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Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

I fail to understand why Scandinavian politics always manage to make sense.

Is that cultural, historical, economical, or does the tough climate force people to think a little bit more about how they manage their society?

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It's from the 1920s when the social democrats convinced the working person to ditch religion for a more 'rational' form of politics. Despite the other negative comments (nobody thinks their govt is doing good), politicans are held to account and policy is primarily driven by rational debate. For example, there was a strong rumour that a recent prime minister (Goran Persson) was religious. Being religious would obviously be a bad thing, as it might bias his policy - that is the consensus. And yes, it is a more consensus driven society. But without some level of consensus, how can you get your fellow citizens to help one another?

Not a rumour. When asked what profession he would have had he not gone into politics, he answered "priest".

That's true. Just proves the point that it was controversial that somebody with religious tendencies has the lever of power. I should also add Swedish newspapers are somewhat more responsible/rational than Anglo Saxon newspapers (Expressen/Aftonbladet excluded, of course). DN, DI, Dagbladet are all pretty fair to the 'other side'.

In the US it's the exact opposite. Saying you're not religious is political suicide!

Well saying you are not some form of Christian. Both an atheist and a Muslim would have no chance of being elected. Jewish seems to be generally okay. Not sure on Buddhist or other eastern religions.

Christianity in the US, particularly in the Revolutionary period, usually meant mainstream Protestant sects. Indeed, in the mid-1700s, Maryland (originally set up as a Catholic colony during England's turbulent religious times) actually outlawed Catholicism and prohibited Catholics from serving public office. Only one Catholic (Charles Carrol) signed the Declaration of Independence. The first (and, to date, only) Catholic elected president was JFK.

Note that Mitt Romney is Mormon, which is sometimes considered non-Christian. Thomas Jefferson is probably the closest the US ever had to an atheist president (he wrote a translation of the New Testament that cut out all of the miracles)--in a time when church was actually held inside the US Capitol. I'm not aware of any viable non-Christian presidential candidates, although there have been Jews for the vice presidential nominee (Lieberman) or as primary candidates (Sanders).

Judging from polls that ask questions like "Would you vote for a president if he were an atheist?", an outright atheist would be unlikely to hold a successful run for the presidency, at least not for another century or so. Muslims would probably have a harder time than Buddhists or Hindus (as far as I know, there really haven't been any studies on the latter groups), but they'd have an easier time than atheists.

For less visible elected roles in the US, there are already Muslims and atheists who have been elected. The first Muslim representative in Congress was sworn in on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran.

As of 2010 there were two Muslims in the US Congress. There were also two or three Buddhists. (The number varies by source, I think because of confusion over how to categorize Soka Gakkai.) There were nine "Unspecified", which is probably what you'd put down if you were an atheist.

It is certainly helpful, and perhaps required, to be Christian (some flavor of Protestant, specifically) in many parts of the US if you want to be electable, but it is not as much of a political death sentence as is widely believed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_St...

Intriguingly, the WP articles on more recent Congresses don't have the religious demographics easily accessible. I'm not sure if that's just a Wikipedia thing or if the data isn't being reported.

That is surprising data in a good way.

President I think is a tougher nut to crack, because you need to cross all the different states.. some being more liberal, and some more conservative.

Being a Catholic was a significant hindrance to JFK's presidential ambitions. You have to be the right kind of Christian.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1692060...

My gut says distrust of Catholics has gone down in the past 30 years, but I could not find data to back it up. But yes, many things factor into things..

You are just too far away. Swedish politics is as sick a joke as in Italy.

- The school and high school results are in a state of implosion. No real political reaction.

- Because of internal political manoeuvres, the immigration policies were done so it will cost multiple times of the defence spending the coming years -- and risk a Spanish style housing crash.

- Putin acts more or less like Hitler in the mid 1930s. The defence is a joke, despite the politicians knowing this for a long time.

- For political reasons, there has been almost no building of housing over the last 20 years. During the same time, the population has increased by at least 10-15% because of political decisions...

