If there ever was an article written and filled with mis-information and a completely superficial look at the pros and cons of the Danish society and it's merits, it is this article.
The claim that Danes are ambitious is flat out wrong. The younger generation more so, but there is a reason why danes are the "happiest people" in the world and it's not because of their ambitions.
The Danish model is under huge pressure and haven't escaped the reality of globalisation and automatisation.
But because wealth gets distributed the way it does, it doesn't feel the heat too much just yet.
In other words the Danish system is a thing of beauty as long as it works. Unfortunately it doesn't work anymore and somethings gotta give.
Edit: Was asked to be more specific.
Out of 6m people:
Almost 0.8m people on some sort of social welfare
Almost 0.8m people are working in full time positions for the public sector.
In comparison 1,9 in the private sector and it is shrinking rapidly.
It is notoriously easy to start a company in Denmark but notoriously hard to grow it among other things because most Danes don't have those ambitions and are very very risk-averse.
We are long past the point where more people are depending on the state than on the private job market and as those jobs disappear because of the named automation and globalisation and because Denmark is just too expensive, it will be hard for any government to promise the elaborate system we have now.
This is already starting to show as the latest government scramble to lower taxes for corporations and reduce the number of entitled benefits Danes can expect.
Furthermore Denmark took the wrong educational strategy and unfortunately like most of the european countries believed that knowledge worker meant book reader.
The result of this is that we have a large over educated part of the population who will have a very hard time finding a job.
Every time there is a US/UK article about how much better things are in Scandinavia/Netherlands/Germany, someone from the latter pops up and starts listing a number of negatives, usually with a strong right-wing/libertarian bias.
None of these are false in themselves, but these same issues are largely common to all Western societies (the US being a bit of an outlier in some aspects), and not a sign of total failure of a specific model.
Name one Western country that isn't struggling with public spending, globalisation, automation and education issues.
Sure, the Scandinavian system who made several relatively rich countries is deeply flawed.
I think the cold war created a unhealty general view on socialism. Distributing wealth equally seems to work very well for many countries, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
I lived in Switzerland for two years where they are very liberal, but still it felt like that the middle class was large and rather healthy.
Having a large, rich middle class is far better for the economy than having a small portion of super rich people and many people who can barely afford living, like in the US. This have the two following bad economic effects: Large savings for the few rich people and no purchasing power for the masses, effectively killing many businesses.
Also, its far better to have people on welfare spending money locally than having people so poor that they can't afford food and living.
I think Denmarks largest economic problem is that lack of Venture Capital. With companies such as Podio and Zendesk showing up, I think this is just a matter of time. Recently the Government made initiatives to invest in new companies with growth potential, which hopefully creates a better environment for start ups interested in growing.
Good thing your post wasn't a bug-report, although you do mention that something doesn't work.
You didn't describe any symptoms or argue why the Danish system no longer works or what precisely doesn't work, so it would be great if you could give some examples, facts and figures.
Are you talking about unemployment? Average wealth? Class mobility? Freedom? Pollution?
Any country that has a model that works better? US, UK, China, France, Singapore? In what way?
This is nothing new. All BBC articles on Denmark are almost entirely inaccurate. It's like the BBC has no researchers in Denmark or on Denmark, and basically swallow some brochure.
Every other week, a Danish newspaper has an article about another BBC article painting another rose picture of Denmark. Is the BBC working for the Danish tourism board?!
Just two weeks ago, a BBC article claimed Danes can usually command 3 languages besides English and Danish, which hardly accurate (unless they count Swedish and Norwegian, but that's cheating!).
To try and define an entire nation of people in one article/comment with a few fancy words is down right silly.
I've lived the last 10 years around Øresund, in various places, and the best explanation of the danish lifestyle I've heard was that they don't expect success so they get more happier when they have it.
But I only enjoy that explanation because it fits into my little belief of how I want people to be. It says nothing about how people actually are. It's ridiculous to believe that there aren't people who strive for success and material wealth in a place so well developed as Denmark.
"The result of this is that we have a large over educated part of the population who will have a very hard time finding a job."
Consider the alternatives: a large under educated part of the population who will/will not have a very hard time finding a job.
An educated population makes for a better society, irrespective of what "the economy" may or may not have to offer[1]. Economies can change on relatively short timeframes, while the character of societies[2] change much more slowly, if at all[3].
1. Author's opinion.
2. Substitute "character of society" with "culture" if you wish.
3. Another author opinion.
"Over educated" is interesting terminology. What exactly does that mean? Do we define education only in economic terms? Why did wealthy classes historically seek to become educated, even when "economically speaking" they already had society's best resource allocation?
