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Every time there is a US/UK article about how much better things are in Scandinavia/Netherlands/Germany, someone from the latter pops up and starts listing a number of negatives, usually with a strong right-wing/libertarian bias.

None of these are false in themselves, but these same issues are largely common to all Western societies (the US being a bit of an outlier in some aspects), and not a sign of total failure of a specific model.

Name one Western country that isn't struggling with public spending, globalisation, automation and education issues.

What usually all these comparisons (from all sides) fail to understand is that all countries have different history and culture, therefore the solutions will always differ and cannot be implemented across different countries.

And people will prefer one over the other because of their own bias as a member of any given country.

However what you can measure is the progress within you own country, is it improving or not.

One thing worth mentioning is that usually the top countries is all these articles is usually small North European countries. That suggest that human societies does not scale as databases.

Whenever one of these US/UK articles pops up, it's usually from a left-leaning angle, emphasising the left policies of these countries as the cause of all the goodness there - so it's only natural that the counterpoint would be right-leaning.

> not a sign of total failure of a specific model.

It's not that it's a total failure, it's more that the scandinavian model isn't the utopia it's made out to be by its (mostly left leaning) proponents.

The problem is that the counterpoint doesn't have very much to do with issue at hand. It's like a number of people read "Denmark" and thought "Let me tell you what is wrong with Denmark!". This is exactly the type of political discussions that should be avoided on HN, because when arguments are vague and with little relation to the article the quality of the discussion will suffer.

Bringing Denmark up as a model country (as the OP does) is an inherently political statement. There is nothing "hack" about the BBC article. I agree this doesn't belong on HN, but one of the reasons politics on HN is so dangerous is that it's so easy to get dragged in - which I am clearly guilty of here.

The number of welfare recipients + public sector being approximately equal to the private sector is common in most Western societies? That sounds pretty implausible to me.

I think he has some legitimate, objective concerns that you have too flippantly dismissed as right wing biases.

I don't know percentages - I'm sure they are googlable - but that split seems about right in Sweden too, which is a lovely country to live in.

I'm a Brit that's moved to Scandinavia and I'd recommend it broadly.

You know. I am one of those people who don't believe in any specific political ideology. In my world all political systems holds the solution to the problems in others.

All countries have different reasons for why they are in trouble or not. All I can say is that the articles picture of Denmark is false.

Not that Denmark is going down the gutter but the problems are much more severe that the numbers show.

Sure, the Scandinavian system who made several relatively rich countries is deeply flawed.

I think the cold war created a unhealty general view on socialism. Distributing wealth equally seems to work very well for many countries, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

I lived in Switzerland for two years where they are very liberal, but still it felt like that the middle class was large and rather healthy.

Having a large, rich middle class is far better for the economy than having a small portion of super rich people and many people who can barely afford living, like in the US. This have the two following bad economic effects: Large savings for the few rich people and no purchasing power for the masses, effectively killing many businesses.

Also, its far better to have people on welfare spending money locally than having people so poor that they can't afford food and living.

I think Denmarks largest economic problem is that lack of Venture Capital. With companies such as Podio and Zendesk showing up, I think this is just a matter of time. Recently the Government made initiatives to invest in new companies with growth potential, which hopefully creates a better environment for start ups interested in growing.

Good thing your post wasn't a bug-report, although you do mention that something doesn't work.

You didn't describe any symptoms or argue why the Danish system no longer works or what precisely doesn't work, so it would be great if you could give some examples, facts and figures.

Are you talking about unemployment? Average wealth? Class mobility? Freedom? Pollution?

Any country that has a model that works better? US, UK, China, France, Singapore? In what way?

Scandinavians love to whine about how our countries are falling apart. Until someone writes an article about how we're best at something, then we'll temporarily use the opportunity to gloat before going back to complaining.

It appears to be some weird inferiority complex.

How is this different from any other country?