- The trains are a joke because of bad upkeep. The problem seems to be that increased repairs won't make them work better until after the next election, so all governments spend the money in ways that buy votes better.

- And so on.

You could be describing the UK.

" Putin acts" Are you describing Russia or Sweden?

I think the poster was referring to Sweden not spending on military despite having a potentially hostile neighbor (or near-enough; not sure if Sweden shares a border with Russia)

They don't; Finland is in between as a buffer. Traditionally, Finland had stronger land forces and guerilla warfare capacity, Sweden had stronger navy and air force. That's pretty much gone now.

Sweden is btw considering to bring back the draft (conscription), and now it would be both for men and women.

I see why you and many others living outside of the region would think that. Sweden is very good at only extolling her perceived "virtues" and sweeping the rest under the rug. Waaaay under the rug.

There is a real moral and intellectual superiority among many Swedes that I find deeply distasteful. From environment to politics to how to bag your groceries, and yes--even close a door properly, the "Swedish way" is always promoted as the only "right way."

From my US perspective, I don't think anyone here believes that Sweden (or any other Scandinavian country for that matter) is some kind of wondrous utopia of social democracy without its own problems. What is going on is more of a growing sense of despair and frustration as we see other Western countries moving forward with social progress as we remain stuck in the 20th century, unable to figure out even the basics. Having a conversation regarding the "disposable culture" would not even be a blip on the radar in our political environment (mind you, this is an environment in which one of the main political parties has put forth a candidate who publicly stated that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese[1]). So, to see other countries discuss issues such as these is both literally and figuratively a foreign concept.

[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/...

I'm with you. I see all kinds of progress and basic needs met in these other democracies. In the U.S., the situation is brutal for a lot of people with most political activity intentionally ignoring every real problem and solution we have to focus on side issues or outright superficial ones. That the corporate media makes money on the status quo and shapes its presentation accordingly means activists might never be able to get the solutions to enough people. I've pretty much given up on getting America in shape. Evaluating alternatives where their people at least try on a regular basis.

Out of curiosity where do you live? Perhaps this is a regional thing but down here in Skane people are very humble about being Swedish, almost as if they are ashamed of some sort of history.

They certainly wouldn't describe something as "the Swedish way" unless it was something about how the police are ineffective due to bureaucracy or something similar.

It seems a lot more complicated than either your view or the grandparents. If you watch Fredrik Lindströms "Världens Modernaste Land" it explores the question of the conflicting Swedish self-image pretty well (and the history of how it became what it is today), but I wouldn't know how to summarize it in a Hacker News comment.

In general, Swedes are pretty self-depreciating people. But, down there, people might be just ashamed of being from Skåne :)

I really things swept under the rug more than in most other countries? If there really is such a huge issue I imagine there must be dozens of topics that are completely ignored in Sweden, and at the same time I have a hard time understanding how any reasonably well functioning society can ignore several important areas without more direct effect on the economy?

The devil is in the details. For example the "chemical tax" is on the weight of the products, so when you buy consumer electronics you are supposed to be paying 120 kr/kg up to a maximum of 320 kr before VAT. This is blamed on environmnentally hazardous flame retardants on circuit boards. So the very design of this tax incentives less weighty electronic products, but I've learned that some electronic products longevity is correlated to its cooling, so you end up paying for the heat sink instead of the circuitboard. So it can even become a perverse incentive where you buy the cheapest possible product that might last a shorter compared to a heavier version that lasts longer.

which Is the problem with things like mandating maximum power for vacuum cleaners you just get a lower power motor which is run at 100% duty instead of a higher power one run at a lower duty cycle - with the effect of reducing the design life of the device.

The obvious question is then why they chose to tax the total weight and not the total amount of hazardous flame retardant (or what ever classification they want to categorize the environmentally hazardous chemicals").

