Per wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:50 am
UWSaint wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 1:45 pm
Per wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 12:40 pm
Our governments tend to do OK. I mean, I may have political disagreements with them, but they tend to be rather competent imho.
But then, almost any metrics you use, the Nordic countries tend to do surprisingly well, so maybe we’re not the norm.
(1) Why do you think that is?
(2) Do you think that will be the case in the future?
(3) Are you concerned about the decade+ lack of growth in GDP & per capita income in the Scandanavian countries and Europe more broadly, especially as compared to the United States?
(4) What do you think the United States did so well in the second Obama term, the first Trump term, and the Biden administration to outpace Europe (and Canada) in per capita income and GDP growth?
Do I think the Nordic countries will continue to do well? Yes. Yes, I do.
[much discussion]
Thanks, Per. I will also reply when time permits...
Se as to the second question, allow me to simplify your points for ease of response:
(1) Nordic systems are robust; trust in government is one measure.
Response: Trust in any institution can be earned by the institution performing well (good!) or it can exist and accelerate the failure of those institution because of a lack of standards, criticism, etc (bad!). We've had this discussion before -- lack of trust in the electoral system can bring down a democracy, and so too can trusting a corrupt system.
Trust in government doesn't translate neatly to per capita outcome -- see the US and its low trust in government -- or maybe the US is an outlier, as the people have always been skeptical of government power and the sunlight is bright here. Sticking to Europe, though, the correlation seems tighter -- the countries you listed do seem to be the richer per capita countries. And that's intuitively understandable, the countries that do better might have better governments.... (Its also interesting that some (not all) were late comers to or never came to the EU project).
Trust is important. I said in the last post that there is a high level of trust in the US -- and I think there is when it comes to business. But not to government. Not every system and not every institution is government (though government through contract enforcement plays an unrecognized role in why there is high trust in exchange).
Having said that, if the perception
and performance of institutions in Nordic countries is high, I can see that as contributing to better outcomes. So that sort of begs what I'm most interested in --
why? What's the secret sauce? In part you might have answered that previously with your description of what makes nordic culture a bit different than the rest of Europe. Do you subscribe to a type of Nordic exceptionalism?
(2) Nordic countries are high on the happiness index
Good! But if that's to continue, the question is why and whether that will be undermined.
Outside of being impoverished, I think there's little correlation between wealth and happiness. There are many cultural components, but they don't play out the same way in each country.
(3) Smaller income disparity (yet more billionaires!)
This one doesn't make sense to me because there are many nations with smaller-than-US similar-to-Scandanavia income disparities that are not doing as well as the Nordic countries. What makes the Nordic countries different that leads to success.
The effect of income disparity on happiness and productivity depends largely on two things. One, how fluid is the ability to improve one's income. If there's opportunity, income disparity can be motivating (I can also achieve that) as opposed to demotivating (damn the rich!). The more static the lines, the more disparity breeds discontent. The more static people believe the lines to be (whether they are static or not), the more disparity breeds discontent. (I think we more or less agree here, "as long as people consider the outcomes fair, they are okay with it....") Two, how much does a society tolerate envy? If it is understood to be sinful -- or in secular terminology, understood to create unhappiness -- then its effect on discontent will be less.
The US has large income disparity because it is a place of unrivaled innovation and entrepreneurism, encouraged in part by the ability to profit greatly from risky efforts. Its not the only place with those things, but it is a crucible for those things.
As for your bit about whether Elon Musk is working hundreds of millions of times harder that his employees, Per, that's seeing the world through the lens of the labor theory of value. Which is silly Marxist understanding of where value comes from. (I am sure there's a strong correlation between being deeply unhappy and seeing the world through a Marxist lens....) Elon's providing the things society values greatly that didn't exist before (or doing it much better) and likely would not exist but for Elon (or people like him). When, for example, Starlink can provide a substitute for what the US government could not with a $42 billion rural broadband initiative that connected no one..... Does Elon "deserve" his riches? Do we deserve starlink? (Not to say some wealth isn't earned by means other than "providing others value," but outside evidence of corruption and foul play, I tend to think Musk's been an innovator pushing ideas and products into a new space. No doubt many of the reasons things "work" are due to the efforts of who he (and his companies) hired, but this is the case with all innovators working outside the garage).
As for creating more billionaires per capita, I don't really see the point there -- not sure why that's the demarcation for proof of opportunity. I am not going to fight you about whether the Nordic countries produce entrepreneurs or innovate--they do, and there are a lot of impressive Scandanavian companies--but it seems pretty inescapable that the US does this more especially on the leading edge of things, and has been on the leading edge industrially and technologically for a long long time. Back to Nordic exceptionalism -- are Nordic countries innovating more than, say, continental Europe? And if so, why? (because your description of taxation and leave policy isn't all that different than other parts of Europe, so that can't be it).
(4) Whatever the secret sauce (my words!), the impact of immigration is overstated and a vast majority of second generation immigrants are fully integrated
I found very interesting your breakdown of immigrants to Sweden -- it is definitely my impression that the impact of immigration has been more destabilizing to Sweden than your analysis, which I appreciate very much. Perhaps it is a more local phenomena (non-even distribution of, say muslim immigrants changing certain cities meaningfully while not affecting others), perhaps it is overstated in the media.
But even if overstated, there has been an increase in crime. It isn't unimportant that there is still less than in, say, the United States, but we are talking about the future (so the trend line is concerning) and not all violence is the same in terms of whether it will destabilize the good things that a country has going for it.
There is a theory that part of the high trust in Scandinavian countries is due to the relative homogeneity of the population. I don't know if I buy the theory (would love your take on it) -- the United States does not have that and has been mostly highly functional, see also Switzerland, etc. -- but I think in the absence of relative homogeneity, integration/acculturation/assimilation is extremely important to maintain whatever it is that makes a nation successful. I think you agree with that, given your comment about integration (though I don't know that we know whether the post 2014 immigrants (when Syrian immigration spiked) will be successfully integrated because we are not to the second generation).
This is especially true when the immigrants come from broken places and bring broken systems with them, live in enclaves -- and its even worse when they are hostile to their new countries. I also don't know that there's a secret in integration -- there are bad policies, to be sure, but the most important thing, I would think, is simply to control the level of immigration such that it is not feasible to establish sizable enclaves that are independent of broader society -- particularly if they have an interest in changing broader society to be more like their enclaves. With modest numbers of migrants, acculturation then can happen organically. With migrants who are closer to the host countries values or who have less to acculturate to (consider, for example, the ability to read, write, and speak the language), acculturation is easier. Acculturation happens when its necessary for success, and then, in the long run, the inevitable intermarriages will take care of the heavy lifting. In a multi-ethnic society like the United States, most large immigrant groups faced real challenges (and society faced challenges integrating them -- or didn't want them), but the challenges diminished and the acceptance increased when separate languages were no longer spoken, integration increased, and intermarriage occurred.
