
The American Dream Is Alive in Finland - prostoalex
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/nordic-american-dream-partanen/489032/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&amp;single_page=true
======
dharma1
Finn here (though lived the past 12 years in the UK).

In my experience, the one thing that by far works best to enable social
mobility, and that I think Nordic and some central European countries have
done quite well, is free, high quality education - from primary school to
university.

Especially as we move further and further to knowledge based economic growth,
this is crucial, not just for social mobility, but well being and success of
whole countries.

Market forces are great at optimising some things, some not so great. Things
that require long term focus - basic research, education, environmental issues
- are best handled, and paid for by governments.

~~~
nickff
There is a great deal of information (in studies and research) that shows
post-secondary schooling is a good investment for the individual, but that
does not mean that increasing the average amount of schooling is good for the
country. A number of people are now making the argument that greater
'educational' achievement is mostly just signalling status, intelligence,
socialization, and work ethic, not actually teaching people anything useful.
If this view is correct, increasing the amount of education that the average
citizen receives is just wasting their time (as most people do not enjoy their
time in class), at great expense to them and the average taxpayer.[1]

[1]
[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/02/why_the_college....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/02/why_the_college.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_\(economics\))

~~~
drabiega
> If this view is correct, increasing the amount of education that the average
> citizen receives is just wasting their time (as most people do not enjoy
> their time in class), at great expense to them and the average taxpayer.[1]

Even accepting your first premise, this does not follow. Even if degrees are
100% signalling and 0% actual education, it's still the right choice for the
individual because that signalling has value. The alternative is that people
who have the positive qualities that are signaled but not the money for the
degree cannot get the jobs which require those characteristics and have good
pay.

~~~
nickff
Subsidizing a signal serves to make the signal more expensive, and does not
increase its utility; all Western governments are subsidizing education, and
hurting their citizenries by doing so. Some proponents of the signalling
theory have gone as far as to advocate for a tax on education.

------
robert_foss
The American dream mantra as it is currently being regurgitated in America is
little more than a cheap slogan at best and calculated lie at worst.

What it is said to represent are qualities like social mobility in which
America ranks amongst the very worst of the other 48 developed nations.

~~~
jomamaxx
False.

'Social Mobility' cannot be compared between USA and small Euro nations.

'Social Mobility' _within_ Denmark, a country smaller than Los Angeles, is
pretty good.

What if you compared 'Social Mobility' across the EU.

Do you think that poor people in Croatia, Sicily and Greece are 'mobilizing'
up past the Swedish middle class?

No.

Also - America has large ethnic groups. America is really 5 nations:
Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Blacks, and 'everyone else'. By almost every
measure, America is different for these people, it's tough to compare. I'm not
saying it's right, rather alluding to what it is.

Finally - I would say having lived in the US and Europe - that there is
without a doubt more opportunity in America than in Europe overall. No
question about that.

The elite in most European nations come from pretty good families. They go to
the top schools and have their careers guaranteed.

Anyone in America can be successful.

Obviously, that's not a pragmatic statement, as poor kids from the ghetto
often have no appreciation of this and simply don't work towards great
outcomes - but this is the reality.

Anyhow - the gini coefficient for 'all of Europe' I suggest is definitely
lower than the US, and this is because it's nary impossible for poor
Spaniards/Greeks/Sicilians to rise to higher than the European upper middle
class.

~~~
getgoingnow
Great point. Nordic countries and other rich European countries owe large part
of their success to colonization in the past. For example, Belgium performed
mass genocide in Congo, enslaved the people and stole the natural resources in
the country. So, today people in Belgium live comfortably, since the modern
Belgium is built on top of African slaves' pile of bones.

About half of GDP of Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, Austria is
taxes. It's easy to talk about redistribution after you've pillaged the entire
world.

~~~
cplanas
> Nordic countries [...] owe large part of their success to colonization in
> the past.

