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Nordic model
A new blog, the topic is obvious, hat tip to New Economist. I've said it before, I'll say it again. No matter what your politics, contemporary northern Europe represents a high point in human civilization. If you're not deeply interested in the region, you should be. If you haven't visited, you must. Go, go, go. Travel is the starting point of learning social science.
Addendum: Elsewhere Meghan O'Rourke notes: "It's telling, for example, that in Scandinavia, where attitudes toward gender are more egalitarian, both men and women wear engagement rings."
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 11, 2007 at 11:11 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
I live in Sweden. I find your comment to be bizarre.
Posted by: Erik at Jun 11, 2007 11:39:16 AM
"both men and women wear engagement rings."
Fags!
Posted by: herman at Jun 11, 2007 11:50:46 AM
lol, i like herman's comment... but I was going to say: being "egalitarian" about gender and being overly PC and trying to make the gender's identical are two different things. I think the US does a pretty good job (with erring in both directions, hopefully one day we will land in between the errors) of staying on the right side of that line.
The wedding has traditionally been a bit more for the woman as women tend to value the ceremonial aspect more than men -- dressing up, having a party, celebrating the day, etc. This is a difference between the genders that tends to hold true even when the genders are treated equally and it isn't sexist and it doesn't mean one gender is better than the other. That the woman wears an engagement ring and not the man to me goes along with this ceremony, evidencing that the wedding itself is more for her. Both wear the wedding ring as the marriage is for both equally. For couples who don't happen to be like this, they can feel free to do it differently - both or neither can wear engagement rings, the wedding can be for him, etc.
I suspect that it would take PC pressure to change that in the US -- not sure what it was for Sweden -- and I think that would be stupid.
Posted by: liberty at Jun 11, 2007 11:59:06 AM
I have Norwegian grandparents on my mother's side. I find that side of the family rates themselves pretty highly by their own standards. Objective standards rate them lower.
Posted by: Mark at Jun 11, 2007 12:14:39 PM
I am not sure the engagement ring thing is a sign of egalitarianism or a successful marketing campaign by jewelers.
Posted by: coyote at Jun 11, 2007 12:15:52 PM
"No matter what your politics, contemporary northern Europe represents a high point in human civilization."
Just not so great as to actually live there though I take it?
Posted by: Arthur Davidson Ficke at Jun 11, 2007 12:21:24 PM
"No matter what your politics, contemporary northern Europe represents a high point in human civilization."
Is that true regardless of what race you belong to? I am skeptical.
Posted by: HeShootsAndScores at Jun 11, 2007 12:33:37 PM
Maybe not if you're a 68 IQ Somali all right, but then again nowhere will be very prosperous for that group, it's not Sweden's fault.
Posted by: adrian at Jun 11, 2007 12:40:03 PM
To me, Sweden seemed like the world's nicest housing project. Clean, safe, but with the soul-destroying banality of a housing project, nonetheless. And there didn't seem to be much escape from it socially, either...
Posted by: Chris at Jun 11, 2007 12:44:40 PM
I'd also be astonished if more Americans moved to Scandinavia than people who moved in the other direction.
Posted by: Chris at Jun 11, 2007 12:52:05 PM
Professor Cowen, I only know of Sweden from a family I got to know (the mother is an artist) pretty well, and though they love Sweden, they expressed something close to the opposite view. My understanding is that the arts and culture generally is somewhat dull over there. This is merely an impression from talking to one family, but it would be helpful if you would qualify in what sense it's a high point in civilization.
Posted by: John Goes at Jun 11, 2007 1:13:25 PM
Thanks for the link to the Wikipedia page for "IQ and the Wealth of Nations," adrian. I'm shocked to learn that there seems to be some sort of scholarly conspiracy to dismiss the book as junk!
Posted by: Barbar at Jun 11, 2007 1:41:44 PM
I think that Scandanavian countries have been fairly stabilized across many dimensions, especially culturally. With the greater homogeneity of preferences, and the less uncertainty and cost of wars in their land relative to the rest of Europe over the recent millenium, the allocation of commons is a less onerous problem than their southern neighbors as well as the other continents (save Australia, who also enjoy a similar cultural stability and homogeneity).
Posted by: caveat bettor at Jun 11, 2007 1:48:05 PM
Oh, darn. I saw the title of the post, and followed the link expecting pictures of a six-foot blonde.