Do you mean that the danish "model" is broken, because the public finances run with a deficit and/or because of unemployment? It is still not obvious for me what you mean by broken.
Since the number of people employed in the public sector hasn't increased by more than around 10% since the 1980s, and the unemployment rate is now actually relatively low (5.8%), one could argue that the model really does work. It hasn't crashed over a period of 30 years. Public spending was excessive during the 2000s, so the "model" does need some refinement, and will like continue to undergoing constant refinement as the economy fluctuates.
The unemployment rate is currently dropping, and it is lower than e.g. UK (5.8% vs. 7.7%) and certainly Southern Europe. Unemployment is a reoccurring problem in a historical sense, and a much bigger problem in most of the world than Denmark. People everywhere struggle to find jobs as a consequence of increased automation. Especially, uneducated people.
Denmark is running with a deficit at the moment, but there have been years with surplus too. Of course, that could be explained by the income generated from natural resources (oil+gas), just as the deficit could be explained by fluctuations in the world economy.
Another point you mention is that it is hard to grow a company because of lack of ambition in Denmark. It is hard to grow a company in Denmark, but I personally consider high salaries as a bigger problem than lack of ambition.
On a positive side, because there is very good support for unemployed people, Danish employment laws are less restrictive than many countries, making it much easier for companies to hire and fire their employees. Flexibility is very good thing for a company that wishes to grow.
If you say automation is making it hard for people to find a job, what do you propose as an alternative to educating people (you mention a large part is overeducated)?
Corporate tax is paid of the profit, before the profit is distributed to its shareholders. 3 percentage points lower tax of dividends, before income tax, will not change much for the shareholders of Danish corporations.
You also haven't pointed to a country with a model you feel is working better.
It's always interesting to see the reactions to articles like this here: "They may be happy now, but it can't last!"
But, as Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." Do you plan on listing your git check-ins on your tombstone? Will your epitaph be "He was ambitious?"
Most of us on this forum are fortunate enough to enjoy most of our work and are well-paid to do it. Much of our work has novel interesting and innovative results. Many of us are happy to keep working as long as we can. All the greater shame on us for not having the imagination to visualize what life is like outside our fortunate circle.
I grew up from fairly humble means and have seen my father being fired, our house go on foreclosure, him struggle with 3 jobs to make enough of a living and my mom being stuck as a cleaning lady.
Perhaps you never experienced life outside the fortunate circle, but I certainly did and I have no ambitions of ending there again.
I'd be intrigued to see a breakdown between London and the rest of the UK in the "working very long hours" stakes, especially when you add in commuting.
It's entirely possible to have a successful career working 9 to 5, with a sensible commute, in vast swathes of the UK. I've spent 4 years in Edinburgh and have always lived within a 10 minute walk to work, often within a World Heritage Site.
The childcare costs are however a good point of something that other Northern European countries tend to do better at. Though our recent government spat over the ratio of staff to children shows that the public just aren't rational on the issue so changing it would be hard.
Childcare is insane in London. I do, however, take some comfort from knowing that (in my case at least) it's the most expensive part of my 18-month-old son's education. At £15,000 a year his nursery school costs £5,000 more a year than a university degree from Cambridge.
"Ambition" is probably a less useful frame, in the article and in the comments, than "expectations."
I've only been to Denmark a few times but I think the feeling I got is that they are happier because they have managed to largely sidestep the otherwise ubiquitous trap of perpetually escalating expectations.
The American/capitalist model is that each achieved goal is a platform for the next goal. Growth is what matters. Being satisfied with a decent job and a peaceful context in which to love your family is not any less ambitious than desiring to get rich or "change the world." It's just ambitious in a different direction.
Americans, for example, optimize for economic performance. Danes, I think, optimize for happiness. The tantalizing, troublesome idea that captivates me as an American is that money as an abstraction of 'value,' when survival is assumed, might only be desirable as a tool for being happier.
And if the pursuit of money, on a societal level, interrupts the pursuit of happiness, that implies that we capitalists are doing it wrong.
I lived in Denmark 1.5 years. I do not know how the country is managing things so well given that:
1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, sixty five, after 2 years of work experience).
