Stop the Scandimania: Nordic nations aren’t the utopias they’re made out to be
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RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
Subject: Stop the Scandimania: Nordic nations aren’t the utopias they’re made out to be Thu Oct 22, 2015 6:33 pm
‘What’s there not to love?” actor Will Ferrell enthuses in the second episode of NBC’s expat-comedy “Welcome to Sweden.” “Picking blueberries, outhouses, a year off if you have a baby — even if you don’t have a baby, just a year off. Your family around constantly. Lagom — not too much, not too little. I mean, they’re doing it right over here.”
Ferrell is in character, but his fervor is all too familiar. The United States is in the midst of an episode of chronic Scandimania, brought on in part by the habitually high placing of Sweden and its similarly prosperous, egalitarian, collectivist neighbors — Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland — in global rankings of everything from happiness to lack of corruption, gender equality and consumption of organic root vegetables.
It is true, the old Viking tribes excel in many of these areas, but I fear, lately, we non-Scandis have become rather blinded by the Northern Lights.
Consider the glowing reports on Finnish schools (the best in the world, says Smithsonian Magazine, though the latest rankings show they are slipping), Norwegian prisons (“superior” claims the Atlantic — it helps that Norway barely has any criminals) and Swedish road safety (New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to borrow the model, though I suspect that speeding fines that rise with income wouldn’t be popular in Manhattan). And there’s the adulation of Nordic cuisine. (Is there a U.S. publication that hasn’t gone foraging with René Redzepi? Car and Driver, maybe.)
The Washington Post is not immune to Scandinavia’s charms, recently marveling at how Danish branches of McDonald’s manage to pay their employees 2.5 times U.S. McDonald’s workers’ wages (clue: When about 75 percent of earnings disappear as income and consumption taxes, higher wages are more necessity than choice).
The New York Times also seems to have a crush on the Nordics. “Joy Is Always in Season,” it gushed in a piece on Denmark (the latest Gallup polls indicate that’s less true than it once was), and last month the Times assured us that “A Big Safety Net and Strong Job Market Can Coexist. Just Ask Scandinavia.” (*Cough* unemployment is 5.6 percent in the United States, vs. 8.1 percent in Sweden, 8.9 percent in Finland and 6.4 percent in Denmark.)
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I suspect that few Americans would truly embrace a Scandinavian-style society. The tax rates alone would likely be a sufficient deterrent. Though I’m a freelance journalist, I essentially work until Thursday lunchtime for the state. And it’s not as if the money that is left in my pocket goes all that far: These are fearfully expensive countries in which to live.
Subject: Stop the Scandimania: Nordic nations aren’t the utopias they’re made out to be 
Thu Oct 22, 2015 6:33 pm
