[adventured]

> if only their mentality would be more 'transferable'

There's a reason why there is only one Scandinavia and it's so tiny population wise. It's strictly cultural, ingrained over hundreds or thousands of years, and can't be replicated across a massive population base. That it's cultural is also the reason why Scandinavians have historically done even better in the US than they do in Scandinavia (a system with superior economic potential, combined with a culture that produces superior outcomes).

The closest a large nation has gotten to what Scandinavia accomplished, is probably Japan. However Japan has never sustained a standard of living at the median anywhere near what Denmark or Sweden reached (the Japanese are also over-worked to accomplish their lower economic output, which is a bit of a cheat if you're contrasting it with the economic output of Scandinavia).

When it comes to Switzerland, you can't replicate what they've done because there isn't enough banking to go around. That isn't a dig on Switzerland, it's the same reason most countries could never replicate Norway (oil).

Switzerland has a dozen banks that together are worth around $200-$250 billion, with just a population of eight million people. That'd be like if the top dozen banks in the US were worth $8 trillion. The total Swiss banking system has something like $7 to $10 trillion in assets under management; which would be like the US banking system having ~$350 trillion under management, a laughable sum.