Maybe the industry refuse on the ground of trade secrets, or maybe it would be too costly for the producer to produce the correct measurements, or maybe retailers has not enough pressure to get producers to follow such regulative requirements. Thus a imperfect solution with imperfect incentives, but which hopefully is calculated to do more good than harm in the cost-benefit analyses.

Yes but the imperfect incentives isn't punishing "consumption" of electronic devices. One clear example is the consumer version of a surround system with built in bluray. The day that the blu-ray drive gives up the consumer goes out buys a new one and throws out the old one. Now if we compare that to the enthusiast and buys a heavy receiver, separate speakers, and blu-ray player and is taxed individually on each component. What happens the day blu-ray gives up... he goes out and buys new blu-ray and keeps the old stuff.

Same goes for the pc-gamer that builds his own PC. Buys individual components gets taxed on each, upgrades and replacements of components are taxed. But a regular consumer goes out and buys a flimsy laptop taxed less and throws away the laptop when it breaks.

I assure you we have stupidity here too, it's a global trait. While this one makes sense, there's also a proposed "Chemicals tax" for 2017, taxing electronics (phones/tablets/games consoles/etc) per weight, regardless of contents. So what we waste the most (phones/tablets) will barely pay for anything, while TV's which can last 5-10 years will get more expensive.

Wouldn't the answer then be to apply the Chemical tax, divided by the expected lifetime of the device?

Sure, that would be better, but it's still not really related to the amount of (environmentally detrimental) chemicals in the devices.

There's also lots of things wrong in Scandinavia. There's segregation between the "native" population and the immigrants/their descendants. Suspects for crime, including children are put into isolation by default. Strict drug laws, strict alcohol laws that lead to binge drinking instead of a normal enjoyment of beer/wine. A strong sense that they're the best in the world which they often actively carry outwards.

Still I really love it.

The binge drinking I've seen in Sweden is a shadow of the binge drinking I've seen in the UK, which has more lenient laws. Though I dread going to conference in England because their normal end-of-the-day social drinking is my binge drinking, so I'm perhaps not one to say.

I believe that it's common in many if not most countries for its citizens to have a strong sense that they're the best in the world. Forbes has an article from 8 year ago titled "World's Most And Least Patriotic Countries" describing a NORC/U. Chicago study. NORC lists Sweden as one of the least patriotic countries.

Given how much I knew Swedes love their country, and love flying their flag, either that study has methodological errors, or effectively all the citizens of a nation have a strong sense that their nation is the best in the world.

This reminds me of my time in Stockholm. I was there for a few months and saw quite a few homeless people. I don't remember a single one of them being a white "native" Swede. They all appeared to be immigrants. Swedes might brag about their good social welfare (and it's great if you can get it) but it doesn't seem to be applied evenly.

God how I hate the reputation these people give us. They are Roma people from Romania. We are drowning in them in Norway as well. We pay Romania a shitload to help them, but all the money disappears in corruption so Roma people actually find life easier begging for scraps in Scandinavia than living in the country where they have citizenship and their government is supposed to take care of them with Scandinavian money.

We can't just shelling out money and benefits to people who have no legal status in our countries. Then millions would pour in.

You sound like the Donald talking about Mexicans!

So sorry for your reputation. /s

Those are migrants, not immigrants. They are allowed to stay for 3 months without a job (but there is no checks on how long they stay) and they do get a lot of free healthcare and other "benefits" they don't have in their originating countries. Scandinavia cannot help everyone. There is rules and an order in who to help first, and unfortunately for the migrants they are not at the top.

Social Democracy/High Taxes

Culturally protestant but atheist/indifferent

Not big enough for perverse corruption.

It's probably more in line with what a democracy is supposed to be and it doesn't lend itself to corruption so easily. The thing is, it's our societies and our conceptions of stuff that are wrong and that's why it seems weird. They are right(also "Europe" has been devastated by war, ignorance, plagues, injustice for much longer than our 'newbie' countries, they had to learn something eventually. The population in general is much better equiped with education and civility), us new-worlders, we think we don't need that and that we'll be just fine :)

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