Cite please. I don’t see the Nordic countries mentioned by reactionary religious right wing sites.
IceCube: Could you answer my question in #36? I’m genuinely curious.
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It’s relevant because as the research of Harvard’s Robert Putman suggests, increased ethnic diversity is associated with reduced social capital, civic participation and trust. It’s no coincidence that those countries have high reported levels of social trust. That in turn makes people more willing to contribute to a generous social welfare system.
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Whether those countries can maintain their system and social outcomes with a more diverse society via third world immigration is an interesting question. As Swedish/US economist Tino Sanandaji writes:
Wow, Chen019. It appears that Sweden is indeed in shambles and the murder rate makes it sound like a scary place. It indeed sounds like that radioactive cesspool of mutated frogs of Europe.
Letting parts of some cities be immigrants only and keeping those immigrants out of the job market is not an inherent feature of the Nordic Social model. The policies in place for the last decades must of course take some of the blame, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
And judging from your quote even in the worst of Swedish cities the homicide rate is still only 70% of the US average.
And your posts and threads appear much like intentionally extreme parodies of an unpopular viewpoint. I can’t go further without taking this to the pit, for which I have neither the time nor the inclination.
I don’t suspect I am.
Just saying “larger countries are not more complex to govern” over and over again doesn’t really make a point. I actually think Japan seems far more complex in its government than Iceland. Japan has to deal with China, it has to deal with a very complex economic picture due to Japan being a major international participant in trade in a huge range of industries. Iceland does not have those issues. In fact Iceland barely has a foreign policy and doesn’t even have a military. The banking crisis in Iceland literally involved like two banks that the government had to deal with, because Iceland is such a small country.
Larger countries have more going on, and thus are more complex to govern.
Even the logistics of governing a country like Norway or Sweden are a joke compared to a country of decent size. While aside from Denmark the Scandinavian countries are quite large geographically, their populations are very small and highly concentrated. This means you’re really only talking about running a couple cities and you’re basically talking about the entire country.
In the United States we have almost 300 cities with populations greater than 100,000. Each one has, because of different geography, different economic situations, different cultural institutions and etc a very different set of wants and needs. And that is just the cities, that doesn’t cover the urban areas outside of the center city limits (all the suburbs/bedroom communities/exurbs) and the 20-30% (in some States) rural population.
Your idea that “percentage of population employed as civil servants” is some proxy for governing complexity is incorrect. Government becomes more complex the more people you have to please and the more stakeholders there are. Because larger, more populous countries have far more activities in far more areas going on than smaller countries, there are far more stakeholders and impacts to any single issue. In Norway if you get a few cities to agree that say, all cars should run on natural gas that’s basically the whole country. In the United States you’re dealing with tons of stakeholders across the entire country, different states would respond very differently as would many of the dozens of major corporations operating in the United States that have an interest in what’s going on. Norway has basically one big energy company, the United States has operations of basically all of the non-State oil majors not to mention several large natural gas concerns that aren’t oil majors. All of them would have some sort of say about changing the country from gasoline to CNG vehicles.
I would imagine Norway has a greater portion of its population employed as government drones than the Roman Empire did, but that doesn’t mean Norway is equivalent in complexity to managing the Roman Empire.
In all honesty your point goes in the face of established political science and history. A major part of the reason large Empires weaken and fall is precisely because it was so hard to manage them due to their size and ethnic and cultural diversity. If government just easily scaled with size and diversity then the Roman Empire would have been no harder to manage than Iceland and should still exist today, or the British Empire or Austro-Hungarian for that matter.
I don’t actually believe there is agreement among historians on why ancient empires fell. Except on the fact that each was unique and had its own problems. It is quite true than many had severe issues with size…but that is geographic size. Slower communications did make governance harder. A province could be in rebellion for weeks before the center heard about it.
And I don’t think you are quite appreciating the fact that your map does not fit the terrain. You can expond at any length you care about why you believe larger entities should be more challenging to govern, but that does not change the fact that there appears to be no real-world fit for the notion. The amount of governance per citizen appears constant, or even larger in smaller countries.
