together, especially given the Fed's recent acquisitions.
    - tallanvor 16y ago
      Actually, I think the way the US and Norway handled the crisis helps to show how different they are. Norway stepped in much more quickly, even though the risk was much less compared to the US (Norway had already placed stricter controls on banks due to the crisis they had in the late 80's and early 90's). While the Fed did step in in the US, they were more concerned with pumping in money rather than trying to fix the underlying cause of the trouble - because, after all, telling the banks what to do would be "socialism", which is why there is still so much uncertainty in the US right now. Obviously not everything in Norway is perfect, but taking everything into account - the 3.1% unemployment rate just one example - I certainly have no desire to move back to the US anytime soon.
    - rprasad 16y ago
ThomPete 16y ago
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Norway don't say yes to socialism they say yes to social welfare in a different way than in the US. So do Denmark (where I am from) and Sweden. Yes the taxes are higher (up to 60% in Denmark with a progressive tax system) and about the same I believe in Norway. But it's not like everyone walks around an love it. In fact there is great opposition to the level that taxation have gone to. In Denmark it's an election year and several social welfare benefits plus income tax is being discussed as the main theme. But all this doesn't really matter cause the US have something that neither of the Scandinavian countries nor any other European nations have. They have a big ass market and one language. Europe is a huge market (around +400 Million no?) but most countries (unlike Scandinavia) don't do well with english so there is no unifying factors that allow for the kind of scalable business that can be created in the US (at least not as easily) There are many problems with the kind of social welfare models and lack of aspiration is actually one of them. People don't try as hard and because they pay high taxes they come to expect A LOT from the government. I have lived in the US for enough years to know that there are many things that the US should envy from the Scandinavian countries. But the start-up environment is not one of them.
- _corbett 16y ago
  I concur–the US has a big market and a big advantage culturally in terms of startups. Switzerland has the opposite problem, people are very ambitious, expect to earn a lot of money, and so are unwilling to take the pay cut to go to startups. I have run into many who think creating a successful startup involves having an idea and throwing money at outsourcers to program it. There's so much money thrown around that the idea of a MVP is out the window, a few companies I know have runways of 6+ years.... It's also partly about catching the bug and reaching the critical mass. If you have many friends making amazing things it's hard not to be inspired to try to join in. I don't think the cultural problem is by any means inherent in socialism, but those are just my 50 kroner...
- marvin 16y ago
  Thanks for setting the record straight on this. I'm Norwegian, and this is exactly what I would say about this. There are many things we do in Scandinavia that should be copied in the US, but start-up culture and small business is not helped along by the tax system and social services/benefits. In fact, the progressive taxation alone incentivizes everyone to _not_ earn more than about 100000 USD a year (if you work harder to earn more, taxation is about 45% on the marginal income). There are "official" (state-sponsored) investment companies, but they are incredibly risk-averse and never invest in anything halfway radical. Private financing for computer startups is nonexistent.
relic17 16y ago
The article implies that most people in Norway believe that individual rights are less important than the average welfare of all individuals taken together and that personal lives are less important than the well-being of the collective. This is quite logical, because it is the acceptance of this view of the world that makes their system possible. A similar view is at the root of most governments around the world today and it certainly underpinned the socialist/communist block in the 20th century, though to a different degree. The United States has been a notable exception. But let's focus on Norway and the idea that it can serve as a model. To take a small example, who believes that a skilled doctor is genuinely happy to have half of his income taken away by law and given to the janitor of his hospital, so that the latter receives the roughly same pay? Well, the surveys say that the level of happiness in Norway are very high, so the doctor must be happy. Happiness measures aside, does that make sense? Is the doctor genuinely happy or has he been told by generations of intellectuals what he should feel happy about and what he should feel guilty about? This is a question that everyone who nominates Norway as a model for the US should answer logically.
- GoogleMeElmo 16y ago
  A bit of anecdotal evidence from a Norwegian citizen to counter your "doctor vs janitor" argument: I'm more than well aquainted with a doctor and she is more than happy to pay her taxes, in order to benefit the rest of society. You should also know that even though the tax system in Norway works to even the footing of different posed people financially, it does not wipe out the class difference between a janitor and a doctor. Their net income will still differ by quite a bit (up to 400% at least). The benefit here is that someone who is considered poor, and would perhaps be forced to live in the street, and only serve to increase the crime rate, will instead recieve help. And the doctor can sleep peacefully at night knowing that the police is out protecting. The hospital emergency staff is ready to recieve the next cardiac arrest patient, the road will be cleared from that heavy snow fall during the night, the list goes on. In my view the philosophy of the Norwegian tax models is less worries == more happiness, and that is exactly what this model offers for everyone included. On the other hand its very easy to paint a rosy picture of Norway in a case like this. Mostly becasue US is so easy to outcompete on many of the issues directly involved. Crime rates, mortality rates, helthcare and so on. Norway does of course, like any country, suffer from several political problems. Spending, immigration and government control is perhaps the most fleeting issues right now. But they diminish substantially compared to the issues the US has to face the next decade. And perhaps even worse is it, that the political environment in the US seems allmost hopeless. With the country polarized into two extremes. In Norway the debate is still very much alive around all of these issues. In the US you can quickly get yourself into a place you dont want to be by just shifting your perspective slightly. Ok now i gotta stop. Let the bashing commence. :P
