2016 Reading #58
The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life by Anu Partanen
Finnish-born journalist Anu Partanen is too polite to say it herself, so I'll say it for her. Compared to what the Finns and citizens of other Nordic countries are doing, the way Americans handle wages, unemployment, health insurance, and education stinks.
Parnatanen shows how the Finnish system fosters ambition and success by securing each individual's connection to basic resources, education, and medical care. The key to understanding the system, according to her, is that it is not altruistic. All Finns pay into the system, and all Finns expect to benefit. These are shared resources, not handouts.
When you contrast this approach to the American approach -- which leaves supposedly free citizens dependent on family members or employers, which makes child care a nightmare and getting a good education an exercise in geography, where social mobility is falling like a rock -- I'm a little puzzled that Partanen didn't tell her American boyfriend-now-husband to suck it up, learn Finnish and move. I can see the appeal and excitement of being a writer in New York City, but Ed Miliband seems to have been right: "If you want the American Dream, go to Finland."