The Happiest People

About this blog

This blog began in 2016, after Denmark had ranked at the top of the international happiness surveys for a few years and Bernie Sanders was urging America to emulate its “democratic socialism.” Denmark doesn’t really have a socialist system; it has a free market economy with a large welfare state. The original purpose of the blog was to explore the nature and meaning of its relative “happiness” or life satisfaction, particularly in ways that illuminated contrasts between Danish and American societies.

The country has since been overtaken in the annual rankings, most often by neighboring Finland, but that in itself matters little. The Nordic countries have always dominated these surveys, and the differences in their scores often fall within the statistical margin of error. I  use Denmark as representative of northern European social democracy because that’s where I happen to live; it could just as well have been Norway or the Netherlands. There’s still plenty that America could learn from European society, culture, and politics, although it’s  unlikely to do so in the near future. 

At the outbreak of pandemic, the blog began serving mainly status reports on Covid-19 in Denmark and the measures undertaken to combat it. After the situation stabilized, I took a break during medical treatment and a move to a new home and a new website. As I resume this project in April 2022, the pandemic is less urgent and the world has moved on to a new crisis. 

I will continue to write mostly about current affairs in Denmark and Europe, but not necessarily from the perspective of happiness. “The Happiest People” will become one category of posts among others, including “Something is rotten.” At present, all eyes on are Ukraine, and whatever the war’s outcome, it will have profound consequences for Europe and its relations with the United States.