_corbett 16y ago
This article rings true to me. I've lived and worked in Norway for a successful startup (FAST Search, later bought by Microsoft) above the Arctic circle. It's a lovely country, the startup did feel like a family (in fact, many brought their kids to work), we worked and played hard, etc. I paid 50% tax and $15 for beers and was more than happy to do so as well–the taxes were well used and having an entire population, rather than a small circle of friends with a high standard of living was so much more fun.
WalterBright 16y ago
The real problem is the high cost of health care. This article argues persuasively that it's government interference in the sector that has caused the enormous costs: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/7617/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-amer...
roschdal 16y ago
Norway is successful because of the oil and gas resources here. This makes the economy boom, and is why the welfare state and social democracy works so well. I still think the US has a far more competitive start-up environment. I'm from Norway, by the way.
- Norse 16y ago
  Norway saves the oil income in an oil fund. The rest of Scandinavia gets the same results with no oil.
tsotha 16y ago
Norway would have a lot more trouble saying "ja" to socialism if it didn't have so much oil. That's what makes the whole thing seem like such a good deal - you're getting more than you're paying in.
- anghyflawn 16y ago
  Aw come on, Norway has oil and it is small, but was social-democratic long before any oil, and both Denmark and Sweden have built successful welfare safety nets without relying so much on a natural-resources windfall.
  - laut 16y ago
    Sweden is a big industrial nation. The relatively free market system allowed them to flourish. In all of the Scandinavian countries the welfare state really didn't start until around the 1960s-1970s. The government programs have only been possible because of the successful private economy to pay for it, just like in the US. Although Denmark doesn't have the massive oil wealth that Norway does, there is still some and enough that Denmark is a net oil exporter. And the Danish state gets billions of kroner from oil each year.
- Norse 16y ago
  Norway saves all it oil in a sovereign wealth fund. The only difference "no oil" would make would be a less stuffed bank account. Much like the case is with Sweden, Denmark, Finland...who run the same system without oil, and gets similar results.
mindcrime 16y ago
Bloody good on Norway. Now if you want Norwegian taxes or the Norwegian government, move to Norway. I'll take the American moral view on taxation, and fight taxation tooth-and-nail until I die, regardless of the pragmatics of it. It's about choice, and freedom, not the actual dollars and cents. Come up with a scheme that moves functions currently executed by the government into a privately run, voluntary collective, and chances are I'd join it, participate, and pay as much as - or more than - I do now. But if you use the hammer of government force to mandate participation, I - for one - will never accept it as just.
- gaius 16y ago
  Norwegian examples simply aren't applicable to the rest of the world. Here in the UK we are often compared to Norway, since we are both North Sea oil countries. Well, Norway makes 20x the oil revenue per head of the population than we do. That covers up a an awful lot. We don't have the luxury of economic inefficiencies that Norway can get away with.
- guelo 16y ago
  This is why we can't have nice things.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  For many generations the American moral view, like most everyone else's, has included taxpayer-funded programs that promote the general welfare. The only debates are about how much and which ones. Anarchists and libertarians have found negligible traction with the voters. If they want Somalia, they know where to find it. As for "they'd pay more voluntarily", I just don't believe they'd go to all the trouble to dismantle our one crude solution to the free rider problem if none of them intend to become free riders. Usually when anyone says it's not about the money, it's about the money.
gyardley 16y ago
Of course Norway's way of doing things could work in the United States - if the typical American had the underlying culture, beliefs, and attitudes of the typical Norwegian. Since they don't, and cultural change is the sort of thing that happens incrementally over a generation or more, there's no plan of action to be gained from such articles - they're valuable because they teach us a bit about other cultures, but trying to use them to make political points is silly.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  How do you think these generational changes occur to begin with? Education.
laut 16y ago
The title is an oxymoron. With socialism, you don't have private ownership of the means of production. Thus you cannot have start-ups with socialism.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  The base definition of socialism is "worker ownership of the means of production and distribution". Some interpret this to be state or public ownership, but others see worker co-operatives, collectives and federations to be socialist formations which can operate within a market. Syndicalists, market socialists, etc. would fall under this definition.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    The base definition of socialism is "worker ownership of the means of production and distribution". So, any system where people who work are free to buy shares in companies then?
