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To late to edit, so let me add to this here: Out of curiosity, I decided to do a search in the Norwegian National Library (nb.no, a lot of material requires VPN if you're from a non-Norwegian IP, and of course most material is in Norwegian) for "Amerikanske tilstander" to see if I remember it correctly and if I could find where it started, and of 8640 hits in Norwegian newspapers, some observations and examples: * The very first one coming up in a simple search was a letter in Dagbladet, then as now a major daily newspaper, August 27 1927, and funnily enough given the subject of this article, the first use of "amerikanske tilstander" there was in a letter to the editor where a Norwegian author warned that as "the power of capital was evolving" we were on our way to get American conditions. He goes on to complain about the spread of "inferior" lowbrow magazines and rant about popular literature. * In the 1930's there were just a few dozen uses of the term - one paper has the headline "One Murder Per Day" with the subtitle "American conditions in Finland", in 1932 another writes about American conditions in Paris where apparently masked bandits were roaming the streets. * An interesting one given the US mythology around Ford's impact on the 8 hour working day is an article in "Smaalenens Social Democrat", a left-leaning paper with "American Conditions." in big letters with the subtitle "The 'Fordian system' is hell for the workers" that goes on to describe conditions in Ford factories in excruciating detail, and what was "hell" to a left-leaning 1930's Nordic paper would not seem that out of place if you claimed it was Amazon or Tesla today... Workers rights and welfare became an increasing reason for invoking American conditions in later decades. * Only one 1930's mention that I could find described an American condition that would be seen positively by many today (thought the writer meant it negatively): Better economic outcomes for women in divorce cases. The big increase came in subsequent decades: From 8 in the 1940s, to 60 in the '50s, 378 in the '60s, 766 in the 70's, 1722 in the '80s, 1923 in the '90s, 2038 in the '00s, before a drop to 1230 in the 10's. |
The cultural differences have persisted for a long time. But over time, they are progressing to their more extreme conclusions (in the US).