

Going Dutch - ido
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03european-t.html?pagewanted=all

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delano
Some of the symbolism is a bit extreme but overall it's a pretty good overview
of life in the Netherlands. There is a level of comfort here that I haven't
experienced anywhere else however that comfort has both positive and negative
consequences. This is the only article I've read that touches on that aspect
of life here. And I'm glad he mentioned the lack of anything open 24h a day
and rarely past 6 (some grocery stores are open until 10). It's madness!

By the way, if you're interested in the history of the Netherlands, there's a
dutch movie coming out later this year about the flood of 1953:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230194/>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953>

~~~
lethain
I lived in rural Japan last year, and had similar experiences with stores
being open or lack thereof. There were three restaurants and two bars. One
restaurant never opened for dinner, another was run by a family, was closed at
8PM and was closed on Sundays, the third was run by one woman and was closed
for dinner on weekends and also tuesdays. One of the bars' closing schedule
involved being closed on the third Sunday of each month. Grocery stores closed
by 8.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how things must have been to live 50
years ago, and how much we've come to take (this very limited sense of)
openness for granted.

~~~
pragmatic
That's how it is in rural America (Midwest, the South) also.

You need a large population to support 24 hour consumerism.

~~~
jd
In the Netherlands it's not a matter of population -- shops are not allowed to
be open outside the regulated hours. I believe the law was introduced a few
decades ago in order to protect the mom and pop stores (a misguided attempt to
put mom and pop stores on equal footing with larger businesses. If the mom and
pop store can't afford to stay open at night then nobody is allowed to.
Because that's "fair".)

Since gas stations have permission to stay open around the clock they're used
to get emergency food. You can also get food delivered on Sundays and in the
middle of the night, so it's not so bad.

~~~
endtime
>If the mom and pop store can't afford to stay open at night then nobody is
allowed to. Because that's "fair".

Any time I finding appealing stories of the allegedly comfortable northwest
European life, I just remind myself of things like this.

~~~
crux_
... On the other hand, a lot of the appeal in such a life is in the fact there
are still lots of unique mom and pop stores, often with generations of
history, still in existence...

------
ijnbhuy
Ironically The Netherlands was meant to be the model for the USA, with all
power local to the states and a stadhouder in Washington to manage things.
Somehow the English model of land holding lords and a king in his white castle
won out.

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ellyagg
Speaking only for myself as a US citizen, I'm proud of the fact that the US
has led the world in per capita income the last few decades. For a country our
size to consistently be number 1 or near the top (depending on who's doing the
analysis) is pretty amazing. I think there's room in the world for a country
with an ethic that favors aggregate production. Why does everyone have to be
the same?

People are free to move to a country with a value system that's more closely
aligned with their own, e.g., one that seeks to flatten wealth disparities.
But that's not what people want, it seems. A lot of people feel a strong
impulse to convince others that their value system is the best.

~~~
tybris
> I'm proud of the fact that the US has led the world in per capita income the
> last few decades

Huh? Aren't they on par with countries like the Netherlands, Norway,
Switzerland, etc?

~~~
dschobel
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita)

actually quite a few spots behind.

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miked
A Dutchman replies:

[http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=8a80f624-92a7-...](http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=8a80f624-92a7-4022-acbe-3912b5be0d09)

The NYT article doesn't make any mention of the fact that emigration from the
Netherlands in 2004 was the highest since 1954. This makes me wonder if things
are really as wonderful there as the article claims, although it does a pretty
good job of pointing out the pros and cons.

~~~
sfk
"Dissident voices are ruled out of order and successfully demonized (Pim
Fortuyn), killed (Theo van Gogh) or face such severe threats to their security
that they are forced to emigrate, as in the case of Somali-born politician
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who violated the Dutch norms of “consensus” by insisting on
publicly discussing female genital mutilation; honor violence; honor killings;
and forced marriages."

The author conflates many issues here. Most people disagreed with Fortuyn
because he was a right-wing populist who managed to form a fringe party that
consisted of sorry losers. The guy himself was intelligent, witty and utterly
narcissistic. He was like a character in Oscar Wilde's plays who had a bon mot
for everything and solutions for nothing. Not the kind of person who should
have political power.

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

~~~
cousin_it
No, the author doesn't conflate anything. Yes, the people mentioned differ in
many ways: gender, political views, popular image... But they do have
something in common: they vocally attacked Islamic practices and were
punished.

~~~
lucumo
Yes, because the idiotic actions of crazy individuals are totally the
responsibility of all people in a society.

Have you repented for the murder of JFK, Lincoln and some school personnel in
San Diego (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer>) yet?

~~~
cousin_it
I don't know exactly why people downvoted you (I didn't), but guess it's
because you attacked factual statements with emotional statements.

~~~
lucumo
My tone was a bit overly confrontational I think, for which I apologize.

But I do think the analogy holds. Theo van Gogh was indeed killed for his
anti-Islam statements, but by a disturbed individual who had hoped to solve
the situation that way. It only made it worse, of course.

The murder of Pim Fortuyn follows more or less the same pattern. Killed by a
disturbed individual that figured that was the only way to stop him.

Fortuyn especially had a relatively large following among the Dutch. I don't
think "punished" is the right word for it, since it implies that there is any
legitimacy to their murders, or even sanctioned by the populace, which is
simply not the case.

~~~
cousin_it
If in a certain country vocal criticism of a certain ideology is frequently
met with punishment, this fact seems informative to me regardless of whether
the punishment was democratically sanctioned by the majority.

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benzim
To think that the social welfare state is a natural outgrowth of churches
setting up schools and hospitals is completely ridiculous. The two things
couldn't be more opposite. Social welfare emerges as a result of the collapse
of Christianity in a society. The Dutch will talk about how they don't think
anyone should be without health care, but if they saw someone in need they
wouldn't help them. I don't know which comes first, but people who believe in
social welfare seem to believe they have no personal responsibility to help
those in need. Look at the average giving of the Dutch or someone like Joe
Biden who while talking constantly about compassion gave an average of $369
per year for the last decade. Social welfare leads to an almost complete lack
of the personal compassion that is at the heart of Christianity.

~~~
mtinkerhess
To believe in social welfare _is_ to acknowledge that everyone has a
responsibility to help those in need, and that the state should enforce that
responsibility.

~~~
anamax
That's true only if you believe that what the state does is necessarily and
only helpful. (There are other requirements as well, but I'm limiting myself
to two of the more obvious problems.)

Govt help programs, at least in the US, are aimed more at benefitting middle
class providers than the poor who are supposedly the beneficiaries.

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davidw
This is the sort of thing that people can argue endlessly, and ultimately,
unproductively about.

~~~
wolfish
It's true that these arguments do seem to go on forever and very rarely does
someone change their viewpoint based on these discussions. But debates on the
value of incentives, the role of government and charity, and efficient
resource allocation are important topics citizens would be wise not to avoid.

~~~
davidw
Avoiding them here doesn't mean avoiding them entirely.

~~~
delano
Where best to have them then?

~~~
davidw
That's yours to figure out. The internet is full of places for people to talk
about politics and economics, and has a relative paucity of places with good
conversations about hacking and startups.

------
sethg
Ezra Klein points out that even though the author of "Going Dutch" describes
"a cultural tendency not to stand out or excel...the very antithesis of the
American ideal of upward mobility", if you compare actual statistics, the US
has less economic mobility (as measured by the relationship between parents'
and childrens' income) than many other industrialized nations.

[http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=0...](http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=05&year=2009&base_name=is_europe_really_have_less_upw)