    - michaelchisari 16y ago
      Not that simple, no. Profit-sharing is not the same as worker ownership, since if shares are available to non-workers, then it's not a socialist system. Also, if workers are required to "buy in" to shares, instead of collectively owning the results of their economic organization, then that is not socialism either. What you're thinking of is still capitalism.
- hmottestad 16y ago
  Socialism != Communism And there are many degrees of socialism. In Norway there is socialism (to some extent) and start-ups.
brc 16y ago
One swallow does not make a summer, and one happy entrepreneur does not equal a system which produces a lot of new companies. Norway is a nice place and the culture and beliefs of the people mean that they have decided as a country to opt for a high social safety net and associated high taxes. But trying to extract a hypothesis that somehow high taxes and social safety nets are somehow good for starting up a business is, well, stretching it somewhat. Perhaps one of the reasons this guy found success is that so many of his countrymen can't be bothered because the extra effort isn't worth it. He clearly is motivated by more than money, so high taxation doesn't affect him much. So you could say Norways taxation system encourages people to build family style companies, and only suits entrepreneurs who aren't money-driven. That's an equally valid conclusion to draw from the article if you ask me.
- Norse 16y ago
  The fact that Norway, followed by Denmark, has the highest rate of strtups in the world, according to the article, would seem to argue against the "one swallow" theory, and indicate full summer. And it is not reasonable to assume that his countrymen can't be bothered when they are the most prolific in the world.
sbt 16y ago
My God, where to begin on this unnecessarily provocative link-bait fuckup of a story. "This is particularly surprising, because the prices Dalmo pays for government services are among the highest in the world." >Of course, the country has some of the highest wages in the world so nursing is naturally not as cheap as in Nepal. "The capitalist system functions well," Dalmo says. "But I'm a socialist in my bones." > Let's put some context on this. Imagine a Norwegian magazine travelling to Alabama, interviewing an entrepreneur who also happens to be a Tea Party member. The point is that the vast majority of Norwegians do not identify themselves as socialist in the American sense of the word. The word lost its meaning in the late 70s, when labor sobered up and realized it needed to export, since then Norway has had moderate European taxes. "This is a place where entire cities smell of drying fish—an odor not unlike the smell of rotting fish" > What? "and where, in the most remote parts, one must be careful to avoid polar bears." There are no wild polar bears in Norway. There are polar bears on arctic island owned by Norway. "The food isn't great." > The food in northern Europe isn't the most exciting. "It ranked third in Gallup's latest global happiness survey" > Define happiness. It's also the country in the world with one of the highest suicide rates. "Bear strikes, darkness, and whale meat notwithstanding, Norway is also an exceedingly pleasant place to make a home." > Alligators, heat-waves, and death-valley notwithstanding, the US is also an exceedingly pleasant place to make a home. "The unemployment rate, just 3.5 percent, is the lowest in Europe and one of the lowest in the world." > Thanks to how Norway actually measures unemployment, by declaring long-term unemployed people sick. "There are no private schools in Norway" > Incorrect, there are many private kindergartens, elementary schools, high schools and private higher-eds in Norway. "The problem for entrepreneurship in Norway is it's so lucrative to be an employee," says Lars Kolvereid, the lead researcher for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in Norway." > I included this statement because it's TRUE, and because I was delighted that the author finally decided to interview an expert. "Kenneth Winther, the founder of the Oslo management consultancy MoonWalk, regaled me for hours about the virtues of Norway—security, good roads, good schools." > Norway is a very safe country, but it has terrible roads and its schools are mediocre at best. So in summary, what's wrong with this article? Remember that assignment you got in college, where you were supposed to pick a side in the abortion debate and argue for that side? You pick a thesis and then you selectively cherry-pick facts with the occasional intermittent concession to the opposite side as a rhetorical device. The problem with this story isn't that it presents wrong facts, it's that it presents a highly skewed picture of reality. In fact, this is why I have stopped reading magazines like Time, Newsweek, Bloomberg business review and last but not least Business Week. These days I only read the Economist, which is the magazine that seems to care more about reality than making a provocative point. Pick any story in the Economist and you'll find that the ingress usually has the format "While event X may be positive Y, it also may have a downside Z".
kunley 16y ago
Funny that in the information era one can learn from mistakes of others, yet many people don't do this. As someone who lived half of a life in a country which was an experiment on socialism, I wish them luck. And I wish they regain their senses. Quickly.
- relic17 16y ago
  Very true. Many refuse to think logically and accept whatever happens to be the fashionable idea of the day. My family and I also had to witness a similar experiment. I join you in your wishes.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

