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Going Dutch
- miked 18y agoA Dutchman replies: http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=8a80f624-92a7-4022-acbe-3912b5be0d09 http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=8a80f624-92a7-... The NYT article doesn't make any mention of the fact that emigration from the Netherlands in 2004 was the highest since 1954. This makes me wonder if things are really as wonderful there as the article claims, although it does a pretty good job of pointing out the pros and cons.
- dhoe 18y agoThe article does not mention this fact because it's not true: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=nl&v=27 http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=nl&v=27. The net migration rate merely stopped growing.
- miked 18y agoThanks for the catch. I've corrected it as per below. My source was (my memory of) a statement in a book that I read a while back. From a 2005 article: http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/local_news/why-are-they-all-going-18295.html http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/local_news/why-are-they-all-... "In 2004 almost 50,000 people born in the Netherlands decided to leave and live in a foreign country. Since 1954, the number of emigrants has never been so high. The Dutch economy, with the exception of the early 1980s, has never been so poor since 1954. The Netherlands is undergoing the longest period of stagnation in two generations, according to the latest statistics from the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis."
- robak 18y agostill doing much better than Americans without savings, bankrupt 401k, huge debts, health system for lucky few who can afford it.
- jonas_b 18y agoEven if it was true, would that in the case of NL indicate anything in regards to its taxes-welfare state? I thought it was a widely held "fact" that the NL is overcrowded and that dutchmen should try to find their lebensraum elsewhere.
- eru 18y agoBe careful playing with terms like "Lebensraum".
- jonas_b 18y agoYou're right, it was probably unnecessary. It's a pity though, cause the metaphorical meaning of living "room" is precisely what I meant.
- eru 18y agoIn modern German, Lebensraum is still a perfectly normal word when used as "the place where animals live". But we are very cautious about our history and the history of words. Sometimes bordering on (self-) censorship. So that caution is not necessarily a good thing.
- jonas_b 18y agoHabitat might have been the word I was looking for. I agree that one should be careful when using emotionally charged words, but I also think that playful usage might be a way out of the self-censorship that surrounds a great many dreadful historical events. Not just in Germany.
- philwelch 18y agoIt's actually fairly astute. The reason "expanding Germany into the territory of neighboring countries we don't like" was so popular to Germans was because Germany (then and probably now) is fairly dense. One of my friends studied in Germany. One of his professors said something like, "Germany has never had enough land. We tried expanding once but it didn't work out so well." It's easy to imagine the Netherlands having the same problem. Of course, emigrating to a less dense country is an easier solution.
- sfk 18y ago"Dissident voices are ruled out of order and successfully demonized (Pim Fortuyn), killed (Theo van Gogh) or face such severe threats to their security that they are forced to emigrate, as in the case of Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who violated the Dutch norms of “consensus” by insisting on publicly discussing female genital mutilation; honor violence; honor killings; and forced marriages." The author conflates many issues here. Most people disagreed with Fortuyn because he was a right-wing populist who managed to form a fringe party that consisted of sorry losers. The guy himself was intelligent, witty and utterly narcissistic. He was like a character in Oscar Wilde's plays who had a bon mot for everything and solutions for nothing. Not the kind of person who should have political power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn
- gaius 18y agoNot the kind of person who should have political power. That is up to the voters to decide, no?
- cousin_it 18y agoNo, the author doesn't conflate anything. Yes, the people mentioned differ in many ways: gender, political views, popular image... But they do have something in common: they vocally attacked Islamic practices and were punished.
- lucumo 18y agoYes, because the idiotic actions of crazy individuals are totally the responsibility of all people in a society. Have you repented for the murder of JFK, Lincoln and some school personnel in San Diego (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer) yet?
- cousin_it 18y agoI don't know exactly why people downvoted you (I didn't), but guess it's because you attacked factual statements with emotional statements.
