But later on I realized more deeply that Norway is a tiny fraction of the population of the USA as well as a very culturally (and let's face it, racially) homogeneous population.
Similar arguments can be made about Denmark, of course.
I think this article gets something right, pointing out trust. Another word would be "solidarity" - believing you 'owe' your fellow countryman and that you are on the same team. What's good for you is good for me.
In Denmark, we pay something like 50% tax but we also get a lot of things covered by our state which other countries let the individuals get through expensive insurance.
This means that if my neighbour get rich, I'm happy since that means a better school for my (and his) children, help for my (and his) old parents, roads that gets fixed etc. (Edit: some of the money goes to the state and EU, while a healthy chunk stays in the municipality - this keeps the money close)
My point: it only works if people are indeed on the same team.
That is why big nations are a detriment to this model. If the taxes disappear into black holes, negligent waste and corruption the system crumbles quickly. And as we all know, it takes much longer time to build trust that to kill it. It is a constant battle (which right now, it feels like we're losing, but that doesn't matter for this post).
Can big nations like the U.S. copy this? Well, Denmark is about the size of your average state. So yeah, if each state made an effort to make the public sector make sense internally on state level, it could.
I don't think it will, though. The cultural gap is too wide and expecting people to always be looking out for number one isn't seen as a bad thing.
Just remember that Danes/Scandinavians aren't better people than others (except Swedes; we're ALL better than Swedes!). It is a matter of choice and goals.
I'm not sure I buy that. Say you're tasked with planning and building a whole new city in an isolated place. Do you want to bring along 10,000 randomly-selected Bangladeshis, or 10,000 randomly-selected Danes? As a Bangladeshi myself, I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat. I think you can fairly blame circumstance for it, but at the end of the day, Bangladeshi culture has a higher tolerance for corruption, theocracy, opportunism, etc., than European cultures I have experienced. (But I'm biased--2/3 of Bangladeshis think I should be executed for apostasy. The odds are not in my favor!)
Also, in Denmark, the standard sentence for murder is like 12 years, while in America you can get 12 years for far less. We voted for that. Doesn't that make Danes better than Americans?
In my opinion, yes. That is my culture and I stand by it.
But my point is that Danes aren't inherently better. It isn't like Scandinavians are some kind of master race with genes of goodness and kind hearts.
It is about growing and maintaining a culture and system of warranted trust, and that isn't easy. But having said that, it is just work. Every nation can do it if they set their mind to it.
While it is indeed true that California is a net-tax-contributor to the United States, it's fairly new that this is a point of contention or a "gripe" from Californians.
A much more prevalent complaint, in my experience, is that Californians pay the same ~50% in taxes that Danish people do, but have much, much worse public policy and infrastructure outcomes.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-californi...
Less than 20% of Canada is a "visible minority." In the U.S., it's almost 40%. Toronto recently became a majority minority city. Washington, D.C. became a majority minority city sometime in the 1950s. In Chicago, it was sometime in the 1980s. Canada has no majority-minority provinces. Ontario is still 67% European (roughly on par with Connecticut). Our two largest states, California and Texas, are both majority-minority states.
Recency matters too. Much of Canada's diversity is very recent. American politics has in contrast been shaped by these conflicts for decades (really, from inception--we fought a whole civil war over race!).
People who look, worship (or not), work and have other things alike then to cluster together and have a sort of herd mentality.
In a place like the US, we have dramatically different groups of people all over the place. In Norway or Denmark, the differences are nonexistent to an American eye.
In Oslo, capital of Norway, 32% of the population are immigrants.
Also, when you say "chosen to defer the use of their wealth", you mean "invest at a rate of about 6% annually"? As long as they're otherwise meeting all of their commitments, I'm not seeing the problem.
To more directly answer your question: the fund is the sort of level-headed strategic genius that only a sane country like Norway could pull off. Compare Alaska.
But, comparing Norway to the U.S.A. would be odd. From over here, the U.S.A. can be compared to the E.U., in which case the comparison should be between American states and European countries.
Specifically for Norway, it would be like a state in the middle of the U.S.A. that never actually became part of the union, but with really good ties with everyone regardless.
It's almost as if trying to centrally plan for dozens of drastically different types of societies and regions isn't efficient, or as effective as a smaller, actually representative government or something. Just ask the USSR.
Maybe we could break up the US into some sort of territories, so like-minded people could gather, and govern themselves based on local needs...
You can’t count a bunch of blonde German & French doctors and engineers as disrupting the fabric of society.
Denmark has less than 4% non-Western immigrants while the US has nearly 25%.
Now, that although that has changed, the article mentions the large immigrant population isn't well integrated in society in Denmark, well they aren't in Sweden either. It would be fair to say that there are multiple parallel societies. Political and business life is to a large extent dominated by ethnic Swedes.
[0] http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subjec...
I think what makes a comparison difficult with the US is the difference race and ethnicity make between countries (eg, Sweden and US). In the US there are many negative correlations with race and ethnicity that make diversity comparisons simple to make (although not necessarily accurate). So people can easily look for diversity by just checking race demographics. It’s also difficult because some people talking about race are racists who have incorrect beliefs, but it’s hard to tell who’s who at first.
When looking at Sweden it’s not straightforward to look at race and I couldn’t even find solid numbers that describe Sweden by race, although only spent a few minutes googling. But in the US, racial demographics are immediately available.
If you compare nation of birth != Sweden that’s not necessarily useful comparing to the US as it includes other culturally similar peoples (eg, Norwegians). It would be like saying New York is diverse because it includes lots of people born in Connecticut while not breaking out those born in Somalia.
The comparison that is relevant is what are the diverse cultures, specifically those from lower socioeconomic status. Unless you can check that mix, then it’s not very useful to compare and make claims.
Of course, the purpose of comparison isn’t to achieve some sort of purity goal, that’s insane. But to identify what interventions are most effective based on cultural composition. While theoretically a country would higher social cohesion by getting rid of all the different peoples (Denmark pretty much did this is WW2 with the help of the Nazis). This is short sighted (hurts World to help country) and immoral (genocide is bad).
That's not saying "people can not trust others of a different skin color", but it is saying that generally speaking, people in more ethnically diverse communities are less trusting of each other. Call that what you will :)
They're also highly deregulatory. Denmark just got rid of its version of the FCC: http://reason.com/archives/2017/04/04/deregulate-the-fcc. Sweden's approach to building fiber in rural areas is a simple tax rebate of up to $600 for rural folks who choose to have a fiber line built. There's serious discussion in Sweden of things like water privatization.
So the challenge to implementing the "Scandinavian model" isn't just our "southern voters," who oppose more social spending, but also our "San Francisco voters," who insist on a narrow tax base bankrolling that broad social spending, more government intervention, etc.
And ultimately, it comes down to lack of trust. Americans don't trust each other, probably with good reason. Take abortion, for example. In Denmark, like most western European countries, abortion is only permitted up to 12 weeks absent special circumstances. And parental consent is required for minors. In Sweden it's 22 weeks, which is an outlier for Europe. In the U.S., 12 weeks with parental consent would probably be unconstitutional. Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, etc., match Sweden at 22 weeks, and most blue states are at 24-26 weeks.
But in Scandinavia, there is some level of consensus, and abortions are readily available to women under 12 weeks. Even in "blue states," while one side has managed to wrangle 51% of the votes and get a 24-week deadline, the other side has managed to erect roadblocks like restrictions on abortion clinics, which make it very difficult for women to actually get an abortion when they're legally permitted to do so. We're a fragmented and distrustful society that doesn't trust each other, and our stalemates often leave us with the "worst of both worlds."