[AdrianB1]

The Scandinavian model is often cited by people in US as an argument for anything they want to support, but it is never understood; it become a buzzword.

For example people almost never mention the ethnic homogeneity (and the big problems when that does not happen, see Malmo), that free selection of jobs makes gender split even more unequal than expected or the chronic alcoholism in most of Norway. Cherry picking some parts and ignoring the big picture is a fail.

[jasondelta]

The reason people almost never mention the ethnic homogeneity is because it comes across incredibly bigoted. Put another way, it's basically saying that a strong social welfare state isn't possible in the US because it happens to have minorities - if only they could just get rid of them, there'd be no more obstacles!

[NiceWayToDoIT]

Classic example of concentrating on wrong part of text. Important bit is question what do we place as important value.

So, big problem is generational and inheritance on its own, giving ability to certain groups of people to gain wealth beyond comprehension.

People in general do not have feeling how big is the gap between 100K income and 1 billion.

Biggest question is if AI does all the work, how will population of 8 billion minus 1000 wealthiest get means to survive? Further in world of smart machines, who should be owner of that AI and the wealth creates? Lastly what will people do, and should they do anything that requires "earning" to survive?

[sedeki]

Exactly. I can't imagine that the Scandinavian model ever working somewhere like in the US. I say this as a native Scandinavian.

I think a more appropriate comparison is with Canada, whose system is also flawed in my opinion (I don't like the Scandinavian model either because it doesn't work anymore nor does it scale.)

[salawat]

how is the ethnic homogeneity a prereq of the model out of curiosity?

[luckylion]

It's not. Cultural similarity is though, that is: almost everybody has to pull at least their own weight. If you have identifiable groups who do not, you're laying the ground work for severe conflict, because those who provide will at some point ask those who take to also provide - and they won't like it when the answer is "why should we?". A successful system doesn't require them all to have identical cultures, but the input/output has to be similar.

Ethnicity just happens to be a good predictor for culture, and culture happens to be a good predictor for the ability to be a net-contributor in a modern society. Ethnic homogeneity predicts cultural homogeneity.