awt 16y ago

Wheras in enlightened california, we only pa a measly 40% of our income in taxes.

beoba 16y ago
The first thing I learned is that Norwegians don't think about taxes the way we do. Whereas most Americans see taxes as a burden, Norwegian entrepreneurs tend to see them as a purchase, an exchange of cash for services. "I look at it as a lifelong investment," says Davor Sutija, CEO of Thinfilm[...].
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  Exactly. I've been living in Norway for over a decade, and I've never heard anyone complain about their taxes, or paying $9/gallon for gas.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    I'm not from norway, but here's a few articles I found in a minute of searching: * http://www.newsinenglish.no/2010/08/24/more-tax-trouble-for-the-government/ http://www.newsinenglish.no/2010/08/24/more-tax-trouble-for-... * http://www.norwaypost.no/news/higher-taxes-for-many-pensioners.html http://www.norwaypost.no/news/higher-taxes-for-many-pensione... I assume these don't represent the general view, but it does show that at least some people in norway dislike the level of taxation.
    - michael_dorfman 16y ago
      I'm sure they exist-- I just haven't crossed paths with any, in 13 years here.
  - tallanvor 16y ago
    Oh, come on, I hear it all the time. Generally they're either Americans or support the FrP (the so-called "Progress Party").
    - michael_dorfman 16y ago
      Must be different social circles. I don't know any FrP types, but I do know some other Americans, and I've yet to hear any complain.
      - tallanvor 16y ago
        Probably, especially considering I'm fairly sure we've never met. :) Don't get me wrong, the Americans I talk to regularly (and work with) aren't complaining about this, but if you get enough foreigners in a room together, there always seem to be a few who like to complain about taxes. As for the FrP, the ones I know tend to be younger, and while they don't mind complaining about taxes, the real reason they tend towards the FrP is racism, even when they'd rather not admit it.
  - awt 16y ago
    What do you do in Norway? How did you come to live there?
- dantheman 16y ago
  If that was what they truly thought then there would be no reason to use force to collect taxes, they could just have a recommended donation and collect that. For some reason, I don't think that would work. This form of mental gymnastics, is very comparable to Nietzsche's analysis of the slave morality - where one alters their values in reaction oppression, so that it becomes moral, or even desirable, to act in a subservient way.
  - beoba 16y ago
    Let's not forget that if it was such a bad deal, they could vote to change things. When's the last time a "slave", using your words, had a vote? But it takes more than perks to keep a worker motivated in Norway. In a country with low unemployment and generous unemployment benefits, a worker's threat to quit is more credible than it is in the United States, giving workers more leverage over employers. [...] "You can't just treat them like machines," [Bjorn Holte, founder and CEO of bMenu] says. "If you do, they'll be gone." This is "slavery"?
    - dantheman 16y ago
      Because a minority loses out in a democracy, they can either adapt and accept the situation or struggle to change it. Often times it's easier to just change ones own position than to actually do something, that most likely will not succeed and if it does provides limited benefit - the ROI isn't worth it. For example, I think the taxes are too high: 1. I can complain all the time, and be miserable. 2. I can work to change it - but lets say it takes me 10 hours a week to make any dent at all, and I'll only save 10k -- not worth it. 3. I can wish that it was lower, but do nothing and just live my life as it is. Though, I may feel anger or frustration - negatively impacting my life. or lastly 4. I can change my position - I guess the taxes are good, I get this stuff that I need, etc. Now I'm happy with my current situation and don't have any need to change it. By changing my perspective I've removed a source of pain in my life, even though it still exists -- I am no longer consciously aware of it. A little bit more on the concept of slave morality, it applies to Nietzsche's critique of Christianity: "By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master. Biblical principles of turning the other cheek, humility, charity, and pity are the result of universalizing the plight of the slave onto all humankind, and thus enslaving the masters as well." [1] He argues that in early Christianity instead of glorifying standing up to their oppressors, which was difficult and fraught with danger, that they glorified being subservient - when the master hits you turn the other cheek, don't defend yourself [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality

