A model society?

22 January 2016

In his presidential campaign, the self-described “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders has been urging the United States, if it wants to redress the scandalous social conditions many citizens endure, to learn from the example of Denmark. The country was even implicated in the Republican primary elections when Ted Cruz suggested that a President Trump might nuke it. (Danes say they don’t worry on that score because a typical American can’t even find the place on a map.) More recently, Denmark regained the lead in the World Happiness sweepstakes , buttressing Sanders’s contention that it’s not just a miniature utopia.

American liberals and progressives have praised the Nordic countries for decades as more sensible, just and compassionate societies. Sanders recommends their universal health care, free college, and paid maternity and sick leave. You could add to the list of entitlements: subsidized daycare, study stipends, five weeks of paid vacation a year. . . . It’s not surprising that resonates with America’s shrinking middle class and debt-ridden millennials. I’ve lived in Denmark for 20 years, and I can vouch that people here are generally better off than most Americans.

Also the leader in revenue collection
But where does all this “free” stuff come from? Here’s a small sample of its sources:

Marginal income tax rate: about 56%
Tax on gasoline: about $2.95 per gallon
Sales tax on cars: 150% (reduced this year from 180%)

Is it so simple: The highest taxes in the world produce the greatest happiness? Presumably by way of greater income and wealth equality?

Correlation is not causation
Not so fast, says Otto Brøns-Petersen, head of research at CEPOS, a conservative Danish think tank. Noting that Denmark was a wealthy country in early 1960s, before it began the massive build-up of its welfare state, he argues that Denmark is still well to do not because of its large public sector but in spite of it. It is rather economic freedom, lack of corruption and similar factors that brought prosperity.

Soon after Sanders put Denmark in the limelight, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, in a speech at Harvard, hastened to explain that Denmark isn’t a socialist country; it has a market economy with an extensive social safety net. (One can also question whether “democratic socialism” is an accurate description of Sanders’s platform.)

In any case, the country’s consistently high ranking in happiness surveys shows that it must be doing something right. So what is the best explanation for its success, and what is its relevance for less happy lands, such as the US floundering around in the mid-teens? Of course, extremists at both ends of the Danish political spectrum happen to think the country is going hell.

Parsing the sources of happiness
The purpose of this blog is to describe and investigate Danish society with these issues in mind, to inform the American debate of some of the realities of Sanders’s so-called democratic socialism – not from a strictly economic or political perspective but more informally, to look at the configuration of social, cultural, economic and political factors that coincide with a high quality of life. How socialist is Denmark really? How much does socialism account for its happiness? What other factors contribute to it? Is it even conceivable that the United States could emulate Denmark, and if so, should the US try to?

Admittedly, there are a number of qualifications, caveats and confounding factors in such an inquiry, but I think they can be disposed of along the way without undue distraction. What is meant by “happiness” in these surveys anyway – a high standard of living, emotional well-being? Is Denmark really the happiest? Is it much different from other northern European social democracies? Is it valid or worthwhile to compare a small, ethnically homogenous, predominately Protestant country with long social traditions with a country as large, diverse and dynamic as the United States?

For the long haul
Finally, will Sanders’s campaign last any longer than the impending Democratic convention? Well, the issues he’s raised won’t go away, and he’s dragged Hillary far enough to the left to chime in with a qualified “I love Denmark!” We shouldn’t expect to see universal health care or free college very soon, but perhaps the reform movement that has coalesced around Sanders will persist longer than Occupy Wall Street did. At any rate, it wouldn’t hurt Americans to learn a little about a viable alternative where there is little poverty and privation. To take the most obvious example, how do almost all other developed nations manage to get better health care at half the cost?