[mseebach]

> With the strong social net, I feel people can do almost anything they want there, depending in some part on their social status and ambitions, but they will neither get extremely rich nor extremely poor

I hear that in Denmark as well, but I feel it's often accompanied by a very strong unspoken assumption around what, out of 'anything', one should want to do. Denmark is a pretty sweet deal if you have a decent income, property mortgaged to the rafters (the only real tax break is for interest payments) and a couple of kids in institution/school age (and healthy private pension savings). If that lifestyle does not appeal to you, you are going to be paying through the nose for frankly very little.

This also informs the "ambition" bit. Having high ambitions is firmly in the "should not want" camp, so not a lot of people seem to have them, and the ones that do certainly keep them private if they want to considered polite company. Every year around graduation time, the newspapers have a raft of op eds on how "straight A students" are actually miserable and missing out on youth, while the mediocre students are celebrated for knowing how to live and have fun.