2. There is a huge amount of people living on welfare State.
3. The University system is far from ideal. Not much competition, grades are given almost randomly and tend towards a political 7 (average)
4. You pay 180% (one hundred and eighty) of taxes on top of the value of a new car (180%...) when you buy it
5. The cost of living is high, very high
6. Foreigners, if they are not from US, are not very welcomed (say what you want on this, it's been my and others impression). Compare this with, say, Germany, and you see a big problem right there
7. There is not really much good work. I get it, 5-6 mln people, but finding a work in Denmark without Danish is like finding the eldorado
Overall, I would not take this country as a "model". If you want a model, take Germany. Germany managed to get out total destruction (world war II) and the whole West/East mess without asking help to anybody. Germany today is probably one of the most open countries to foreigners. The Police in Germany is great with everybody (I had my bad experiences with the Danish one doing absolutely nothing wrong...).
Sometimes you need to look deeper to see what's really going on in a country. "Working hours" should not be the only way we measure things.
1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, sixty five, after 2 years of work experience).
They aren't that high if you consider what they include. My take-home pay proportion stayed about the same when I moved from California to Denmark (I didn't qualify for the special foreigner tax, which would've made it even lower). The effective (rather than marginal) tax rate if you make a middle-class salary in Denmark is ~40%, including what the U.S. splits out as payroll taxes. In California, I paid about 30% total, but that didn't include healthcare. I had to buy health-insurance separately, and it cost me about 8% of my income. Also, Danes don't have to make student-loan payments, which is another quasi-tax on middle-class American incomes.
The relative comparison does depend on where in the middle-class (a broad term) you are: Denmark's tax rates are more competitive if you make $70k than $200k, in part because they're progressive, and in part because healthcare, student loans, and payroll taxes bite a bigger proportion of your paycheck in the U.S. if you make $100k or less. It also depends on whether you're self-employed: in the U.S., individually purchased health-insurance plus 15% payroll taxes for the self-employed take a big bite of your income up front.
As far as cars, I found my transportation costs have gone down significantly, precisely because I don't have to own a car, since the transit and bikeability is good. I had no choice previously, because the Bay Area's transit sucks (no, Caltrain + VTA Light Rail is not good enough). So that was another 5% or so of my income sunk into owning a car that I'm now free of. Overall, a bigger % of my income here goes into my bank account as discretionary income. And that's not even accounting for the greater peace-of-mind (and implied present value) of having a better safety net.
Taxes are maxed at 57% for income above $70000/year. It is around 40% for income less than $70000. The initial around $10000 are not taxed. You'll never get to 65%.
A huge amount of people living on welfare is not by itself a bad thing. It is better than having the running around in the streets looting to survive.
Cost of living in Denmark is lower than e.g. Norway... It is also not necessarily a bad thing. Salaries are also higher.
Danish is the official language. I suspect you'll have as much difficulty finding a job in Germany where you don't have to speak German, or in France w/o French.
With that said, it does sound like you had some bad experiences in Denmark.
Ignoring most of the specifics in the article I found the word: "janteloven"[0] interesting. Australians would call it tall poppy syndrome and the Brits....
Well the Brits have an institutionalised system of honouring people who achieve.[1] Everyone from sports people to business people. Obviously it's incredibly political but it is taken very seriously.
It's worth pointing out that Scandinavian culture values achievements. There's just a general suspicion of those who openly seek recognition for it. We tend to expect people to be hard working, but self-deprecating about any achievements to the extent of almost appearing embarrassed about it. Someone who is sufficiently self-deprecating might even be celebrated for that, but someone who is perceived as boasting will very often be viciously cut down to size.
A good illustration of the extreme importance of being self deprecating is how a big part of Norwegian mythos around the Norwegian royal family is how the then king took a tram when wanting to go skiing in '73 during the fuel crisis, and "even" took out his wallet to pay (During a period, using private cars during the weekends was illegal, and while the royal family almost certainly would've gotten dispensation, they judged it to send a bad signal). Google even autocompletes "kong olav trikken" (king Olav tram) for me if I type in "kong olav", and you'll find pictures of it in most Norwegian history books...
(The hilarious part is that this was partially staged: the press heard he'd taken the tram, and nicely asked if they might be allowed to come along next time and were given the ok by the palace; had people in general been more media savvy at the time, it'd likely have had the opposite effect)
I getting really tired of seeing "Janteloven" every time Denmark is discussed. It's not an issue and haven't been for a long time. I'm 32, and I have NEVER heard someone be anything that happy for the success of others ( Unless their business is bordering what is ethical ).
People are generally happy for the success of other people, and if they even managed to create jobs for others it's even better.
Although the author with the Indian name doesn't mention it, Denmark, among Western European countries, is known for its racism toward non-white immigrants.