beoba 16y ago

I thought this line was particularly telling: "Although America remains near the top of the world in terms of entrepreneurial aspirations - that is, the percentage of people who want to start new things-in terms of actual start-up activity, our country has fallen behind not just Norway but also Canada, Denmark and Switzerland." Yet any mention of figuring out what they're doing right (and what we're doing wrong) is SOCIALISM - Reading this also reminded me of an interview I'd heard a few months ago: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/29/pm-zombie-economic-ideas-still-among-us/ http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/29/pm... QUIGGIN: After I wrote the book, I saw the movie "Zombieland," and rule number two is double tap. You always have to hit them twice. I talk about the trickle down theory, that when you help the rich that helps everybody. I think a theory so convenient to powerful people is never going to be cured permanently. RYSSDAL: And the theory about trickle-down economics is in some way coming back to the United States in this debate we're having about the Bush era tax cuts. QUIGGIN: Absolutely. It's suggesting that keeping on giving tax cuts to the top 1 or 5 percent of the population is going to help everybody else. The evidence is very clear that that's not the case. That the vast majority of benefits of economic growth have gone to people in the top 10 percent of the income distribution. Within that 10 percent, the top 1 percent has done much better than the remaining 9 percent, and within that 1 percent, the top tenth of a percent has done even better. - Moral of the story?: We've been had.

true_religion 16y ago
> Yet any mention of figuring out what they're doing right (and what we're doing wrong) is SOCIALISM I don't understand this. Just because some Americans consider "socialism" to be a poor fit for their country, doesn't mean we shouldn't accept it when other countries self-describe their actions as "socialism". To do so, would be to adapt language to pander to the American world view (e.g. we think something is good, so avoid calling it socialism so Americans may adopt it without bias) rather than retain concise accuracy in discussion.
_corbett 16y ago
Switzerland is by no means socialist and is rather an example of many libertarian ideals. Taxes are done by canton (city/state) and in some one can pay as little as no income tax. Health care is required, decoupled from employment and well regulated, but private. I've lived in all of the aforementioned countries and prefer the socialist model, but Switzerland is another example of there being many ways to reach the same ideal. I only hope the US can make it there too one day so that I could feel comfortable living in it.

svlla 16y ago

In USA, start-ups say yes to DoD money...

zdw 16y ago

If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Thus having the government take care of basic welfare and health care benefits frees people to be entrepreneurial, in a sense. Compare to the US, where people are tied to a job based on the benefits they have through that job, and before the health care legislation's removal of preexisting conditions clauses, if you had a medical condition and lost your job, you could very easily end up in financial distress. Personally, I would have transitioned to being independent a full year earlier if it wasn't for health care coverage issues.

nightlifelover 16y ago
> If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Completely disagree, social security has rather a negative on the willingness of the population to take risks. In countries with high social securities, such as Switzerland or Germany there are less startups founded on average. People instead are in a kind of security thinking and take the most safe jobs, get an insurance for everything, etc..
- Norse 16y ago
  Did you miss the bit of the article where it wsas pointed out that those countries have the highest number of startups in the world? Not "less on average" but "the most".
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    Its possible we shouldn't be too quick to infer too much from this article, however. Norway is a major oil producer and if Norway's startup creation rate is very different from Sweden and Denmark's maybe we should be looking at other factors.
    - Norse 16y ago
      Didn't the article mention that Denmark was number 2 in startups after Norway? So not very different at all. And I suspect Finland is quite up there too. Along with the fact that Norway saves all its oil in a fund for a rainy day, I don't think oil figures that much.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

lawfulfalafel 16y ago

This was posted 9 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2124799 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2124799 I do congratulate you on linking to the mobile site to bypass the url conflict, that is pretty smart.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
That was inadvertent, not clever. The person who sent me the link did it via mobile phone, so he used the mobile link, and I didn't see it when it was posted previously.
- limmeau 16y ago
  I enjoyed the lean layout and thought you had chosen the mobile version for that purpose.

cromulent 16y ago

Norway is not a socialist country. Social democracy != socialism.

tallanvor 16y ago
It's all in how you define a term, but traditionally Norway is a very socialist country - The major businesses were owned by the state, and while that has changed, the government does still hold large stakes in telecom, oil, and transportation companies. Private businesses also generally have a much flatter hierarchy than you find in the US, and income distribution is much more equally. And, of course, the member parties of the ruling coalition consider themselves to be socialist parties.
- cromulent 16y ago
  Of course you can slice the definitions in different ways, but the common definition is that the capitalist ideal of all means of production being in private hands and socialism is the opposite of that - they are all in public hands. Norway is a mixed economy. I think that the USA and Norway are not at the poles of that continuum but much more close together, especially given the Fed's recent acquisitions.
  - tallanvor 16y ago
    Actually, I think the way the US and Norway handled the crisis helps to show how different they are. Norway stepped in much more quickly, even though the risk was much less compared to the US (Norway had already placed stricter controls on banks due to the crisis they had in the late 80's and early 90's). While the Fed did step in in the US, they were more concerned with pumping in money rather than trying to fix the underlying cause of the trouble - because, after all, telling the banks what to do would be "socialism", which is why there is still so much uncertainty in the US right now. Obviously not everything in Norway is perfect, but taking everything into account - the 3.1% unemployment rate just one example - I certainly have no desire to move back to the US anytime soon.
  - rprasad 16y ago