The number of teachers, nurses, policemen, sewageworkers etc needed per 1000 citizens do observably not change with the population of a country. You could say that you’ll need an additional layer of management, but that is a far smaller number than the number of service-providers. There is something called “the economics of scale” It is why Wallmart outcompetes mom and pop stores. And it appears to be a larger factor than growths in administrative needs.
“An additional layer of management” is simple to say, but I humbly submit that if you’re saying it is that simple, you don’t have much experience or knowledge about management.
Sorry, but I have to tell you that what you’re saying here is bullshit. There’s plenty of creative individuals in scandinavia, just like anywhere else. To be honest, with state and communal scholarships giving livable income to artists, writers and musicians, a law having all state buildings required to spend 4% of their budget on art, hundred if not thousand different legates for culture and art, music-venues, galleries and underground theatres aplenty, hundreds of festivals a year, ranging from rather large twenty-thousand affairs with international artists to miniscule fifty-person noise- and experimental-gatherings in remote forests, I’d say norwegian culture is thriving and probably better facilitated than most. Hell, we even had Arne Nordheim occupying the norwegian state’s honorary residence until his death some years ago.
The reason large countries are harder to govern are mostly no longer about communication and travel difficulties but rather divergent interests of the population. Say manufacturing in the rust belt is cratering and would benefit from a weaker dollar but computer manufacturing in silicon valley is booming and would benefit from a weaker dollar. What should your monetary policy be? The sugar farmers of louisiana want a tariff on imported sugar, but the chocalate manufacturers in Pennsylvania want no tariffs. The rich people in San Fransisco want a high minimum wage but the poor people looking for work in South Carolina can’t find jobs at the current minimum wage. You need to create a coalition that is pro weak dollar, pro-tariff, and high minimum wage to fight the Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina coalition. That is just one example, actual governance is many many times more complicated. Thus you get stupid policies like sugar tariffs which everyone agrees is bad policy that is costing us jobs but are impossible to get rid of because the sugar lobby is a lynchpin in a broader coalition in the Rube Goldberg contraption that is the government.
An analogy would be making a decision for lunch to bring to an office meeting. In a small office you can just get two pizzas and everyone is happy. In a big office you have to allow for the lactose intolerant, the vegans, the guy with acid reflux, the people who only eat organic, the gluten free, etc.
Wait, and let me guess, there are restrictions on the type of art meeting subsidized right?
Are you suggesting that there are no restrictions on the type of art installed in state buildings with public money in the USA?
Of course, all Norwegian art is made to glorify our glorious leaders. Some typical examples: legendary prime minister Einar Gerhardsen, the party leaders of our recent red-green coalition, together with king Harald V and our current prime minister Erna Solberg 
For a more serious answer: When our government spends millions of tax kroner on art to decorate public buildings like universities, hospitals etc. they defintively have requirements – if they didn’t I’d say that part of public spending was in shambles. Here’s more information about art in public spaces: http://www.koro.no/en/
Here’s an estimate of corruption in various parts of the world: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/ It doesn’t support your theory that governments which provide redistribution of wealth or lots of services necessarily become corrupt.
I’m sure causes of corruption are complicated, but I expect having a past as a colony would increase the risk. A recent history of rulers whose first loyalty was to another country, and whose job it was to siphon wealth away, wouldn’t be likely to foster a government that’s very accountable to its citizens.
Of course, redistribution of wealth shouldn’t mean just handing out cash. One example of Norwegian redistribution/nation building which works very well is higher education. Almost all higher education (including all our universities) is financed by tax money. Tuitition fees are non-existant or symbolic (the university I went to requires you to pay ~150 USD per year to support health care, sports clubs, etc). There’s also a state education loan fund which gives student loans to all students, regardless of their fortune or lack of it. (Flunking too many exams will disqualify you from receiving further loans, though.)
