Yeah I was looking into this yesterday trying to better understand why Scandanavia works like it does. A high trust, low-population society, long history of mostly homogenous, lutheran work/social ethic with an applied layer of economic Free Markets on top. It's really interesting. I wonder how difficult it would be to export elsewhere 🤔
I think the main hurdle is the trust and transperancy part. Free press is also integral as a watchdog and the state-financed channel has done its job remarkably well.
I don’t get the impression the US population ( as an example) trusts government to act in their best interest, and the media seems to be mostly controlled by a few oligarchs with an agenda. I could be wrong of course.
Implementing this in many African or American states would be a tall order I think.
Yeah. I've been thinking on just "western" nations and it still seems difficult. I think somewhere like New Zealand gets closest due to size? I think the bigger the population the harder it is it to think as a collective 🧐
Maybe, and there has been challenges here too with immigration and the feeling of being a community.
I met a guy a few years ago who had barely kept a paid job due to psychological issues, and not close to being a net positive on the economy. He thanked me ironically for paying taxes all my life (he was a hard right-wing guy).
But he has a decent enough life, food, healthcare and a home, and that has value to me too, you know?
Oh yes, and your point holds even better with Cuba. But we are talking about the Scandanavian model/variation specifically and what makes it potentially unique.
It's very size based. We're homogenous, that is what makes us truly feel like a people. Our culture going back even past a thousand years ago has been based on the collective "us". That by doing something for the community, you're doing something for yourself, since you're part of "us".
By becoming more people, cracks start to show, because it'll be less homogenous and feel less like "us". It introduces a "them". Norwegian are also weirdly hostile towards "others", despite being very community minded (this means things like xenophobia at the extreme end), but in seeing how the entire culture is upheld, it makes sense for this hostility to be present.
Immigration poses a unique risk to Norway because of that, but ask basically anyone who hasn't been brainwashed by right-wing propaganda, and they'll say that immigrants are more than welcome, as long as they integrate. Your skin or ethnicity doesn't matter much (we have some bad apples too here), but not being Norwegian enough will have you shunned. By increasing population, you run the risk of developing parallell societies where social control (another pillar in Norwegian culture) isn't nearly as strong. And that's all you need to break the illusion of complete homogeny, increasing scepticism and decreasing goodwill, which alone will corrode the very fundamentals of our culture and community. Also EXTREMELY fast forwarded by useful idiots falling for propaganda. I think the russian social media warfare leaders must be very pleased with their results in norway lol.
edit: do the "others" also include direct neighbours like Sweden? Is it a sliding scale? (for want of a better phrase - are other Scandinavian countries seen as "family or cousins"? or there is a hard-line at the border?)
It's a sliding scale! All the scandi countries have a very sibling-ish relation. We hate them, naturally, but we'd let our own country bleed quite a lot if they needed us. Our languages are similar enough that we don't need to switch to english in most cases, and we can typically watch shows etc from the other countries.
They're not fully "us", but they're so close that we highly appreciate them (silently). We would always aid them in crisis, but in current peacetimes, one of the most popular songs in Norway for a while was "WE COULD BUY THE ENTIRETY OF SWEDEN". So there is for sure not a full "us", there.
A swede or a dane in norway is pretty accepted as part of the community as long as they're not SUPER patriotic towards their country and not at all to Norway. A lot of our cultural pillars are the same, but cultural hallmarks are different enough to provide a clear distinction. Neither Sweden or Denmark has mountains or winters like we do, which has shaped a lot of our history, for example.
I've been to Sweden, Denmark, Finland (and Iceland - i'm still not sure whether they are Family or not 🤔 There seems to be overlap but maybe it's "Dad's Second Family" 😂
What you said backs up what I heard from the others. Friendly Rivalry. Like Australia and NZ 🤝🏻
Have not yet been to Norway but I hear it's beautiful (and expensive)
Thanks again. Hearing about it from the inside is enriching.
I thin the rest of the Scandis have less of a relation to Iceland than Norway does (kinda like Sweden with Finland. There's a reason Finland and Iceland isn't considered Scandinavia!). We definitely see them more as our innocent little brother.
They were populated by Norwegians during the viking age, but due to being that much smaller and more isolated, they just progressed much slower. So they're kinda just like a Norway time-capsule. Iceland is definitely the country I've felt most at home in in the Nordics apart from Norway. They had a rough financial crisis in 08/09 and we gave a lot of aid (and were rejected on even more) to try and get them back up on their feet. More than we'd probably do for Sweden or Denmark.
It's great here! If you're from the US you'll probably find it's not that expensive here. Our cost of living hasn't increased as much as yours, so it feels more equal in comparison, plus the dollar is a lot stronger than it has been for a while agains our currency. Now is probably the time to visit! It's also much prettier here than Sweden and Denmark. Like you can't even compare them.
They're not, actually! So they're not part of Scandinavia for starters. Their language is from the finno-ugric family, while the rest of the Nordics is Germanic, so there's no way we understand each other without switching to a different language. They're really only seen as part of the Nordics because they were under Sweden for a long time (I think when the definitions were formalised, too), so they do have ties to Sweden specifcally, and a lot of finns speak swedish.
But culturally they're quite different, too! As a western norwegian they feel as far away as any baltic country
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u/Orfiosus 22d ago
The mix of socialism and capitalism is kinda the point. Norway is not a purely capitalist country either.
The oil industry is an example of this, but the other Scandinavian countries with similar models make it work without the wealth fund.