The US has lots of people with a superficial understanding of Scandinavia telling everyone that their idea of Scandinavia is brilliant, easy, etc. (and btw, thi

The US has lots of people with a superficial understanding of Scandinavia telling everyone that their idea of Scandinavia is brilliant, easy, etc. (and btw, this is a function of generally poor policy education in the US, the US produces probably the best policy studies research...very little of this is taught in courses that people who go on to be politicians study). If you go to Scandinavia or study comparative politics, the answer is simple: Scandinavia is Scandinavia, the US is the US. They are different places with outcomes that reflect different values and choices. What people ignore about Scandinavia: mono-cultural society (if you tried some of the integration stuff that these countries do in the US, you would have people loading guns), huge tax burden on middle class (in the US people who currently pay no tax will have to hand over 40%+ of their income), small population, heavily monopolistic economy, significant exposure to trade/reliance on individual companies, significant natural resources (Norway has 20% of the US oil reserves, their population is smaller than almost every state in the US). Saying they are happier is very woolly, particularly as most countries in that region are societies that place significant social pressure on individuals to conform and be happy (their rates of depression and suicide are high, indeed when Sweden was the socialist paradise their rate of suicide was highest in the world). Also, you ignore that most Scandinavian countries have moved towards the US model after decades of underperformance and then financial crisis. Even Denmark which has huge trade union membership has the most flexible labour anywhere...again, what people understand about Scandinavia is usually based on their preconceptions about America and their belief in a perfect, easy ideal that confirms their views about the world. The US gets things far more right than wrong. It is, by far, the most successful economy that has existed to this point. No other large country has replicated that success (all the East Asian economies used Germany as their model, which has resulted in significant baggage). You can say that some stuff needs to be changed...okay, but it isn't as simple as just copying Scandinavia. That will never happen, and won't work if it did. It just makes no sense. The solution to an American problem is American, not Swedish.