This has lots of advantages:
[ul]
[li]Everybody have a decent chance of getting an education suited to their abilities. (Your changes to succeed at school are still better if you have educated parents, but poverty isn’t a deal breaker.)[/li][li]This is probably a significant contribution to our high social mobility.[/li][li]Society benefits from talented people getting an education which allows them to contribute to the best of their ability.[/li][li]Newly educated people don’t have a terrible burden of debt. Thus, they don’t need super-high wages to handle that debt, and our tax money can pay for more doctors, engineers, etc to handle public tasks.[/li][/ul]
In contrast: In a society where higher education is very expensive, I’d expect there to be a higher risk of corruption. If education is my only way to avoid poverty, I’d be willing to go into crippling debt to get it, and then I’d be more likely to need to get some extra funds under the table, to cover that debt.
How exactly is corruption quantified?
Well, I do have a Masters degree and some years of experience in it. Here is a bit of practical management knowledge: When the terrain and the map differs, assume the terrain is correct.
You have a long reasoning chain about why size should increase complexity disproportionally, but it falls apart when tested against reality. Assume reality is correct in such cases.
You are assuming that such difficulties only arise with size, which is very wrong. The fishermen in Northern Norway want low tariffs and no toll barriers, while the farmers in southern Norway want high tariffs and trade barriers. The fishing value creation is more than 20x that of the farming, but the farming lobby is far more organized. Which is how you get the cheese debacle. The oil producers in the west want a high oil prize, the airlines a low one. Exactly the same differences exist in smaller countries. An assumption that that a smaller size means interests harmonize is not a good assumption.
Anywhere you have a population in the millions (or probably hundreds of thousands) is more than enough to generate differing interests.
Here is a theoretical management item: The economics of scale beats the diseconomics of scale. Wall-Mart beats the mom-and-pop store. Tesco beats the local grocery store.
Look, no-one is saying that complexity does not increase with size. The issue is whether it increases faster than the benefits of size. Observational data shows that it does not.
The original argument was that a smaller size makes the Nordic countries easier to govern and explains the success of said countries. Avoiding, I would suspect, any painful introspection or actually learning anything from anywhere.
Yet larger countries have smaller fractions of their national resources devoted to the business of governing.
This is a great point, blond haired Eastern Swedes don’t share a lot of culture with the Saami or even ethnic Karelian Finns who all make up the diaspora that is modern day Sweden.
It is like saying all white Americans are the same.
Well I see there has been a lot of responses to filmstar-en’s post, correcting his viewpoint, but I can’t resist adding some to this.
Protestantism and climate had nothing to do with it. What actually drove social reform was mass emigration (from 1840-1910) in combination with the advent of industrialization.
Mass migration from Scandinavia to America started in the 1840’s. Initially, the governments were relieved as the Scandinavian countries had seen a huge population growth in the previous 100 years. Taking Sweden as an example, by 1890, 800,000 Swedes had migrated to the US. At the time, people used to say there were more Swedes in Chicago then there were in Gothenburg (Sweden’s 2nd largest city). The promise of free fertile lands was promising, but secondary to this was the very harsh and strict ways the national churches treated the people, controlling their everyday lives, especially in rural areas. Fertile lands and freedom from an oppressive religion called many. By 1890, the rate of migration slowed.
Around this time industrialization began to spread in Scandinavia, starting in Denmark. It was slower to spread in Sweden and Norway and in fact there was even a small period where Swedes were migrating to Denmark for work. By the turn of the century industrialization had caught up even in Sweden and Norway. At this time a new wave of emigration to the Americas began as American industries were paying higher wages and the prospect of the American style freedom called. This alarmed the governments and in Sweden for example, they instituted an emigration commission. After its study it recommended “bringing the best sides of America to Sweden”. Major proposals such as universal male suffrage, affordable housing, popular education, economic and infrastructure development were implemented. Similar reforms were implemented in other Nordic countries and the mass migration stopped. Although some say it stopped due to World War I, probably WWI was a a factor which halted migration suddenly, but as it did not start up again after the war, the reforms had probably taken effect.
