
The Nordic countries are probably the best-governed in the world - JumpCrisscross
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570835-nordic-countries-are-probably-best-governed-world-secret-their
======
eksith
What they seem to be glossing over is that homogeneity plays a large factor in
this. Whether it's tribes, races or just plain ol' religion, a lot of inherent
instability comes about as a result of people disagreeing the bajeezus out of
each other for no real reason other than... "I'm not _them_ ".

Of course, if you're a native in these lands, that still leaves your people
under-represented.

~~~
schoper
Actually no. The non-homogeneous states in America with lots of Nordic peoples
tend to be the best governed as well. Think Minnesota ("think Minnesota" is
the answer to every statistic comparing Europe to the States, crime, gun
control, healthcare, etc., because Minnesota is basically Yankee Switzerland
on every statistic). Almost as if it's not about the legal structure, but
rather the people.

It's more like if you rated everyone on the planet on "does this person make
the place where he lives a better place or not", Scandinavians (and their
descendants) would score perfect 10s.

A geneticist friend of mine has an explanation for this: he thinks that
adaption to civilization makes us more nepotistic. He contrasts guest-rights
in Northern Europe with "my brother against my cousin, my cousin against the
stranger," of Egypt. When he gets melancholy, he will tell you that future of
civilization is Mesopotamia -- where we have been civilized the longest. And
Idiocracy.

~~~
eksith
Minnesota is more than 90% white and Christian :
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Minnesota>

But I have a feeling, Minnesota's "Yankee Switzerland" status has more to do
with public education than with its demographic makeup.

~~~
dbaupp
Are Nordic people not "white"?

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galactus
I love it how The Economist often runs articles trying to prove that excellent
living conditions in nordic countries are all about "pro-business reforms" and
have nothing to do with their well known welfare states. Ahh, The Economist...

~~~
lprubin
That article mentioned plenty of welfare policies.

"Universal free education allows students of all backgrounds to achieve their
potential. Separate taxation of spouses puts wives on an equal footing with
their husbands. Universal day care for children makes it possible for both
parents to work full-time."

In fact the conclusion of the article was this:

"Economists frequently express puzzlement about the Nordic countries’ recent
economic success, given that their governments are so big... Goran Persson, a
former Swedish prime minister, once compared Sweden’s economy with a
bumblebee—“with its overly heavy body and little wings, supposedly it should
not be able to fly—but it does.” Today it is fighting fit and flying better
than it has done for decades."

------
binarymax
What is it with the recent Economist's crush on Nordic countries? Am I missing
something?

At least two others in the past day!
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5152160>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5149821>

~~~
rdouble
It's a common theme at the Economist to pick out a section of the world and
focus on it for an issue.

This week it happens to be the Nordics but in the past it has done China, the
USA, France, Singapore, etc.

~~~
jupiterjaz
Once a month or once a quarter I think.

~~~
mongol
More of than once a quarter, for special reports. But if I should abstain for
all technology reporting for a quarter, the "Technology Quarterly" of the
Economist is the one I would not like to miss.

------
gambiting
They are also closest to the real socialism, no Soviet country got even close
to what they are doing - and I am saying that as a person coming from a former
soviet republic.

The difference however, is that they willingly(and democratically) choose to
provide all those social benefits. Good for them.

~~~
mindjiver
This is just plain wrong. The means of production in Sweden have always been
held in private hands, the one attempt to change this ended in spectacular
failure. The big exception would be LKAB which is the owner of the iron ore
mines in northern Sweden. A country where private equity companies owns
schools is not socialist.

There is a large public sector in the Nordic countries but this is run off the
taxes from these successful capitalist companies and their employees. So a
better name would be welfare capitalism, not socialism.

------
hakaaaaak
This reminds me of the U.S. News and World Report rankings. They were taken
seriously for years before people realized that they were seriously skewed and
biased against some larger state universities.

I've been to Sweden and stayed with a family there and got the impression that
they are mostly an intelligent and compassionate people that tend to think
alike. However the drive that set the U.S. apart (back then at least) was for
innovation, business, and capitalism, while the Scandinavian/Nordics were
making furniture and high quality items without really caring about making a
lot of money from mass production, so their GDP was much lower.

To say now that they are well-governed because the U.S. is starting to suck
economically based on biased stats? Worthless info, imo.

~~~
jlarsson
Aren't Swedish companies like Ericsson, Volvo, Scania, Saab, etc into
innovation and mass production? I would say that for example Spotify (and many
other Nordic companies) are quite innovative as well.

~~~
purplelobster
For its small size, Sweden is an outlier in terms of successful big companies,
however most of those were formed a long time ago.