- rjprins 18y agoThe guy is all for harder sentences, more jail time, etc. Criticizing judges on these matters is like telling experienced programmers they don't code well. They know what works and what doesn't. The numbers about rape and manslaughter are all out of context, we know nothing of the circumstances. And lastly, since when was putting people in jail longer an effective policy against crime? Anyway, what I think the most important issue is that the people in positions of power (1) actually try to do the right thing and (2) that their views on what is right are not too skewed. Both of which are generally true in the Netherlands I believe. Lastly, on conformity as mentioned in the original article: I would not even know what is meant with conformity. True, you will have to conform to store closing-times which is a silly rule that needs to be changed. But there are hardly any social norms, you may be openly gay, atheist or deeply religious and wear whatever you want. Just don't expect to be viewed as sympathetic when you dress ostentatiously (where would you be?). 'lack of inidividual initiative': Why should people be individually be burdened with taking care of social problems, when we have a government in place just for that task?
- jules 18y ago> But there are hardly any social norms, you may be openly gay, atheist or deeply religious and wear whatever you want. From what I see on the TV and read in newspapers this is changing.
- lucumo 18y agoYeah, there's a certain conservative movement growing which is strongly nationalistic, anti-European, against strange cultures and against what is called "The Church of the Left" (progressive, urban, and socialistic political parties). Highly annoying since _everything_ becomes adversarial because of them.
- ilitirit 18y agoI didn't see the point of a good portion of that response because the author kept referring to the past. It was only after 6 paragraphs that he started tackling the current model, and he does that by not only describing the issues surrounding it ambiguously ("fair amount"), but also by using the past as an argument: > I would argue that the economic consensus model in the Netherlands is quite recent in historical terms, and that even today, it contains a fair amount of conflict. > In 1982 the Dutch state... And the 4 paragraphs later he ends with: > These changes are worth noting, but they came about only after extremely difficult struggles that took decades. Some of the social issues he raises are interesting, but overall I feel that this is a poor response.
- jules 18y agoThis is ridiculous: > they are forced to emigrate, as in the case of Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who violated the Dutch norms of “consensus” by insisting on publicly discussing female genital mutilation; honor violence; honor killings; and forced marriages. She was forced to emigrate because she lied about her past. If she hadn't she wouldn't have been allowed in in the first place.
- davidw 18y agoThis is the sort of thing that people can argue endlessly, and ultimately, unproductively about.
- wolfish 18y agoIt's true that these arguments do seem to go on forever and very rarely does someone change their viewpoint based on these discussions. But debates on the value of incentives, the role of government and charity, and efficient resource allocation are important topics citizens would be wise not to avoid.
- davidw 18y agoAvoiding them here doesn't mean avoiding them entirely.
- delano 18y agoSome of the symbolism is a bit extreme but overall it's a pretty good overview of life in the Netherlands. There is a level of comfort here that I haven't experienced anywhere else however that comfort has both positive and negative consequences. This is the only article I've read that touches on that aspect of life here. And I'm glad he mentioned the lack of anything open 24h a day and rarely past 6 (some grocery stores are open until 10). It's madness! By the way, if you're interested in the history of the Netherlands, there's a dutch movie coming out later this year about the flood of 1953: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230194/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230194/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953
- lethain 18y agoI lived in rural Japan last year, and had similar experiences with stores being open or lack thereof. There were three restaurants and two bars. One restaurant never opened for dinner, another was run by a family, was closed at 8PM and was closed on Sundays, the third was run by one woman and was closed for dinner on weekends and also tuesdays. One of the bars' closing schedule involved being closed on the third Sunday of each month. Grocery stores closed by 8. I spent a lot of time thinking about how things must have been to live 50 years ago, and how much we've come to take (this very limited sense of) openness for granted.
- jimbokun 18y agoThat's pretty weird, considering Japan probably has more 24-hour convenience stores than any country on Earth. You must have been pretty far out in the "inaka". :) http://jet.wikia.com/wiki/Inaka http://jet.wikia.com/wiki/Inaka
- delano 18y agoWhoa, an irregular schedule to boot. You must have had to do a lot of pre-planning.