The damned Scandinavians get to be best at stuff that matters. :)

In my opinion, it is massively different in tone. I'm Norwegian, and I live in the UK and have spent quite a lot of time in the US. While people in the UK and US will also complain loudly, the character is entirely different in that outside of Scandinavia the self-criticism is more "if we don't fix this things will go to hell", whereas in Scandinavia a lot of the self-criticism implies we're competing with war-torn third world countries about who gets to be the butthole of the world and are likely to win.

The focus of self-criticism in Scandinavia seems to me to be hugely disproportionately focused on describing us as doing horribly compared to everyone else in a way that seems to indicate a huge inferiority complex, where self-criticism other places seems to in general be more internally focused.

Of course there are exceptions.

I don't understand this.

The claim of the article and many others implies that Denmark is near perfect system.

That is what we are critiquing, not whether it's better or worse than other places.

It's just not as rosy red as it's portrayed and some of the claims in that article are flat out wrong.

I can say that both as someone who been an employee and an employer.

Sounds very much like Australia, too. Pick just about any quality-of-life measure, and the top 5 will usually be a smattering of scandinavia and Australia... yet the public perception is we're just terrible, the worst place in the world for -foo-.

The funny thing is, referring to the inferiority complex, there's this amorphous mythical country in Europe that doesn't have a name and we can never measure up to - we're just provincials, unlike those cultured people over there, wouldn't life be so much better if... (oh, just don't look at quality of life measures!)

It's not that we don't have great quality of life - we do. It's that we're not going to keep it for long: the baby boomers (the group currently aged ~58-68) are retiring from high-paying (high tax revenue) jobs with little demand on public services to little or no income and higher demands on public services. There will be decades of lower revenue combined with higher expenses, and we have a history of poor growth.

It isn't. National pride is a bug.

That is because of the Marxist doctrine teaching people to hate your own country and culture - until Anglo-Saxons love it, then its okay to gloat because Marxist hate Anglo-Saxon culture even more.

Unemployment: The numbers are under-reported because it's very, very easy to get shoved away on a benefit that doesn't count as unemployment, although someone of your condition would be considered unemployed in other countries. The Danish "employment ratio" (number of employed people as a fraction of the total population) is very high compared to the rest of Europe, but only until you remember that housewives are almost inexistent.

Average wealth: Pretty decent, but stagnant and falling rapidly relative to other western countries.

Class mobility: Very high in relative term, very low in real terms. There's a very short way to the top (and the bottom) so it's pretty easy to get there. The top just isn't very high up, so you're still upper middle class compared to other countries. Should you happen to break out of the middle class, the Jantelov-based scorn will be severe.

Freedom: Not great. Especially suspicion of tax evasion ("black work") routinely trumps basic civil liberties. The tax authorities were granted blanket permission to enter private property without a warrant if there is visible building activity.

Pollution: Very high "green" taxes on energy has made comparably cheap wood burning stoves very popular. This is then the cause of very high levels of particle pollution, especially in the winter.

Education: The extreme egalitarianism that is found across society is particularly pervasive in the educational system leading to a painfully low quality education from kindergarden to university. This has been made particularly acute by a political focus on educating the "knowledge society" which has re-wired secondary and upper education to focus almost exclusively on quantity.

I think the danish model could work fairly well, but the political system (and a more than willing electorate) has shown itself to be completely incapable of even minor reforms to substantially address the mentioned issues.

I believe the standard neoliberal answer to such questions is: DOOM DOOMITY DOOM DOOM DOOM privatize industries DOOM deregulate DOOM financialize DOOM beat down wages DOOM outsource and globalize DOOM DOOM MOTHERFUCKER DOOM.

Not surprisingly, once you've gone down the list and done everything there, you're doomed.

This is nothing new. All BBC articles on Denmark are almost entirely inaccurate. It's like the BBC has no researchers in Denmark or on Denmark, and basically swallow some brochure.

Every other week, a Danish newspaper has an article about another BBC article painting another rose picture of Denmark. Is the BBC working for the Danish tourism board?!

Just two weeks ago, a BBC article claimed Danes can usually command 3 languages besides English and Danish, which hardly accurate (unless they count Swedish and Norwegian, but that's cheating!).

Just curious, which parts are not accurate? I would be very nice to know for someone who is not Danish.