H&M: 1947, Ericsson: 1876, Volvo: 1927, Ikea: 1943, ABB (formerly ACEA): 1883,
AstraZeneca (formerly Astra AB): 1913, SAAB: 1937, Electrolux: 1919, etc

These have been the backbone of Swedish innovation for a long time, but we
can't count on them anymore. We need more Google's and Apple's. There's
Spotify, Digital Illusions (now EA), Skype (sort of), but there are no big
successes anymore.

~~~
jlarsson
I agree, and a problem is that many of the promising companies are sold (for
example Dice, Skype and TAT) to large, usually foreign, corporations before
they get the chance to grow.

~~~
purplelobster
Right, and not only that, a large number of companies move their headquarters
elsewhere, such as Ikea to the Netherlands, Spotify to London etc. If I ever
start my own company, I'll make sure never to be that greedy. I see the
welfare state as an investment in people and businesses. Investment relies on
getting paid by a few outliers. What is essentially happening is that when a
company becomes successful it just says "well thanks for all the support and
opportunity, but now that we're successful we don't really want to pay you
back, so we're just going to go somewhere else, problem?".

------
zahabat
> they have also largely escaped the social ills that plague America.

That is not a fair assessment. The social landscape in both regions is very
different. The nordic region does not have the same influx of immigrants as
North America. And increasingly, North African and Middle Eastern (primarily
Muslim) immigrants (and born-citizen second generations) are being
marginalized [1].

I wonder how the Nordic nations will react when more and more immigrants start
moving there to start businesses, if that turns out to be the case in the
future.

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/world/europe/14dutch.html?...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/world/europe/14dutch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

~~~
SuperChihuahua
"According to Washington-based Refugees International the U.S. has admitted
fewer than 800 Iraqi refugees since the invasion, Sweden had accepted 18,000
and Australia had resettled almost 6,000."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_Iraq>

~~~
zahabat
I do not question the charity and helpfulness of these nations. Neither do I
find any issues with their foreign policies. My point was directed more to how
the society (not the government) deals with the immigrants [1].

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/world/norwegian-schools-segregation-
sp...](http://www.smh.com.au/world/norwegian-schools-segregation-sparks-race-
row-20111126-1o089.html)

~~~
dalke
Can you summarize how you interpret that article?

For example, do you think that is common practice in Norway? I read elsewhere
that the policy was quickly abandoned once it was made public. Do you think
the 50 students who demonstrated in protest show that this was an unexpected
practice? Might the comment of "school captain Helena Skagen" .. "what they
did was wrong because you can't split the students according to their culture"
might indicate that this was an unusual event, and hence newsworthy?

------
rdouble
Perhaps more interesting is the USA is ranked 8, just behind all the obvious
Nordic, Swiss and Singaporean contenders. The general tone of most mass media
and internet commentary would suggest it should be somewhere behind Russia and
Mexico.

~~~
Cushman
That's American exceptionalism for you. I imagine it gives us a sense of
purpose to believe we live in the most corrupt, illiterate, violent country in
the world.

~~~
tkahn6
How do you know that it is Americans who are pushing that narrative?

~~~
Cushman
Because I hear it from my friends, and most of my friends are American. And
frankly, I imagine non-Americans don't think about us that much.

~~~
tkahn6
In my experience, the people who talk about America being the most violent,
the most corrupt, etc. are the ones who also like to decry 'American
exceptionalism'. And if you think that non-Americans don't think about
Americans that much, I suggest you listen to the BBC.

~~~
Cushman
> In my experience, the people who talk about America being the most violent,
> the most corrupt, etc. are the ones who also like to decry 'American
> exceptionalism'.

That's my point, yeah? "We're so stuck up" is just as ignorantly self-centered
as "We're so industrious" or whatever else Americans say about ourselves.
We're mostly just normal.

------
chimpinee
I'm no economist but I wonder if the Nordic model is sustainable without
external innovation and cheap labour (going on in countries like the USA and
China respectively -- who perhaps pay a price in terms of 'social ills').

~~~
fyolnish
One might almost assume we Nordics had looked at the world around us and
chosen a direction based on what we saw..

------
kmfrk
Using "probably" is such a weasel word, which is part of the reason it bothers
me so immensely on their "it's always greener on the other side" piece on the
Nordic countries.

It's the same crap as "Danes" (or whoever) are the happiest people in the
world. It's just a silly meme that people don't bother to scrutinize to
understand.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word>

------
seivan
I still think Singapore is better, lived in both Sweden and Singapore.

I got the feeling that the Swedish (as well as the UK and German) economy is
unsustainable.