Posted by: Independent George at Jun 11, 2007 1:52:42 PM
Adrian, I have no idea how you happened upon Marginal Revolution, or why you decided to start posting here, but as a long-time reader of this blog, I would really appreciate it if you just moved along and started gracing some other blog with your racist tripe. Doesn't meinkampf.com have a healthy discussion board?
Posted by: R. Laird at Jun 11, 2007 1:57:44 PM
In Brazil, both men and women also wear engagement rings.
Posted by: Diogo at Jun 11, 2007 2:08:29 PM
I'd like to think that the highest point in human civilization will be when a people is independently minded enough to reject advertisers and not where ANY engagement rings.
Posted by: Robert at Jun 11, 2007 2:21:18 PM
Well, I find the US to be a high point in human civilization, but I have no intention to move there. I think Stockholm and Copenhagen would touch most people who go there, and that's because they are not only big international cities, they are also vivid displays of Scandinavian culture. Then you have the Nordic model which is not only an economic model but also a social model that has taken a stab at maximing individual liberty that is quite different from the US attempt to achieve the same thing. It has certain costs - activist government, high taxes, atomized social relationships - but you are probably freer here, if you include positive as well as negative liberties, than you are anywhere else. And I think that is what Tyler likes. If you have a libertarian inclination, you tend to like freedom when you see it, regardless of how it was achieved - which is by the way why I still admires the US.
Posted by: Dan Karreman at Jun 11, 2007 2:23:14 PM
"No matter what your politics, contemporary northern Europe represents a high point in human civilization."
What a goofy-ass comment...sounds like a "wanna-be" quote from a wimp in San Francisco. They want all the freedom without risk, danger, or confrontation. Meat eaters and men are only wanted when there's trouble; otherwise, let's wear engagement rings to signify our merging feminine sides.
Posted by: Mike at Jun 11, 2007 3:12:42 PM
Actually, contemporary northern Europe represents a doomed experiment in drawing down the principle accumulated by pre-contemporary Western civilization. What happens when the principle's gone?
Posted by: ricpic at Jun 11, 2007 3:36:57 PM
"With the greater homogeneity of preferences, and the less uncertainty and cost of wars in their land relative to the rest of Europe over the recent millenium,"
Incorrect, they fought amongst themselves, controlled each other, and raided other lands a lot. The Finn's, an unusual race, constantly had to fight off Russia.
Posted by: adrian at Jun 11, 2007 3:43:15 PM
"What happens when the principle's gone?"
A desire to instantly consume and destroy the accumulated resources of the past, both economic and cultural, pervades Scandinavian society.
Posted by: adrian at Jun 11, 2007 3:55:11 PM
Admirable - but not a model.
I agree that the Scandinavian societies are an excellent system of civilization - the question I would ask is whether they are a 'model' for anyone else.
Are they propagating? What aspects - if any - are spreading?
It's my impression that the Nordic sphere has not provided a model of modernization for elsewhere, in the way that the Anglosphere certainly has, and that the Germanic culture used to.
To amplify: the Germanized zone of Central Europe and its outpost cities such as the Hanseatic ports has been for centuries markedly more successful than the adjascent zones (eg. Czech versus Slovakia; Hungary versus Romania; Flanders versus the rest of Belgium)- and the Germanic model of universities is the basis for modern US research universities.
Posted by: Bruce G Charlton at Jun 11, 2007 3:56:00 PM
As a dane I can give insider view on things. And they are not all fine and dandy.
The scandinavian model works because of the "thrust-culture", it require homogenic small countries. Thats why some economics tend to say that the Swedish welfare system will collapse in 20 to 30 years, because of extremely large numbers of immigrants. Immigrants who goes directly on welfare.
The levels of employed between immigrants in USA is much much higher than in Denmark, Sweeden and Norway. Well its higher than most of europe.
And to say Sweeden is safe is big fat joke. There is a bigger chance to get raped in Malmö, Landskrona and Oslo than in most of the biggest cities in USA.
Posted by: Danish Viking at Jun 11, 2007 4:42:30 PM
adrian, thanks for responding to my comment. I did not mean to overlook or understate the cost of conflict in nordic lands, but to propose it was significantly less than the rest of Europe.
I've only been to Norway out of all the countries mentioned, but do have a good Finnish friend, and (and also took a beautiful swedish-american girl to my senior prom). I'm an engineer by training working in financial services, so I appreciate my lack of expertise in this area.
However, I'm not sure I know where to falsify my claim. Since 1066, have the scandanvians been ravaged by war as much as the rest of Europe (minus Switzerland)?
Posted by: caveat bettor at Jun 11, 2007 4:56:53 PM