As my parent points out, the statement by Christian Bjørnskov, that Danes are ambitious. Danes are far more interested in working for an employer than being one (on average). Danes like a large welfare state and we like comfort.

While Bjørnskov goes on to hide his suggestion with the fact that Danes don't like to show off (we have a culture against showing off, see Law of Jante[1], which is diminishing but very slowly), his concept of 'ambitious' does not translate into something that makes Danes particularly happier.

Our 'happiness' rating stems from our comfort, because despite the welfare state's quirks, it does work some of the time. But it is a huge drag on the treasury, and a lot of the money are not exactly spent efficiently.

Denmark is not a perfect place, and I am not sure people coming here will automatically be happier (particularly considering how we treat immigrants).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

I thought Danish people were the happiest people in the world because they had the lowest expectations. 60 Minutes did a piece on it a while back: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3841772n

We do, because our comfort level is so high. Because one might ask, 'why do Danes have such low expectations?' following that conclusion.

> Danes are far more interested in working for an employer than being one (on average). Danes like a large welfare state and we like comfort.

I don't think you're necessarily right about that statement. Most people I know dreams of being self-employed, especially where I grew up in Jutland. That doesn't make me right either. Both of us are using ourselves as a measurement here, and that's probably a bad idea.

Most people dream of working abroad. When it comes down to it they really do prefer to live at home. Same things goes for being self employed.

You can't judge anything based on what people say they want to do, you have to do it based on what they do, especially in a country like Denmark where it's literally risk free to start a company.

Risk free? My 5 years of paying off debt from a failed company says otherwise.

Yeah but you don't have to deal with for instance healthcare cost should you or your family get into trouble. And believe me, you do not want to be caught of guard in the US without proper healthcare which for a self-employed is really expensive and sub par to working in a large organisation with a proper healthcare setup.

You still have to factor in that very same safety net. You'll lose a guaranteed income, from the state, by choosing the entrepreneurial route vs. unemployment. That's taking a pretty big risk for something that might never amount to anything.

In other countries you're basically screwed, if you can't get a job. You have to then seriously consider doing something on your own accord. The same incentive is largely missing here in Scandinavia.

Risk comes in many variations!

IF you want to be conspiratorial it is because of the BBC's admitted liberal bias - many of their staff would prefer to live in a Scandinavian style country which they perceive to have none or fewer of the faults that the UK does.

There seems to be a general Scandinavian/Nordic idealism pervasive across the internet amongst young westerners. Countless reddit threads extol the glories of living in one of these countries. Young people facing the stressors of capitalism perk up at the thought of all that "free stuff." Free healthcare! Free leave! Free breakfast! etc etc. They never end up even visiting much less living there and realizing they could probably never stay there long term. Growing up in America, you are going to have a hard time acclimating to the lifestyle and culture of these countries.

I am interested. What are the biggest and most significant differences between american and scandinavian/nordic lifestyle and culture in your opinion ?

The Economist did an article on Swedish state provided childcare a while back. Cheap nurseries provide by the state are a boon, but also teach what it is to be a Swedish citizen. Immigrants especially are highly incentivised to send their children to state nurseries through welfare payments being dependant upon it.

So there's a very communitarian mindset that is inculcated from an early age in Scandinavian children. The recent story on here around attitudes and how the USA is much more individually minded compared to Europe in general is magnified.

So the famous liberalism of Scandinavia is built on a single, illiberal act by the state which then sets up its citizens to have freedom. Whereas other countries allow parents to raise children in much more varied ways, you end up with more diversity but that can produce some nasty results.

My experience growing up in the U.S. was that there is a strong desire to inculcate a certain Americanness there as well, and resistance to people failing to integrate and adopt it, though it might not be to the same extent. As a superficial but very visible aspect, we started each day in elementary school by saying a Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. There was also a strong focus on American civics and history throughout schooling, often with a general tone of American exceptionalism, and a normative view of what it means to be an American. In high school in Texas, this was even supplemented by a normative view of what it means to be a Texan, though those of us not from Nth-generation Texan families tended not to take that part seriously by that age.