~~~
varjag
Germany is #2 manufacturing exporter in the world. If they are unsustainable,
I don't know what is then.

~~~
yxhuvud
Running a perennial trade surplus is unsustainable if the country belongs to
an area with fixed exchange rates, unless all the other countries also run a
big trade surplus.

~~~
varjag
German exports are not contained to EU, it's a major exporter worldwide.

~~~
yxhuvud
That doesn't matter. If the rest of EU has a trade deficit the imbalances will
still accumulate. The result of that is what we are currently seeing.

------
afterburner
"Yet it is hard to see the Nordic model of government spreading quickly,
mainly because the Nordic talent for government is sui generis. Nordic
government arose from a combination of difficult geography and benign history.
All the Nordic countries have small populations, which means that members of
the ruling elites have to get on with each other. Their monarchs lived in
relatively modest places and their barons had to strike bargains with
independent-minded peasants and seafarers."

Population of Norway: 5 million

Population of Sweden: 10 million

Population of Finland: 5 million

Population of USA: 315 million

That's gotta factor into it at least a little...

~~~
NoPiece
People on here who have worked at both big companies and startups should
really appreciate how hard it is to manage large organizations efficiently.
Things that work great at small scale fall apart as they grow (both
organizationally and technologically).

I believe that these small Nordic governments can be effective and
accountable, but that doesn't mean that it will translate to something 30-60
times as large. For comparison, Kaiser in California (one health care provider
in one state) serves 8.9 million patients.

~~~
afterburner
Not only that, but the sheer size and wealth of the US means there are some
corrupting forces at work that are also much larger. After all, you still only
have to wave money in front of a small number of people, but a country with
larger, wealthier forces can wave a lot more of it... and the inequality is
likely to get worse as a result as well, which makes good government even more
challenging.

------
lazyjones
I find it a bit hard to swallow that "corruption perceptions" is an objective
metric. And let's not forget that Norway's wealth - and thus the ease with
which the government can improve other factors - is due to its natural
resources, i.e. oil. If Switzerland is exemplary, go look up when it allowed
women to vote.

There's not much to be said against Sweden and Denmark though: one could sum
up their success by saying that they simply never went down the road of
screwing the population in order to be able to reduce corporation tax, which
is all too common nowdays (see Ireland, USA, even Germany).

~~~
kalleboo
> And let's not forget that Norway's wealth

If oil wealth was all you needed to have good government, then the arab world
would look drastically different from how it does today. I'd say that natural
resource wealth actually makes it HARDER to have a good government, as it'd be
a more tempting target to corrupt.

> There's not much to be said against Sweden and Denmark though: one could sum
> up their success by saying that they simply never went down the road of
> screwing the population in order to be able to reduce corporation tax

Sweden actually has a quite low corporation tax.

~~~
lazyjones
> If oil wealth was all you needed to have good government, then the arab
> world would look drastically different

It's not all you need. But if good intentions are there, it makes a little
difference whether you have a $700b oil fund (for a population of 5 million)
or not. In other words, many other countries might be similarly well governed,
but lacking financing.

> Sweden actually has a quite low corporation tax.

It was higher than the EU average until Jan 1st 2013.

~~~
mongol
Yes so therefore it was lowered.

------
purplelobster
In my opinion, you should be able to measure how well a country is governed by
the amount of trust the people put in their government. I think the Nordic
countries would score fairly high in that, but honestly, there are huge
problems in those countries as well. Every country is run by imperfect and
irrational people.

~~~
mjn
The corruption perceptions index, which is one of the factors the Economist
ranking takes into account, is one possible proxy for the level of trust
people have in their government:
<http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/>

Trust is a more general concept than just perceived lack of corruption, but I
would guess the two are closely related (though which direction the causality
goes in is an interesting question).

~~~
purplelobster
Yes, also I had much trust in the Swedish justice system, but after all the
Pirate Bay and Assange stuff, my trust is wavering.

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fijal
This table sounds incredibly fishy. Bankrupt Ireland one below Germany?

------
contingencies
Best governed? Not all of them; Sweden has disqualified itself with its
disgraceful actions against both Assange and Anataka.

~~~
Rovanion
What have Sweden done to Assange? He's been accused of "sexuellt ofredande" by
a private citizen and refused to appear in court. But that is not the fault of
the state is it?

~~~
Matti
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280532>

------
jasonjei
What I find surprising is US ranks relatively low for global innovation.
Apple, Silicon Valley, Google, Anyone?

------
expralitemonk
Governments based on giving favors to members of one's tribe tend to be less
stable.