- ovi256 18y agoPre-planning is hard. Let's go shopping. Anyway, when in Rome, do as the romans. Hard if they have weird customs, I agree.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ijnbhuy 18y agoIronically The Netherlands was meant to be the model for the USA, with all power local to the states and a stadhouder in Washington to manage things. Somehow the English model of land holding lords and a king in his white castle won out.
- benzim 18y agoTo think that the social welfare state is a natural outgrowth of churches setting up schools and hospitals is completely ridiculous. The two things couldn't be more opposite. Social welfare emerges as a result of the collapse of Christianity in a society. The Dutch will talk about how they don't think anyone should be without health care, but if they saw someone in need they wouldn't help them. I don't know which comes first, but people who believe in social welfare seem to believe they have no personal responsibility to help those in need. Look at the average giving of the Dutch or someone like Joe Biden who while talking constantly about compassion gave an average of $369 per year for the last decade. Social welfare leads to an almost complete lack of the personal compassion that is at the heart of Christianity.
- turkishrevenge 18y ago"but if they saw someone in need they wouldn't help them" -- this applies to Christians and non-Christians alike. Similarly, a Christian or non-Christian could easily help such a person as well. Given the overall message of Christianity (read: Christ) then, by your definition, there should be no want or suffering in the world, but yet there is. You are free to believe what you want about the Dutch, but at the very least, you have to admit that they have created a society that attempt to provide some basic standard of health and social well-being to its citizens. Not the same can always be said for other "compassionate" Christian societies.
- benzim 18y agoBut it doesn't apply to Christians and non-Christians alike. Conservatives and especially Christians give far more time and money to help those less fortunate. "Finally, the single biggest predictor of whether someone will be charitable is their religious participation. Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money: four times as much. And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization: "Actually, the truth is that they're giving to more than their churches," he says. "The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities."" http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730 http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730 You're misunderstanding Christianity. Jesus said: "For you always have the poor with you" Matthew 26:11. Christians don't believe that its possible to eradicate poverty. In fact we believe that society will continue to grow worse until the end. The point is not to build a utopia, it is to personally help those you see in need.
- ellyagg 18y agoSpeaking only for myself as a US citizen, I'm proud of the fact that the US has led the world in per capita income the last few decades. For a country our size to consistently be number 1 or near the top (depending on who's doing the analysis) is pretty amazing. I think there's room in the world for a country with an ethic that favors aggregate production. Why does everyone have to be the same? People are free to move to a country with a value system that's more closely aligned with their own, e.g., one that seeks to flatten wealth disparities. But that's not what people want, it seems. A lot of people feel a strong impulse to convince others that their value system is the best.
- tybris 18y ago> I'm proud of the fact that the US has led the world in per capita income the last few decades Huh? Aren't they on par with countries like the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, etc?
- dschobel 18y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... actually quite a few spots behind.
- robak 18y agoAnd they are only because they rich are awfully rich. I.e. in Dubai per capita income is over 100,000 usd a year - twice as much as in the USA. Why? Because prince and friends have Trillions (yes, with T in front!). The same is true for the USA. The base salary for McDonald's employee in Switzerland is 20usd/hr. The have no Bill Gates though. So "average" is more-less the same. But I wouldn't say that on average US citizens get the same life quality as Swiss do. If this was true, the US wouldn't rank 44th place for life length expectancy - the same as developing nations...
- sethg 18y agoEzra Klein points out that even though the author of "Going Dutch" describes "a cultural tendency not to stand out or excel...the very antithesis of the American ideal of upward mobility", if you compare actual statistics, the US has less economic mobility (as measured by the relationship between parents' and childrens' income) than many other industrialized nations. http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=05&year=2009&base_name=is_europe_really_have_less_upw http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=0...