As far as schooling goes, Denmark is more liberal than the U.S. when it comes to choice, because there are school vouchers (not sure if true in Sweden). If you prefer not to use the state system, you can get a voucher equal to the prorated per-student cost of public education, to spend on private education instead. One of my colleagues uses this to send her daughter to an English-language school, rather than a Danish-language school. The U.S. doesn't have any similar program that will let you choose a Spanish-language school over an English-language school (and there is huge political pressure against Spanish-language schooling, because it is seen as a failure to integrate into proper Americanness).

Perhaps you've heard that the UK prime minister has declared the state policy of multiculturalism as failed. Looks like nurseres teaching English values might've been a better idea.

Until recently Sweden also had mandatory national service. They also don't recognise dual-nationality. As with most Western European countries, they struggle with immigration.

Although this all sounds a little bit communist and making everyone the same, they have a massive music industry export, so they're not losing creativity.

Actually Sweden does recognise dual citizenship. http://www.migrationsverket.se/info/399_en.html

Also you might want to learn the difference between communism and socialism as you have it all wrong currently.

Yes, it's common for immigrants employed in Copenhagen to chose to live in Malmö and commute, because the Swedish path to citizenship is nicer: it's shorter, and doesn't require them to give up other citizenships. This has annoyed the more nationalist part of the Danish political scene, who see it as a loophole.

I moved from the U.S. to Denmark 2 1/2 years ago and so far am liking it. The healthcare really does work without me having to shop for complex insurance packages! I really do get 6 weeks/year in vacation! People really do work 37-hour work weeks! There really are good arts grants if you want to bootstrap your indie-game or film company! (And a good safety net so you don't end up homeless if your company fails.) It hasn't been a bad experience at all. Why should I have trouble acclimatizing to the culture?

The only thing really difficult to acclimatize to is the language, which is hard to speak (though easy to read/write). And to some extent the weather. But Copenhagen in particular is incredibly easy to live in as a foreigner. And it is diverse enough that culture-wise you can hang out with whoever you want to, more or less; my social group includes a number of Germans, some Spaniards, some Danes, some Arabs, some Greeks, some Swedes, and some Koreans.

I moved to Sweden from Britain 10 years ago and all its all truly rosy in Sweden too. I hope the BBC succeeds in nordicising Britain!

> There seems to be a general Scandinavian/Nordic idealism pervasive across the internet amongst young westerners.

Seems a little more well-researched than the hopes and dreams of young westerners to go on a roadtrip, study or live and work in America based on watching 100 Hollywood movies.

Scandinavia is much more homogenic than Britian. But don't tell the liberals about it, because they still think it is about the taxes. Silly people.

One thing to note: it's a "magazine" article. Those are the some of the most superficial articles on the BBC website. Even the material that is aimed at kids can be more hard hitting.

To try and define an entire nation of people in one article/comment with a few fancy words is down right silly.

I've lived the last 10 years around Øresund, in various places, and the best explanation of the danish lifestyle I've heard was that they don't expect success so they get more happier when they have it.

But I only enjoy that explanation because it fits into my little belief of how I want people to be. It says nothing about how people actually are. It's ridiculous to believe that there aren't people who strive for success and material wealth in a place so well developed as Denmark.

I am not sure about your definition of a generalization, but to me that does not include the exceptions.

"The result of this is that we have a large over educated part of the population who will have a very hard time finding a job."

Consider the alternatives: a large under educated part of the population who will/will not have a very hard time finding a job.

An educated population makes for a better society, irrespective of what "the economy" may or may not have to offer[1]. Economies can change on relatively short timeframes, while the character of societies[2] change much more slowly, if at all[3].

1. Author's opinion.

2. Substitute "character of society" with "culture" if you wish.

3. Another author opinion.

"Over educated" is interesting terminology. What exactly does that mean? Do we define education only in economic terms? Why did wealthy classes historically seek to become educated, even when "economically speaking" they already had society's best resource allocation?

That isn't the point about over educated and you are right it's not very precise of me. Let me elaborate in an hour

How do you "benchmark" Denmark with Norway about the present/future?