The Nordic countries had no (or negligible) colonies. The Nordic countries are
Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway.

~~~
fleitz
lol. Please tell me more about how Nordic people never established any
colonies. The countries that made all the colonies are Nordic colonies in and
of themselves.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans)

~~~
dalke
Sweden had colonies.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_overseas_colonies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_overseas_colonies)
. Sweden also had slave trade. Denmark/Norway had colonies as well:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_colonial_empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_colonial_empire)
. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are what remain of the Danish colonial
empire.

Finland is another Nordic country, though not a Scandinavian country. Finland
has never had an empire. It was too busy being controlled by Sweden and
Russia. This means the Finns are Nordic people. Hence getgoingnow's statement
cannot be true for all Nordic countries.

That said, cplanas is correct. Finland had no colonies, and for the other
Nordic countries the colonies provided only a small revenue source. They
surely did not "owe large part of their success to colonization in the past"
as getgoingnow claims. Eg, Sweden's wealth historically comes from copper and
iron, and Sweden was a poor country. Norway's w

I see you switched from "Nordic countries" to "Nordic people" and then to
"Normans", to then imply that successful Norman conquests and colonization
lead to a significant economic gain to the Nordic countries. I do not think
that's a meaningful connection for the current discussion.

First, I do not like how you imply there is only one type of colonization.
There's settler colonialism, like how the Bantu migrations displaced the Pygmy
populations in early Congo history, or how the Norse/Danes controlled the
region known as the Danelaw, or how the Norse settled in France, and
assimilated (switched to Catholicism and to the French language), or how the
Norse colonized Iceland.

There's also exploitation colonialism, which England and Spain are two of the
best known examples. But the Norse conquest of England, which might have
enriched some of the Norse in France, never went back to " _the Nordic
countries_ ". Where then is the source of the revenue stream that getgoingnow
implied was a basis for the success of the modern Nordic countries?

Second, the connection from "Normans" to "Nordic countries" doesn't work that
way. The term "Nordic" is a relatively recent term that refers to a list of
modern countries and territories; see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries)
. It does not refer to Brittany, where the Normans lived, nor to Britain or
southern Italy, which the Normans conquered.

Third, "Nordic people" has a variety of meanings (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_people)
). It can refer to the Germanic people as a whole, or the people who live in
the specific Nordic countries, or a term from scientific racism from the late
1800s, or the Norse, or more specifically the Vikings. I think your
introduction of that term confuses the topic more than it helps. Which
definition do you mean to use, and why not stay with "Nordic countries"?

Fourth, the Normans are only one link in history. Why stop with them? The
Normans come from the Norse. The Norse are Germans. Why not simply say it's
all due to German colonization?

Then again, you wrote "The countries that made all the colonies are Nordic
colonies". I must have missed that part of history where they covered how the
Normans colonized the Islamic Iberian Peninsula and lead to the Portuguese
colonies.

~~~
fleitz
> Fourth, the Normans are only one link in history. Why stop with them? The
> Normans come from the Norse. The Norse are Germans. Why not simply say it's
> all due to German colonization?

You could well say that... but I'm not sure how it makes the assertion true
that nordic countries/people didn't have colonies. It's actually something
that I've picked up on from my studies of history that many colonizers derive
from Germanic roots. (My hunch which I can't prove / haven't investigate much
is that the germans picked up on it from the romans)

I didn't mean to suggest that there's only one kind of colonization, I'm
actually a huge fan of the idea that there are many types, and that some of
them were beneficial.

Also, I don't really buy into the idea that colonization was responsible for
the success of the nations that did the colonizing. I think that the
exploitative type of colonization was harmful to development of the economy
just as slavery in the Southern US lead to widespread poverty when compared to
the North.

Yes, that was an absolute statement which you disproved handily, not all
colonies were created by nordic / germanic peoples.

The very language we are communicating in is a testament to the colonization
of England (or whatever the fuck it was called before it was colonized) by
Nordic/Germanic people/countries. It's a colonization similar to America by
Britain, where the colonists decided to give the middle finger to the
motherland, similar to the way the English just gave the finger to their
original colonizers in Denmark.

[https://www.englishclub.com/english-language-
history.htm](https://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm)

~~~
dalke
> "Yes, that was an absolute statement"

And there was no need for you to introduce a absolute statement as the
previous nuanced statement was correct.

