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Every time there is a US/UK article about how much better things are in Scandinavia/Netherlands/Germany, someone from the latter pops up and starts listing a nu

Every time there is a US/UK article about how much better things are in Scandinavia/Netherlands/Germany, someone from the latter pops up and starts listing a number of negatives, usually with a strong right-wing/libertarian bias. None of these are false in themselves, but these same issues are largely common to all Western societies (the US being a bit of an outlier in some aspects), and not a sign of total failure of a specific model. Name one Western country that isn't struggling with public spending, globalisation, automation and education issues.

fetbaffe 13y ago
What usually all these comparisons (from all sides) fail to understand is that all countries have different history and culture, therefore the solutions will always differ and cannot be implemented across different countries. And people will prefer one over the other because of their own bias as a member of any given country. However what you can measure is the progress within you own country, is it improving or not. One thing worth mentioning is that usually the top countries is all these articles is usually small North European countries. That suggest that human societies does not scale as databases.
mseebach 13y ago
Whenever one of these US/UK articles pops up, it's usually from a left-leaning angle, emphasising the left policies of these countries as the cause of all the goodness there - so it's only natural that the counterpoint would be right-leaning. > not a sign of total failure of a specific model. It's not that it's a total failure, it's more that the scandinavian model isn't the utopia it's made out to be by its (mostly left leaning) proponents.
- subsystem 13y ago
  The problem is that the counterpoint doesn't have very much to do with issue at hand. It's like a number of people read "Denmark" and thought "Let me tell you what is wrong with Denmark!". This is exactly the type of political discussions that should be avoided on HN, because when arguments are vague and with little relation to the article the quality of the discussion will suffer.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    Bringing Denmark up as a model country (as the OP does) is an inherently political statement. There is nothing "hack" about the BBC article. I agree this doesn't belong on HN, but one of the reasons politics on HN is so dangerous is that it's so easy to get dragged in - which I am clearly guilty of here.
john_b 13y ago
The number of welfare recipients + public sector being approximately equal to the private sector is common in most Western societies? That sounds pretty implausible to me. I think he has some legitimate, objective concerns that you have too flippantly dismissed as right wing biases.
- willvarfar 13y ago
  I don't know percentages - I'm sure they are googlable - but that split seems about right in Sweden too, which is a lovely country to live in. I'm a Brit that's moved to Scandinavia and I'd recommend it broadly.
ThomPete 13y ago
You know. I am one of those people who don't believe in any specific political ideology. In my world all political systems holds the solution to the problems in others. All countries have different reasons for why they are in trouble or not. All I can say is that the articles picture of Denmark is false. Not that Denmark is going down the gutter but the problems are much more severe that the numbers show.

fetbaffe 13y ago

What usually all these comparisons (from all sides) fail to understand is that all countries have different history and culture, therefore the solutions will always differ and cannot be implemented across different countries. And people will prefer one over the other because of their own bias as a member of any given country. However what you can measure is the progress within you own country, is it improving or not. One thing worth mentioning is that usually the top countries is all these articles is usually small North European countries. That suggest that human societies does not scale as databases.

mseebach 13y ago

Whenever one of these US/UK articles pops up, it's usually from a left-leaning angle, emphasising the left policies of these countries as the cause of all the goodness there - so it's only natural that the counterpoint would be right-leaning. > not a sign of total failure of a specific model. It's not that it's a total failure, it's more that the scandinavian model isn't the utopia it's made out to be by its (mostly left leaning) proponents.

subsystem 13y ago
The problem is that the counterpoint doesn't have very much to do with issue at hand. It's like a number of people read "Denmark" and thought "Let me tell you what is wrong with Denmark!". This is exactly the type of political discussions that should be avoided on HN, because when arguments are vague and with little relation to the article the quality of the discussion will suffer.
- mseebach 13y ago
  Bringing Denmark up as a model country (as the OP does) is an inherently political statement. There is nothing "hack" about the BBC article. I agree this doesn't belong on HN, but one of the reasons politics on HN is so dangerous is that it's so easy to get dragged in - which I am clearly guilty of here.

john_b 13y ago

The number of welfare recipients + public sector being approximately equal to the private sector is common in most Western societies? That sounds pretty implausible to me. I think he has some legitimate, objective concerns that you have too flippantly dismissed as right wing biases.

willvarfar 13y ago
I don't know percentages - I'm sure they are googlable - but that split seems about right in Sweden too, which is a lovely country to live in. I'm a Brit that's moved to Scandinavia and I'd recommend it broadly.

ThomPete 13y ago

You know. I am one of those people who don't believe in any specific political ideology. In my world all political systems holds the solution to the problems in others. All countries have different reasons for why they are in trouble or not. All I can say is that the articles picture of Denmark is false. Not that Denmark is going down the gutter but the problems are much more severe that the numbers show.