ThomPete 16y ago

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Norway don't say yes to socialism they say yes to social welfare in a different way than in the US. So do Denmark (where I am from) and Sweden. Yes the taxes are higher (up to 60% in Denmark with a progressive tax system) and about the same I believe in Norway. But it's not like everyone walks around an love it. In fact there is great opposition to the level that taxation have gone to. In Denmark it's an election year and several social welfare benefits plus income tax is being discussed as the main theme. But all this doesn't really matter cause the US have something that neither of the Scandinavian countries nor any other European nations have. They have a big ass market and one language. Europe is a huge market (around +400 Million no?) but most countries (unlike Scandinavia) don't do well with english so there is no unifying factors that allow for the kind of scalable business that can be created in the US (at least not as easily) There are many problems with the kind of social welfare models and lack of aspiration is actually one of them. People don't try as hard and because they pay high taxes they come to expect A LOT from the government. I have lived in the US for enough years to know that there are many things that the US should envy from the Scandinavian countries. But the start-up environment is not one of them.

_corbett 16y ago
I concur–the US has a big market and a big advantage culturally in terms of startups. Switzerland has the opposite problem, people are very ambitious, expect to earn a lot of money, and so are unwilling to take the pay cut to go to startups. I have run into many who think creating a successful startup involves having an idea and throwing money at outsourcers to program it. There's so much money thrown around that the idea of a MVP is out the window, a few companies I know have runways of 6+ years.... It's also partly about catching the bug and reaching the critical mass. If you have many friends making amazing things it's hard not to be inspired to try to join in. I don't think the cultural problem is by any means inherent in socialism, but those are just my 50 kroner...
marvin 16y ago
Thanks for setting the record straight on this. I'm Norwegian, and this is exactly what I would say about this. There are many things we do in Scandinavia that should be copied in the US, but start-up culture and small business is not helped along by the tax system and social services/benefits. In fact, the progressive taxation alone incentivizes everyone to _not_ earn more than about 100000 USD a year (if you work harder to earn more, taxation is about 45% on the marginal income). There are "official" (state-sponsored) investment companies, but they are incredibly risk-averse and never invest in anything halfway radical. Private financing for computer startups is nonexistent.

relic17 16y ago

The article implies that most people in Norway believe that individual rights are less important than the average welfare of all individuals taken together and that personal lives are less important than the well-being of the collective. This is quite logical, because it is the acceptance of this view of the world that makes their system possible. A similar view is at the root of most governments around the world today and it certainly underpinned the socialist/communist block in the 20th century, though to a different degree. The United States has been a notable exception. But let's focus on Norway and the idea that it can serve as a model. To take a small example, who believes that a skilled doctor is genuinely happy to have half of his income taken away by law and given to the janitor of his hospital, so that the latter receives the roughly same pay? Well, the surveys say that the level of happiness in Norway are very high, so the doctor must be happy. Happiness measures aside, does that make sense? Is the doctor genuinely happy or has he been told by generations of intellectuals what he should feel happy about and what he should feel guilty about? This is a question that everyone who nominates Norway as a model for the US should answer logically.

GoogleMeElmo 16y ago
A bit of anecdotal evidence from a Norwegian citizen to counter your "doctor vs janitor" argument: I'm more than well aquainted with a doctor and she is more than happy to pay her taxes, in order to benefit the rest of society. You should also know that even though the tax system in Norway works to even the footing of different posed people financially, it does not wipe out the class difference between a janitor and a doctor. Their net income will still differ by quite a bit (up to 400% at least). The benefit here is that someone who is considered poor, and would perhaps be forced to live in the street, and only serve to increase the crime rate, will instead recieve help. And the doctor can sleep peacefully at night knowing that the police is out protecting. The hospital emergency staff is ready to recieve the next cardiac arrest patient, the road will be cleared from that heavy snow fall during the night, the list goes on. In my view the philosophy of the Norwegian tax models is less worries == more happiness, and that is exactly what this model offers for everyone included. On the other hand its very easy to paint a rosy picture of Norway in a case like this. Mostly becasue US is so easy to outcompete on many of the issues directly involved. Crime rates, mortality rates, helthcare and so on. Norway does of course, like any country, suffer from several political problems. Spending, immigration and government control is perhaps the most fleeting issues right now. But they diminish substantially compared to the issues the US has to face the next decade. And perhaps even worse is it, that the political environment in the US seems allmost hopeless. With the country polarized into two extremes. In Norway the debate is still very much alive around all of these issues. In the US you can quickly get yourself into a place you dont want to be by just shifting your perspective slightly. Ok now i gotta stop. Let the bashing commence. :P