> the colonization of England

There have been many waves of colonization of England: Celts, Romans, Angles
and Saxons, Norse, and the Norman French come quickly to mind. The
colonization of England is far different from the combination of English,
French, and Spanish colonization of the Americas.

I think you overemphasize bloodlines when you focus on immigration and
"people". The Romans were a diverse set of peoples from across the Roman
Empire, with people as far away as Africa living in England. The
Christianization of England, or the spread of the concept of the divine right
of kings, or of democracy, was not due to immigration of bodies but to an
immigration of ideas. The rise of Sweden as an invading superpower in the
1600s was due in part to the Reformation, which let the Swedish king
confiscate money from church land, and not simply from some intrinsic nature
of the people.

"England" comes from the Angels. In modern use it refers to the area in the
southern part of Great Britian, and corresponds mostly to where the Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms were, ie, not Wales and not Scotland. There was no name before
the Angles as there was no reason to highlight that specific area.

England as a short-hand for Great Britain was called Britannia by the Romans,
and Albion, from a Celtic language through the Roman.

> "I think that the exploitative type of colonization was harmful to
> development of the economy..."

Which brings the topic back to the original discussion. getgoingnow wrote
"Nordic countries and other rich European countries owe large part of their
success to colonization in the past".

Do you think it's true that the Nordic countries (modern Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, Finland, Iceland) owe their success to colonization? If so, which
colonization, and what was the return which lead to modern success?

------
Joof
So many people talk about it in sheer numbers, but you know what sounds nice?
Having time off to spend with your kids (as a man!), more balanced
relationships and not worrying about healthcare if you get laid-off.

------
SixSigma
I have long argued for a non means-tested welfare state that is not a safety
net but a foundation on which to build your life.

Here in the UK there is much resentment to people who receive benefits. I have
been someone who lived on benefits because I could, not because I needed to. I
spent that time learning new skills and overall have been a net contributor.

But I also know people who have no intention of personal improvement who plan
to spend their entire lives on handouts.

I look at the US and see a system that seems designed to breed crime, poverty
and prostitution.

Don't trick yourself into thinking the Nordic model is the greatest though. I
spent 6 months there in Finland and predict a lot of social pain in the next
decade. Growing unemployment will put strain on the social services.
Multinationals have been allowed in which means profits sucked abroad via Wal-
mart, Lidl and a host of others.

The brain drain to other parts of the EU will also grow, if the students I met
fulfil their ambitions.

~~~
jomamaxx
"I look at the US and see a system that seems designed to breed crime, poverty
and prostitution."

While at the same time producing the highest GDP per captia in the world, the
most number of people with college education, and leadership in probably 80%
of global industries?

The US doesn't 'breed' anything - communities 'breed' themselves.

I suggest the US could do a little better with the social safety net, and
possibly some basic healthcare guarantees, but having 60% taxes, 30% payroll
tax and 20% VAT meaning the average worker putting 75% of their income
directly towards government spending is not going to work either.

The 'Nordic Model' can only work in small countries, with small, tight ethnic
groups and cultural foundations.

Nordic Countries almost all have Monarchies, State Churches (Sweden gives 1%
of it's tax revenues to their Christian State Church - could you imagine that
in the US?). I'm not saying 'faith' is an important factor, rather pointing
out the relatively cohesive social identity.

And yes, you are right: UK and Germany are sucking up talent like vacuums.

~~~
Retric
Well ignoring:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita)

United Nations (2014)[6] lists US as 12th, which is not bad. But, has been
falling for a while. Norway for example seems to be ahead by ~30% despite a
huge safety net.