In the mid 19th century, there was a movement initiated by University students for a Scandinavian Union and it gained some popularity until the 2nd Danish-German war over Schleswig. Although Sweden-Norway had sent troops to support the Danes in the 1st war, they refused in the 2nd, and the Scandinavian union movement died at that time.
Until after WW2. This time it emerged as the Nordic Council which included Finland and Iceland. The Nordic Council was formed in 1952 and (joined by Finland in 1955). They successfully implemented the Passport free travel area followed by the Nordic Labour Market in 1954 which allowed people to move and work freely in any member states. Long before the European Union did the same. They implemented the convention on Social Security in 1955 and were moving towards a single market. The Single market idea was abandoned when Sweden, Norway and Denmark joined EFTA. Despite that, the Nordic Council also implemented the Nordic School of Public Health and the Nordic Cultural Fund. When Denmark joined the EEC (later to become the EU) in 1971, the Nordic Council policies remained in effect and Denmark become a bridge between the Nordic Council and the EEC countries. After Sweden and Finland joined the EU, the bridge remained to Norway and Iceland who have yet to join the EU. All Nordic countries were politically heading in the same direction and if one social policy was adapted in one country, it would soon be adapted in the others if it was shown to be successful. It is not a surprise that all the Nordic countries tend to be grouped together in all the top 10 lists.
Wrong. Like most modern societies, it is true that the definition of family has changed where the older generations are put into homes and no longer being taken care of by their children. However, this is paid for by the government. This allows old people a safe place to live and be taken care of, and allows the younger generation to work and raise their own kids. In my experience, it didn’t change how often we went to see my grandparents. And frankly, as they got older, it was good to know that they had professionals taking care of them.
As for creativity and innovation, how wrong you are. If you wanted to start your own business, the government grants you start up money no strings attached, success or failure. Entrepreneurship is encouraged and it’s true a good number of these fail, but occasionally it can lead to big business. And it does encourage innovation. There are a number of everyday products and technology that are Scandinavian innovations, including the three point safety belt, open source micro IP, Skype, the zipper, the ball bearing, turbo engines, the Celsius thermometer, the milking machine and separator, pacemakers, and paper clips, just to name a few. Scientific research, especially, but not exclusively in medicine, is also heavily funded. It’s not a surprise that so many new innovative medical treatments come out of Scandinavia. In fact I personally hope that the Scandinavians are the ones to discover the cure for cancer as it will mean the cure would likely be in the public domain.
Don’t get me started on the arts.
This is getting a bit long now, so I’m going to conclude.
The irony as I have shown is that the Scandinavians were jolted into following the American model in order to stem the flow of mass migration. And America was heading in the same direction. It’s no secret that Roosevelt was planning on implementing Universal Healthcare in the US after the war. Indeed if Henry Wallace had still been the VP in Roosevelt’s last term, this would still likely have happened. But after WWII, things changed in the US. In Europe and especially the Nordic countries, Universal Health care was implemented as a matter of course, but not in the US. Somehow the corporations had managed to gain control of the US government, using money as an incentive. It’s no wonder the US government seem so dysfunctional today. Sure there are some huge corporations in Scandinavia too, and they may have some influence with the government where the government can help to smooth exports and such, but no Scandinavian company would be allowed to get away with openly polluting the environment. No Scandinavian banker would be allowed to bring down the economy due to questionable financial activities. (With the exception of Iceland. Not sure what made Iceland go astray here). There are controls in place to ensure companies behave and in return, they do get assistance when they need it, but they also pay taxes for those services.
The Scandinavian governments still represent the people whereas the US government now represent corporations and big money.
It can still work in the US, but it is in serious need of government reform.
Dude. He is comparing Americans of more than 55% Swedish ancestry to Swedes in general. Most immigration from Scandinavia to America was in the 1800s. In other words, his American sample is selected for more than a hundred years family stability.
If you were to include only Swedes who had that kind of long-term social stability in the Swedish control group, I expect his numbers would look very very different.