_corbett 16y ago

This article rings true to me. I've lived and worked in Norway for a successful startup (FAST Search, later bought by Microsoft) above the Arctic circle. It's a lovely country, the startup did feel like a family (in fact, many brought their kids to work), we worked and played hard, etc. I paid 50% tax and $15 for beers and was more than happy to do so as well–the taxes were well used and having an entire population, rather than a small circle of friends with a high standard of living was so much more fun.

WalterBright 16y ago

The real problem is the high cost of health care. This article argues persuasively that it's government interference in the sector that has caused the enormous costs: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/7617/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-amer...

roschdal 16y ago

Norway is successful because of the oil and gas resources here. This makes the economy boom, and is why the welfare state and social democracy works so well. I still think the US has a far more competitive start-up environment. I'm from Norway, by the way.

Norse 16y ago
Norway saves the oil income in an oil fund. The rest of Scandinavia gets the same results with no oil.

tsotha 16y ago

Norway would have a lot more trouble saying "ja" to socialism if it didn't have so much oil. That's what makes the whole thing seem like such a good deal - you're getting more than you're paying in.

anghyflawn 16y ago
Aw come on, Norway has oil and it is small, but was social-democratic long before any oil, and both Denmark and Sweden have built successful welfare safety nets without relying so much on a natural-resources windfall.
- laut 16y ago
  Sweden is a big industrial nation. The relatively free market system allowed them to flourish. In all of the Scandinavian countries the welfare state really didn't start until around the 1960s-1970s. The government programs have only been possible because of the successful private economy to pay for it, just like in the US. Although Denmark doesn't have the massive oil wealth that Norway does, there is still some and enough that Denmark is a net oil exporter. And the Danish state gets billions of kroner from oil each year.
Norse 16y ago
Norway saves all it oil in a sovereign wealth fund. The only difference "no oil" would make would be a less stuffed bank account. Much like the case is with Sweden, Denmark, Finland...who run the same system without oil, and gets similar results.

mindcrime 16y ago

Bloody good on Norway. Now if you want Norwegian taxes or the Norwegian government, move to Norway. I'll take the American moral view on taxation, and fight taxation tooth-and-nail until I die, regardless of the pragmatics of it. It's about choice, and freedom, not the actual dollars and cents. Come up with a scheme that moves functions currently executed by the government into a privately run, voluntary collective, and chances are I'd join it, participate, and pay as much as - or more than - I do now. But if you use the hammer of government force to mandate participation, I - for one - will never accept it as just.

gaius 16y ago
Norwegian examples simply aren't applicable to the rest of the world. Here in the UK we are often compared to Norway, since we are both North Sea oil countries. Well, Norway makes 20x the oil revenue per head of the population than we do. That covers up a an awful lot. We don't have the luxury of economic inefficiencies that Norway can get away with.
guelo 16y ago
This is why we can't have nice things.
prodigal_erik 16y ago
For many generations the American moral view, like most everyone else's, has included taxpayer-funded programs that promote the general welfare. The only debates are about how much and which ones. Anarchists and libertarians have found negligible traction with the voters. If they want Somalia, they know where to find it. As for "they'd pay more voluntarily", I just don't believe they'd go to all the trouble to dismantle our one crude solution to the free rider problem if none of them intend to become free riders. Usually when anyone says it's not about the money, it's about the money.

gyardley 16y ago

Of course Norway's way of doing things could work in the United States - if the typical American had the underlying culture, beliefs, and attitudes of the typical Norwegian. Since they don't, and cultural change is the sort of thing that happens incrementally over a generation or more, there's no plan of action to be gained from such articles - they're valuable because they teach us a bit about other cultures, but trying to use them to make political points is silly.

loewenskind 16y ago
How do you think these generational changes occur to begin with? Education.

laut 16y ago

The title is an oxymoron. With socialism, you don't have private ownership of the means of production. Thus you cannot have start-ups with socialism.