Of course by PPP we seem to be stuck at ~25:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_by_GDP)

~~~
Turing_Machine
Norway has a) a tiny population and b) a gigantic supply of oil.

All the countries above the U.S. on that Wikipedia list are tiny countries
that have a specialized economy (oil for Norway and Qatar, financial services
for Switzerland and Liechtenstein).

You see exactly the same pattern when you look within the United States:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita)

The top of that list is also dominated by oil (Alaska and North Dakota) and
financial services (Delaware, New York).

Note that Alaska has a per capita GDP considerably higher than Norway,
Switzerland, or Qatar (only being beaten by Luxembourg).

~~~
Retric
PPP is the important one and we are below United Kingdom, Canada, France,
Australia, and Italy which are not exactly known for oil production.

~~~
Turing_Machine
On the contrary, both the UK and Canada produce vast quantities of oil.

Also, I'm not sure what numbers you're looking at.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

shows all those countries well below the United States. The only ones above it
are, again, oil and financial services countries.

~~~
Retric
List of IMF ranked countries by GDP:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_by_GDP)
Has different numbers.

Though, several other places don't seem to agree with those numbers. So, they
may be off.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Sort the GDP (PPP) per capita column in descending order. It's Qatar,
Luxembourg, Singapore, Brunei, Kuwait, Norway, United Arab Emirates, San
Marino, Switzerland, United States.

~~~
Retric
Ahh, looks like the PPP column does not mean what I thought it did.

^2 PPP is calculated by dividing GDP (nominal) by GDP (PPP), expressed as a
percentage.

------
amsilprotag
Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast is doing a three-part series
critiquing the state of American education and its effect on social mobility.
The first part (released last week) gives a personal perspective of a child
who passes on an opportunity for social advancement to instead provide family
support. As far as I understand it, the next parts are looking at the
incentives that that shape college budgets.

Part 1: [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/04-carlos-doesnt-
reme...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/04-carlos-doesnt-remember)

------
Mendenhall
The american dream seems to have changed more towards taking from others to
give to ones self. I notice a difference in "safety nets" now compared to say
end of ww1. Very different times, and it affects many things.

~~~
chris_va
Don't conflate political rhetoric with quality of life.

Quality of life has never been higher for any social class, even with
unfortunate income inequality.

~~~
gr3yh47
>Quality of life has never been higher for any social class

even if this were true (source?) it doesnt matter when there is a steady move
toward lower social class on average for the overwhelming majority of
Americans

~~~
fleitz
Yes, the middle class IS shrinking, but the amazing thing is people are
leaving to the upper classes at a 2:1 ratio.

> The study shows that as the number of middle-class Americans fell (from 61
> percent of the population to 51 percent of the population), the percentage
> of Americans who are upper income surged from 14 percent of the population
> to 20 percent of the population.

[http://www.cnbc.com/id/48754974](http://www.cnbc.com/id/48754974)

71% of Americans are middle class or better, amazing. Most of those in the
lower classes are those who decided not to get any skills.

~~~
hrehhf
Notice how that link is not specific about _what counts_ as upper class and
middle class.

It is not the case that people in the "lower" classes decided not to get any
skills. It is that the economy changes over time and their skills are no
longer compensated well and, in general, US society is not good at
accommodating people to change their skill-sets to move into a new career. You
might have anecdotes about people who made such a career change, but for
society as a whole, it is too difficult.

------
bggy00
there's a summary/excerpts here:

[https://www.contentcreamery.com/articles/what-s-so-
special-a...](https://www.contentcreamery.com/articles/what-s-so-special-
about-finland)

------
kaid
freedom is hard earned, neither generously provided, nor enforced. a
universally dictated form of "freedom" is a degeneration.

~~~
drjesusphd
Exactly, which is why the Finns are diligent in maintaining a good standard of
living for their worst off. They work hard to hold their government
accountable to the people.

Or did you have something else in mind? Such as taking credit for the
sacrifices of generations past?

~~~
kaid
my perspective is on the opposite side of modern european social liberal
standards.

individuals should only hold themselves accountable. the effort to
establishing universal well-being assumes political enforcement and coercion.
it's a process of ceding individual sovereignty to a political entity.

------
sremani
Why so must fascination about a homogeneous society that has population of
City of Houston? I will not take some of these articles of Scandinavian fetish
any seriously any more.