An opinion: Denmark has a more modern and dynamic economy, but it's hard to compare anything to Norway, because they have such huge natural resources that they can pay for all kinds of arrangements if they choose to. For example, Norway has an inefficient agricultural sector deliberately kept isolated from the EU market with high tariffs, but it's seen as culturally important, and the country can afford to maintain it as long as it's popular to do so.

Even looking into the future, their resource economy seems likely to persist. Oil production is declining, but fairly slowly, and natural-gas production has actually been rising. The value of hydroelectric exports has been going up as European demand for "green" electricity allows them to be sold at a premium price. There are large thorium reserves, which might some day be valuable. There are also large, barely-exploited wind resources, which could be exported like the hydroelectric ones are, though they pose more grid issues. Between all these different sources they sort of hit the energy jackpot.

I am Danish, and I approved this message.

I agree that too many people are employed by the public sector. This number grew rapidly in the 1970s, but has continue to grow (although much less) steadily since. http://punditokraterne.dk/2012/06/22/offentligt-ansatte-1970...

Do you mean that the danish "model" is broken, because the public finances run with a deficit and/or because of unemployment? It is still not obvious for me what you mean by broken.

Since the number of people employed in the public sector hasn't increased by more than around 10% since the 1980s, and the unemployment rate is now actually relatively low (5.8%), one could argue that the model really does work. It hasn't crashed over a period of 30 years. Public spending was excessive during the 2000s, so the "model" does need some refinement, and will like continue to undergoing constant refinement as the economy fluctuates.

The unemployment rate is currently dropping, and it is lower than e.g. UK (5.8% vs. 7.7%) and certainly Southern Europe. Unemployment is a reoccurring problem in a historical sense, and a much bigger problem in most of the world than Denmark. People everywhere struggle to find jobs as a consequence of increased automation. Especially, uneducated people.

Denmark is running with a deficit at the moment, but there have been years with surplus too. Of course, that could be explained by the income generated from natural resources (oil+gas), just as the deficit could be explained by fluctuations in the world economy.

The deficit in 2013 is expected to be 1.2% of GDP which isn't bad compared to everywhere else. National debt compared to GDP is higher in many countries: http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/774/economics/list-of-nati...

Another point you mention is that it is hard to grow a company because of lack of ambition in Denmark. It is hard to grow a company in Denmark, but I personally consider high salaries as a bigger problem than lack of ambition.

On a positive side, because there is very good support for unemployed people, Danish employment laws are less restrictive than many countries, making it much easier for companies to hire and fire their employees. Flexibility is very good thing for a company that wishes to grow.

If you say automation is making it hard for people to find a job, what do you propose as an alternative to educating people (you mention a large part is overeducated)?

Lowering taxes for corporations was a ridiculous idea. It is higher almost everywhere else, and nobody could give a compelling argument for lowering it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

Corporate tax is paid of the profit, before the profit is distributed to its shareholders. 3 percentage points lower tax of dividends, before income tax, will not change much for the shareholders of Danish corporations.

You also haven't pointed to a country with a model you feel is working better.

I am not sure why you insist on answers based on your claim that Denmark is currently doing better than others. That was not the point.

The article portrays Denmark as having no issues what so ever and a financially sound political model for the future.

What is broken is a lucrative and ineffective welfare system and the size of the public sector as it is primarily based on the income of the private sector.

With the majority of taxes being paid through income tax and with the number of private sector jobs disappearing and not enough new companies becoming growth companies, with a demographic structure requiring more from less and with a job market that is structurally in trouble (hidden for now by redistribution) it is bound to be trouble.

Lowering the taxes for corporations was not meant as anything but following the competition, there is nothing wrong in that. It's neither a smart move or a stupid move, it's just what you do if you don't want to add to the amount of jobs disappearing.

There really isn't anything to do by the state for those who have trouble finding jobs. There isn't some boom waiting in any foreseeable future. It's structural these days baby.

I don't find any of the current models working, but I am also more pessimistic about automation than most people.

> Lowering taxes for corporations was a ridiculous idea. It is higher almost everywhere else, and nobody could give a compelling argument for lowering it.

