There’s a certain paradox whereby the political ideology that advocates diversity, works best in the absence of diversity.
Actually, I may be guilty of America-projecting here. Does the liberalism of Iceland and Sweden, etc. take the form of ‘Diversity is good’ liberalism like here in the US?
Well, according to at least one web site, Denmark and Norway are 71st and 72nd, respectively, on the list of countries sorted by proportional military spending. Sweden was the 84th.
Less than Romania, more than New Zealand… I dunno: that neighborhood looks fairly peacenik to me.
One measure I wasn’t able to find was how many troops various countries are sending to fight in foreign wars. I’d love to see figures on Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as far as service members in, say, the Iraq wars, Afghanistan, or today in hot spots.
In any case, all three countries are spending much more than the U.S. on domestic comfort, and are certainly reaping the peace dividend. I wish the U.S. would participate in this a little more, and buy a little fewer warships.
I don’t know if spending is the best metric. Sure the US has the most powerful military, but I’ll guess the benefit/cost ratio is much lower, especially with F-35s and Zumwalts in the mix. We could probably maintain the same military for much cheaper with some oversight in the mix.
I was referring to the fact that Sweden has maintained its neutrality for some time, whereas Norway is one of the staunchest supporters of NATO, and has been since the beginning. And Denmark committed fairly strongly to Afghanistan and Iraq wars - not as much as UK or Australia, but still substantially.
Granted neutrality only has some correlation with peacefulness - Switzerland is the poster boy of neutrality, and generally supports the “peace through force” doctrine. And Sweden still does have a military, unlike Iceland.
This is from 2011, so I don’t know if it’s a typical year or not, but while the 3 Scandinavian countries didn’t send a huge number of troops to Afghanistan (<1% of the total), Denmark sent more than rather militarized Korea, and less than “peaceful” Canada (by about 4 fold as weighted by total troops). I guess my point is that they’re all fairly peaceful countries, but not the maypole-and-pacifism image that some people imagine.
Fair enough, and I certainly wasn’t aware of some of what you noted, so ignorance fought, education advanced, and the world is a better place. 
I really do want the U.S. to reap a peace dividend. One problem with this is that it will be slightly harmful to places that depend on military spending (I live in San Diego.) Also, it will increase the unemployment rate – and, worse, all those guys with military service will be ahead of those of us who don’t when it comes to getting employed! (I don’t begrudge that too much…but it does harm me.)
Sweden, Great Britain, the U.S… It’s time for us to step back and accept our role as a major power, but not the world’s single greatest power. A strong alliance with Europe will serve to keep us (all) safe.
I always find it interesting when someone wants to compare our education system to Finland’s, or our criminal justice system to Sweden’s. Of course size and diversity matter.
You know which states in the US have the lowest imprisonment rates and highest education attainment? Minnesota. Montana. Wyoming. Maine. Vermont. New Hampshire.
Another key factor I think might get overlooked is population density. Japan is a relatively small, very homogeneous country. And it’s not a bad place at all, but not the “utopia” of Scandinavia.
Wait … there’s individual cities in the USA bigger than Sweden …
How many tax dollars collected in Los Angeles go to pay for social programs in Alabama?
How many tax kronas collected in Sweden go to pay for social programs in The Ukraine?
The poor in Mississippi are a hell of a lot better off than the poor in Bessarabia …
That reason may eventually go away, but only when race ceases to become an issue in society. But then we’ll still have regional differences. In the US, the main thing preventing social democracy isn’t whites vs. minorities, it’s urban whites vs. rural whites.
Yes, diversity doesn’t just mean racial diversity. There is religious diversity, cultural diversity, income diversity, and so on. Racial diversity is just the one that I guess is most visible. To think social challenges in the US are all the result of different colors of people is inaccurate.
Minor point I know, but you are quite wrong there.
New York City is the largest city in the US according to an estimate in 2015 census at 8.5 million (the census in 2010 said 8.1 million).
Sweden has just shy of 10 million inhabitants:
To be honest I think you were just extremely unlucky. Yes, it was some time ago, but my experience with the personnummer was exactly like yours with the SSN. I got a temporary number within days and the full one after about a month.
I have many friends here that are still employed “back home” and not locally. None of them have any issues. Well, apart from the Brits lamenting that they are still paid in the UK as the GBP is so weak against the SEK right now (yay Brexit).
The NYC metropolitan area has a population of roughly 20 million - New York metropolitan area - Wikipedia
From the very beginning of your own cite:
I count twelve cities mentioned there.
Diverse countries have UHC and maternity leave, in fact many if not most advanced countries do, so that’s not a particularly compelling explanation for their absence in America. It’s not obvious that if everyone in America turned into a white liberal that the fundamental power structures would change, absent a sustained political movement. I did enjoy reading a quite fanciful CT awhile ago that America orchestrated the Middle East migration crisis so that Europe would eventually, using the logic in this thread, dismantle its welfare apparatus and thereby quell domestic clamoring for emulation of their social policies.
If you look around American conservative communities you’ll certainly find those who are outraged that minorities and outgroup members are benefiting from their tax dollars, though I doubt they would turn into socialists if they knew it would be helping their own tribe members instead.
A “metro area” is very different than a city.
Why should a species that reproduces sexually and doesn’t have huge swarms of sterile workers like an ant colony favor policy that promotes any other group at their own expense? Why do people expect biology to cease mattering?
Absolutely. The point is to take help away from people, not to give it.
The red tape must be bad, if a Spanish person is compaining about it 
: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXWZ3uAEKsw
(To be fair, I suspect that bureaucracy always seems worse in another country, compared to the bureaucracy that you grew up with. I have known people coming to the UK being exasperated at the way we do things here.)
Your basic facts are true but your conclusion is wrong. I would cite Canada as the opposite of what you’re claiming. Yes, it’s geographically large, and the population is very diverse, especially in major urban centers, and in many ways the culture is different in the different regions – the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and BC are all notably distinct, and then there’s the prairies and the northern territories. And yet, there are strong ties in shared social values, one of the chief ones being precisely the form of social democracy cited in the OP – for instance, universal health care completely decoupled from ability to pay, a strong social safety net, income security, and progressive social policies. All of which are closer to Scandinavian policies than American ones, though not always to the same degree.
Which seems to prove that culture is more important than size or diversity in establishing social policy. It also disproves the oft-cited claim that the US is “too big” to implement something like universal health care, which is perhaps the ultimate expression of social solidarity. It isn’t “too big”, because programs like that can be administered by states, but under federal direction to ensure national standards.
That’s why I’m puzzled by the Krugman point quoted earlier. It is not obvious to me that you cannot have a generous social safety net and a generous immigration policy. Canada has both.
I was getting my Driver’s licence renewed a couple of years ago and a fellow from Colorado who had just moved to Canada was in at the same time.
He was getting his car licence, car insurance, and combined driver’s licence/driver insurance, all from the government insurance/DMV equivalent.
Took him about ten minutes, from coming in the door to leaving with all his licences and insurance up-to-date.
As he left he said: “You guys up here may be socialists, but you’re pretty efficient socialists.”