~~~
adamnemecek
Why do you think that the Nordic model can't scale?

~~~
ajmurmann
Having moved to the US from Germany, not a Nordic country, but a country with
a much tighter social net that works comparatively well, I agree that it
probably wouldn't work in the US. I think a social net works best if there is
enough empathy in society to keep people happy with paying for those who need
the net as well as keeping people from exploiting it too much. Of course there
will always be someone unhappy with paying or someone exploiting he system,
but it only works if that remains relatively rare. That is much easier if you
have a relatively high empathy for each other which is easier in fairly
homogenous populations. The US seems to have a very split society along all
kinds of groups. There seems to be a strong fault line between large coastal
cities and the middle of the country, racial divides, Republicans vs Democrats
etc. These divides seem much larger to me than anything I know from Germany
and I can only imagine that they are even smaller in the less populous, Nordic
countries.

~~~
jazzyk
I am in the US and I would be happy to chip in to help pay for health expenses
of a poor person, who has no family, etc.

What I am NOT willing to do, however, is pay enormous overhead to the the
insurance/healthcare/bill-processing complex which sucks out the blood out of
this country.

I bet most people in the US object not to some kind of a social contract to
help the less fortunate, but to the completely broken system.

~~~
adamnemecek
> I bet most people in the US object not to some kind of a social contract to
> help the less fortunate, but to the completely broken system.

I feel like there is quite a few who are fundamentally against the idea.

~~~
nojvek
There'll always be a few against. What matters is more than 50% agree on it.

Health insurance is a PITA here. Physio in Canada charged me $60/ session.
Here it's $240 per session. Insurance pays about 100 but I still pay $140 out
of my pocket.

America has a crazy obsession of being rich that people will easily screw
others to make a buck. It's a very stark difference to Australia and Canada.

------
jomamaxx
60% personal income taxes after big payroll tax and 20% VAT?

I don't think so.

~~~
CalRobert
I dunno, I feel richer in Europe than I did in California. Rent in places I
like living is cheaper, and I save a good $300-$600 per month on automobile
costs. I also save several thousand a year on flights to Europe, since that's
pretty much where I like to vacation anyway.

Also, I'm fortunate enough to work in tech which has pretty good PTO policies
(for now), but my spouse does not, and 4+ weeks of vacation for her as well,
letting us see more of the world, makes me feel wealthier than a bigger
paycheck.

Oh, I'm not expected to answer emails on the weekend either. And I can cycle
without fearing for my life every. damn. day - the US detests cyclists and
disregards their deaths.

~~~
gr3yh47
>the US detests cyclists and disregards their deaths.

to be fair, many cyclists in the US ignore traffic laws wholesale

~~~
bloodorange
That is no excuse for a death sentence. Many cyclists do this in the
Netherlands too and in the period that I have lived there, I haven't seen them
treated that way on the roads.

~~~
wila
If a car hits a cyclist or pedestrian in Holland, the car is -by definition-
at fault. See [1] link in dutch.

Free translation of the first part: Cyclist or pedestrians are seen as the
weaker traffic participants. Because they are fragile in traffic the law has a
special rule on collisions with a motorized vehicle. The driver in the car is
responsible for the damage of the cyclist without his guilt having to be
proven.

[1] [http://www.anwb.nl/juridisch-advies/aanrijding-en-
dan/aanspr...](http://www.anwb.nl/juridisch-advies/aanrijding-en-
dan/aansprakelijkheid/voetganger-of-fietser)

~~~
tzs
It looks like the driver does have the possibility of proving that he was not
guilty, and if successful limiting his reponsibility to half the damages:
[https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/strict-
liabili...](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/strict-liability-in-
the-netherlands/)

~~~
wila
The article i linked to discussed some of the exceptions. It is very difficult
for the driver to prove. For example hitting a cyclist who crossed a red light
is still your fault. Only cases where the driver could not possibly do
anything to prevent the accident are considered.

