Comment by miked | Hacker News Reader

Comment by miked | Hacker News Reader

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Over the last several decades I've been reading articles in the US/UK press of the "it's so glorious to live in Scandanavian welfare state X". The young whippersnappers that read HN won't remember these, of course. In the past, X was almost always Sweden. In Sweden and other Scandanavian countries there was always plenty of criticism of the US and its racial problems and how they didn't suffer any of those. Then they began to import non-Scandanavians and things changed. Malmo, Sweden now has the highest rape rate in the developed world.

Author Bruce Bawer, a political liberal, published a book critical of evangelical Christians years ago and then moved to Norway to marry his partner (they're gay). Here's what he werote a few weeks ago: (http://memo.brucebawer.com/) "During the nine years and two weeks that I've lived in Oslo, I've seen the city change significantly -- for the worse. I don't remember exactly when it started reminding me of New York in the 1970s and 80s, but by now the resemblance is undeniable. Burglary, rape, gay-bashing, mugging, graffiti, vandalism: you name it, we've got it in spades, and it's still on the rise. Public stabbings and gang fights have become routine...The statistics are dire. Last month came news that the rate of reported crimes in Oslo is now four times that of New York; last week it emerged that Oslo's rape figures reached an all-time high in 2007; today it was reported that over 99 percent of street robberies in the city go unsolved. To any unblinkered individual who lives here, these statistics are no surprise. Yet civic authorities, faced with the steady erosion of law and order, exude indifference and ineffectuality."

As for Iceland, it elected a government in the late 1980's that enacted a number of free-market reforms and, by an amazing coincidence, the economy took off. "Much of the nation’s prosperity is the result of free-market policies, including a 36 percent flat tax on labor income, a 10 percent flat tax on capital income, and a corporate tax rate of just 18 percent (down from 50 percent at the end of the 1980s)." http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/02/21/iceland-and-taiwan... Amazingly, The Guardian couldn't find space to mention any of that.

Regarding your final point, the article does mention it, though not in detail.

"I believe we have blended the best of Europe and the United States here, the Nordic welfare system with the American entrepreneurial spirit,' he said, pointing out that Iceland, unlike the other Nordic countries, had exceptionally low personal and corporate tax rates. 'This has meant not only that Icelandic companies stay and foreign ones come, but that we have increased by 20 per cent our tax revenue owing to increased turnover.'"

The article presents a pretty narrative, not a substantive account of different economic theories and their effects, but it does mention both the welfare state policies and the free-market ones, suggesting that choosing the best of both is what has improved Iceland. On the surface this seems sensible to me. The Nordic countries generally have better 'quality of life' than the US does, the US generally is stronger economically.

Good catch on my final point. Thanks.

>> "The Nordic countries generally have better 'quality of life' than the US does, the US generally is stronger economically."

Iceland certainly sounds nice, if you could tolerate the weather. "Nordic countries" is too general to be useful, I think. I'm a bit sceptical about making the quality of life comparisons, in any case. While traveling in Turkey about 7 years ago, a Swedish woman told me that a software developer there takes home about $1,300/month on average (i.e., after taxes). Restaurants in Sweden are so expensive that hardly anyone eats out. Six years ago (while the dollar was still strong) a large pizza in downtown Oslo went for $60. Even business executives pack a lunch.

Norway is doing fine economically, since it has a tiny population and is the world's third largest exporter of oil (though that's running out). Given the explosion in crime that Bawer mentions (at much greater length in his book _While Europe Slept_, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Cirlce Award), I think I'll find someplace else to hang. I've lived in Europe twice (Germany and Greece) and, while it had its points, it always felt sleepy to me.

Iceland certainly sounds nice, if you could tolerate the weather.

How does it compare to say, Wisconsin?

I haven't lived in the countries in question, so I don't have any personal experience to go on. The only measures I have are the various indexes of quality of life and other academic studies. According those we have the following rankings:

Economist Quality of life index (2005): Switzerland: 2 Norway: 3 Sweden: 5 Iceland: 7 Denmark: 9 Finland: 12 US: 13

UN Human Development Index (2007): Iceland: 1 Norway: 2 Sweden: 6 Switzerland: 7 Finland: 11 US: 12 Denmark:14

All of these countries are quite rich by international standards, but their GDP per capita at PPP varies from a low of 29,650 in Sweden to a high of 41,529 in the US. The Nordic countries do better in their quality of life rank than their GDP per capita PPP rank, and the US does worse, (as does Canada, my home country, at least in the Economist survey). So all of these countries are doing just fine economically, whether they have oil reserves or not, and being rich certainly helps with 'quality of life' but it isn't the whole story.

What matters much more than a quality of life index or a measure of economic strength is happiness. This is a much tricker question, since it is subjective, culturally dependent, and personal. Historically happiness has been disregarded as an area for academic research, but over the past few years that has changed. The studies are still in their infancy, but what they tell us now is that different cultures value different things for their happiness (wow, shock, I know) such as personal success in the US, and family ties in Japan. The other finding I know of, which I find more surprising, is that trust seems to be the most important element in happiness.

I apologize for the lack of a link in advance, this is based on memory of a talk I attended last year. In a study done by a UBC researcher in Canada, based on census data and surveys done across the country, researchers measured interpersonal trust on a ten point scale, and recorded other factors such as wealth, relative wealth, personal safety, and so on. They found that a one point increase on the ten point scale in personal trust in your boss at work had a larger impact on happiness than doubling your salary.

They also found that trust in your neighbors was essential to happiness. Here the results get more interesting, because things that provided trust in neighbors was basically length of time you'd been neighbors, and speaking the same language. Any location facing rapid growth by in-migration has a risk in happiness and trust, and if that growth is international immigration by people who don't speak the same language trust is further at risk, as is happiness. If these results generalize beyond Canada, which they might not, I would expect countries which are rich, non-corrupt, and stable in their cultural composition to be happiest, which makes Iceland a good candidate for a high rank.

Regardless of the overall happiness of a country, moving there if you speak a different language, and value different things, is unlikely to make you or anyone else happy, at least in the short term. So wherever your personal values match up with local conditions, given a certain baseline of wealth and security, is likely to be the best place for you and just as likely to not be the best place for me regardless of any particular ranking.

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