[derptacious]

Ya, hearing about scandinavia in the news is an interesting phenomena. I'm from America and I'm living in Scandinavia for the second time... While things seem to work pretty well, it's definitely nothing like I perceived from reading about it in the news. My guess is the difference is caused by equality. While I was able to live a good life in several US cities, living a decent life in scandinavia is just available for a larger percentage of the population due to equality.

[hack_edu]

> living a decent life in scandinavia is just available for a larger percentage of the population due to equality.

To put it another way, its one of the last industrialized nations able to hold onto a homogeneous culture and rooted in a shared ethnicity. A lack of immigration or colonial baggage, combined with culture deeply rooted in a "don't stand out too much" mentality, makes governance and social welfare quite easy. Its an impenetrable boundary for immigrants and effectively creates a whole new social class; reactionary political movements are thriving in ways not seen since German occupation. It doesn't hurt that there are only a few million people, all living very close by. This system will slowly fall apart over the next quarter century as Sweden continues to globalize in order to maintain population and economic growth. Sweden and the Nordic countries are an exception to the rule of social society and, though we can try to mimic some of their successes, not an example to model off of.

Its also worth noting that their government systematically props up the labor market, especially professional classes. They employ massive amounts of engineers and scientists, working on projects that never see the light of day. A country free education combined with a comparatively small business culture needs a blow-off valve in order to maintain quality of life.

The European social states are a product of their place and time. Huge parts of developed Western Europe were completely destroyed during WWII, leaving much of their populations homeless and destitute with little economic capital. These countries had no choice but to guarantee extensive social services. This was economically possible due to massive stimulus by the Marshall Plan and UN during the post-war reconstruction years.

[jpatokal]

Finn here: you'll have to excuse my French, but bull-fucking-shit.

Finland has plenty of colonial baggage, having been a colony of both Sweden and Russia (who brutally displaced the native Lapps/Sami), and modern Finland was built on immigration. In addition to the obvious Swedes and Russians, which are still sizable minorities today, an astonishing number of magnates from the era of industrialization were immigrants. Finlayson? Scottish. Fazer? Swiss. Sinebrykoff? Russian.

Yes, immigration to independent/post-war Finland was near-zero and everybody got a good 50 years to mingle together before the European Union came along and opened the doors again. But pretending that Finland's economic success is down to "homogeneous culture" and "shared ethnicity" is absurd.

[macintux]

What, a country with two official languages with no common ancestry isn't a homogeneous culture? Say it ain't so!

[RobertoG]

What a fascinating narrative you just built.

Is the message "don't look to them as an example"? Because they look a pretty good example to me.

You say: "These countries had no choice but to guarantee extensive social services."

On the contrary, they had a choice and has paid well.

[littletimmy]

What's wrong with the government propping up labor market? It sounds wonderful. The state takes money from for-profit enterprise and uses it to employ scientists and engineers for the greater good. What could be better?

[hack_edu]

Indeed, but you need those for-profit enterprises to prop it up. The business economy is lacking in market diversity, and much of the country's most successful indigenous businesses have sold large stakes to foreign multi-nationals. With this, Sweden's current business culture of expensive labor and comparatively low output will not sustain their social state in the coming decades. Between a nearly a decade of university (seemingly everyone has a Master's) and generous retirement, Swedes spend more of their adult life on the dole than they do producing for the economy.

[fnordsensei]

All countries need unemployment. It's just one of those bizarre side effects of our economy. If "the reserve" is too small, salaries go up due to employees being scarce, which drives up prices, which drives up salaries and so on, and you could end up with rampant inflation, which hurts exports and can lead to a economic depression and possibly a systems collapse. This very nearly happened to Sweden in the seventies and eighties, and politicians have since learned to pretend that they want everyone to have a job, but at the same time carefully manage the country so that there's not too little unemployment.

In part, the problem was solved by worker immigration as well, which may be the less altruistic part of Sweden's traditionally open stance to immigration. This, along with the fact that Sweden has negative nativity.

Sweden currently has 6.2% unemployment, which may be a tad too much, but for the vast majority is nowhere near "spending most of their adult life on the dole". It is possible to have a country with no unemployment, but not one that has a market economy.

The pension system does need a reform though, primarily because we live longer lives and it's made for a population with shorter life spans.

[gozo]

What complete drivel. How do you even figure that a masters degree would take "nearly a decade". A bachelor + master is five years in Sweden, before the Bologna process the equivalent was four years. If your don't keep up you aren't eligible for student loans or housing.

[AndrewLeeK]

Scandinavia believes in 30 years to prepare for work 30 years of work and 30 years of retirement. Many Scandinavians spend gap years between each degree, and actually get placement in better schools for waiting to go to school. Although some get their degrees quickly most don't feel a rush as decent money can be made working minimum wage jobs. (Currently in Norway)

[Kimm0n0]

Do you think that most engineers and scientists in Norway work in the public sector, maybe?

I very much doubt that it true for Sweden either.