That's clearly your opinion and you're entitled to it, but please don't state it as fact, that's just dishonest.

> Corporate tax is paid of the profit, before the profit is distributed to its shareholders. 3 percentage points lower tax of dividends, before income tax, will not change much for the shareholders of Danish corporations.

No, it's paid of the profit at the end of the year, no matter what you do with that profit, including investing it next year or putting it into a rainy-day fund.

> You also haven't pointed to a country with a model you feel is working better.

Who said he had to? Why is it a premise for debate that there is a perfect country somewhere else that's working better? But Sweden.

It is true that you can save up the profit for next year (a rainy day as you say), but that doesn't create growth or benefit society. In a sense if you have a higher corporate tax there is a larger incentive to spend that money in the same year on new hires, equipment, or assets. So you could argue that a larger corporate tax create more growth... However, that's just speculation on my part.

That lower corporate taxes doesn't benefit society wasn't actually my viewpoint, but it has been addressed quite a lot in the media. I should have pointed to some references. My bad:

Here is one from 2010. http://www.b.dk/danmark/eksperter-lavere-selskabsskat-har-li...

Two professors (one from Copenhagen Business School) and one from University of Århus states that it will have little impact.

Or a survey from business (67% of business don't think it will have an effect):

http://www.advodan.dk/nyheder/2013/4/7-ud-af-10-virksomheder...

It has also been discussed in America:

http://business.time.com/2012/02/23/will-a-lower-corporate-t...

I actually asked earlier if he could show me an example of a country with a better model to better explain in what sense the Danish model is "broken". Isn't the Swedish "model" almost identical to the Danish "model"?

Why do you insist on setting up a strawman for me to answer?

I just don't get it.

Lowering the corporate tax rate won't create growth or jobs on it's own, it will preempt loosing it to eg. Sweden. Denmark is loosing jobs at an astounding rate. Keeping jobs in Denmark is a hurdle to clear before creating jobs and growth can meaningfully be discussed.

The Swedish model is very similar to the Danish model, except they spent the good years implementing many of the reforms ThomPete and I have been advocating. It's not perfect, but they're doing better.

Do you have references regarding the "Denmark is loosing jobs at an astounding rate" statement?

It doesn't seem in line with the fact that the unemployment rate has been dropping over the last couple of years, or that it is in fact lower than it was in the 1990s.

I know the unemployment statistics doesn't necessarily give the true numbers, but you can't just state something like that without references.

http://www.altinget.dk/artikel/danmark-oplever-det-stoerste-...

The reason unemployment numbers look decent is partly that the numbers hide a larger number of people on "not-ready-for-work" benefits and partly the fact that the baby boomers are retiring. Pensioners are not considered unemployed.

I wouldn't call a drop of 16000 in 2012 "astounding". It is 0.5% of the entire workforce. 6000 of those 16000 were from the public sector, so it was really just 10000 workplaces lost in the private sector in 2012 (Jan-Nov).

If I look at the statistics at http://www.dst.dk/pukora/epub/Nyt/2013/NR350.pdf I see a drop of unemployed of 10000 since October 2012. I don't know if that number directly translates into 10000 new jobs of the kind that were lost in your article.

But I think it is hard to determine if the 16000 mentioned in the article is just normal fluctuation over a 11 months.

With that said, the 160000 jobs lost since 2008 is significant, but unemployment was at a record low at that time. From the graph (I linked to), it looks like most of those 160000 jobs were lost in 2008 and 2009.

Do you have any numbers that do not mask pensioner's and "not- ready-for-work" people? It is hard make any actual judgment in any direction, if all the statistics are deemed untrustworthy or politically biased.

Of the entire workforce? You mean of the private workforce.

No. The entire workforce was 2818000 people in 2012 according to Wikipedia (http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbejdsstyrke). So an additional 16000 unemployed people constitute approximately 0.5% of the workforce.

I don't think it makes sense to talk about a "private workforce" in this context, as the workforce consists of all people able to perform work.

It does make sense given that it's the private workforce that pays for the rest.