michaelchisari 16y ago
The base definition of socialism is "worker ownership of the means of production and distribution". Some interpret this to be state or public ownership, but others see worker co-operatives, collectives and federations to be socialist formations which can operate within a market. Syndicalists, market socialists, etc. would fall under this definition.
- hugh3 16y ago
  The base definition of socialism is "worker ownership of the means of production and distribution". So, any system where people who work are free to buy shares in companies then?
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    Not that simple, no. Profit-sharing is not the same as worker ownership, since if shares are available to non-workers, then it's not a socialist system. Also, if workers are required to "buy in" to shares, instead of collectively owning the results of their economic organization, then that is not socialism either. What you're thinking of is still capitalism.
hmottestad 16y ago
Socialism != Communism And there are many degrees of socialism. In Norway there is socialism (to some extent) and start-ups.

brc 16y ago

One swallow does not make a summer, and one happy entrepreneur does not equal a system which produces a lot of new companies. Norway is a nice place and the culture and beliefs of the people mean that they have decided as a country to opt for a high social safety net and associated high taxes. But trying to extract a hypothesis that somehow high taxes and social safety nets are somehow good for starting up a business is, well, stretching it somewhat. Perhaps one of the reasons this guy found success is that so many of his countrymen can't be bothered because the extra effort isn't worth it. He clearly is motivated by more than money, so high taxation doesn't affect him much. So you could say Norways taxation system encourages people to build family style companies, and only suits entrepreneurs who aren't money-driven. That's an equally valid conclusion to draw from the article if you ask me.

Norse 16y ago
The fact that Norway, followed by Denmark, has the highest rate of strtups in the world, according to the article, would seem to argue against the "one swallow" theory, and indicate full summer. And it is not reasonable to assume that his countrymen can't be bothered when they are the most prolific in the world.

sbt 16y ago

My God, where to begin on this unnecessarily provocative link-bait fuckup of a story. "This is particularly surprising, because the prices Dalmo pays for government services are among the highest in the world." >Of course, the country has some of the highest wages in the world so nursing is naturally not as cheap as in Nepal. "The capitalist system functions well," Dalmo says. "But I'm a socialist in my bones." > Let's put some context on this. Imagine a Norwegian magazine travelling to Alabama, interviewing an entrepreneur who also happens to be a Tea Party member. The point is that the vast majority of Norwegians do not identify themselves as socialist in the American sense of the word. The word lost its meaning in the late 70s, when labor sobered up and realized it needed to export, since then Norway has had moderate European taxes. "This is a place where entire cities smell of drying fish—an odor not unlike the smell of rotting fish" > What? "and where, in the most remote parts, one must be careful to avoid polar bears." There are no wild polar bears in Norway. There are polar bears on arctic island owned by Norway. "The food isn't great." > The food in northern Europe isn't the most exciting. "It ranked third in Gallup's latest global happiness survey" > Define happiness. It's also the country in the world with one of the highest suicide rates. "Bear strikes, darkness, and whale meat notwithstanding, Norway is also an exceedingly pleasant place to make a home." > Alligators, heat-waves, and death-valley notwithstanding, the US is also an exceedingly pleasant place to make a home. "The unemployment rate, just 3.5 percent, is the lowest in Europe and one of the lowest in the world." > Thanks to how Norway actually measures unemployment, by declaring long-term unemployed people sick. "There are no private schools in Norway" > Incorrect, there are many private kindergartens, elementary schools, high schools and private higher-eds in Norway. "The problem for entrepreneurship in Norway is it's so lucrative to be an employee," says Lars Kolvereid, the lead researcher for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in Norway." > I included this statement because it's TRUE, and because I was delighted that the author finally decided to interview an expert. "Kenneth Winther, the founder of the Oslo management consultancy MoonWalk, regaled me for hours about the virtues of Norway—security, good roads, good schools." > Norway is a very safe country, but it has terrible roads and its schools are mediocre at best. So in summary, what's wrong with this article? Remember that assignment you got in college, where you were supposed to pick a side in the abortion debate and argue for that side? You pick a thesis and then you selectively cherry-pick facts with the occasional intermittent concession to the opposite side as a rhetorical device. The problem with this story isn't that it presents wrong facts, it's that it presents a highly skewed picture of reality. In fact, this is why I have stopped reading magazines like Time, Newsweek, Bloomberg business review and last but not least Business Week. These days I only read the Economist, which is the magazine that seems to care more about reality than making a provocative point. Pick any story in the Economist and you'll find that the ingress usually has the format "While event X may be positive Y, it also may have a downside Z".

kunley 16y ago

Funny that in the information era one can learn from mistakes of others, yet many people don't do this. As someone who lived half of a life in a country which was an experiment on socialism, I wish them luck. And I wish they regain their senses. Quickly.

relic17 16y ago
Very true. Many refuse to think logically and accept whatever happens to be the fashionable idea of the day. My family and I also had to witness a similar experiment. I join you in your wishes.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]