So if Denmark is in some way "better," it's only better for those who are allowed to join the club. Of course, that doesn't mean others can't adapt Danish ideas about education and redistribution to our country.
[+] [-] ThomPete|12 years ago|reply
The claim that Danes are ambitious is flat out wrong. The younger generation more so, but there is a reason why danes are the "happiest people" in the world and it's not because of their ambitions.
The Danish model is under huge pressure and haven't escaped the reality of globalisation and automatisation.
But because wealth gets distributed the way it does, it doesn't feel the heat too much just yet.
In other words the Danish system is a thing of beauty as long as it works. Unfortunately it doesn't work anymore and somethings gotta give.
Edit: Was asked to be more specific.
Out of 6m people:
Almost 0.8m people on some sort of social welfare
Almost 0.8m people are working in full time positions for the public sector.
In comparison 1,9 in the private sector and it is shrinking rapidly.
It is notoriously easy to start a company in Denmark but notoriously hard to grow it among other things because most Danes don't have those ambitions and are very very risk-averse.
We are long past the point where more people are depending on the state than on the private job market and as those jobs disappear because of the named automation and globalisation and because Denmark is just too expensive, it will be hard for any government to promise the elaborate system we have now.
This is already starting to show as the latest government scramble to lower taxes for corporations and reduce the number of entitled benefits Danes can expect.
Furthermore Denmark took the wrong educational strategy and unfortunately like most of the european countries believed that knowledge worker meant book reader.
The result of this is that we have a large over educated part of the population who will have a very hard time finding a job.
[+] [-] bowlofpetunias|12 years ago|reply
None of these are false in themselves, but these same issues are largely common to all Western societies (the US being a bit of an outlier in some aspects), and not a sign of total failure of a specific model.
Name one Western country that isn't struggling with public spending, globalisation, automation and education issues.
[+] [-] oellegaard|12 years ago|reply
I think the cold war created a unhealty general view on socialism. Distributing wealth equally seems to work very well for many countries, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
I lived in Switzerland for two years where they are very liberal, but still it felt like that the middle class was large and rather healthy.
Having a large, rich middle class is far better for the economy than having a small portion of super rich people and many people who can barely afford living, like in the US. This have the two following bad economic effects: Large savings for the few rich people and no purchasing power for the masses, effectively killing many businesses.
Also, its far better to have people on welfare spending money locally than having people so poor that they can't afford food and living.
I think Denmarks largest economic problem is that lack of Venture Capital. With companies such as Podio and Zendesk showing up, I think this is just a matter of time. Recently the Government made initiatives to invest in new companies with growth potential, which hopefully creates a better environment for start ups interested in growing.
[+] [-] joakleaf|12 years ago|reply
You didn't describe any symptoms or argue why the Danish system no longer works or what precisely doesn't work, so it would be great if you could give some examples, facts and figures.
Are you talking about unemployment? Average wealth? Class mobility? Freedom? Pollution?
Any country that has a model that works better? US, UK, China, France, Singapore? In what way?
[+] [-] Svip|12 years ago|reply
Every other week, a Danish newspaper has an article about another BBC article painting another rose picture of Denmark. Is the BBC working for the Danish tourism board?!
Just two weeks ago, a BBC article claimed Danes can usually command 3 languages besides English and Danish, which hardly accurate (unless they count Swedish and Norwegian, but that's cheating!).
[+] [-] INTPenis|12 years ago|reply
I've lived the last 10 years around Øresund, in various places, and the best explanation of the danish lifestyle I've heard was that they don't expect success so they get more happier when they have it.
But I only enjoy that explanation because it fits into my little belief of how I want people to be. It says nothing about how people actually are. It's ridiculous to believe that there aren't people who strive for success and material wealth in a place so well developed as Denmark.
[+] [-] osth|12 years ago|reply
Consider the alternatives: a large under educated part of the population who will/will not have a very hard time finding a job.
An educated population makes for a better society, irrespective of what "the economy" may or may not have to offer[1]. Economies can change on relatively short timeframes, while the character of societies[2] change much more slowly, if at all[3].
1. Author's opinion.
2. Substitute "character of society" with "culture" if you wish.
3. Another author opinion.
"Over educated" is interesting terminology. What exactly does that mean? Do we define education only in economic terms? Why did wealthy classes historically seek to become educated, even when "economically speaking" they already had society's best resource allocation?
[+] [-] wslh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klausjensen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joakleaf|12 years ago|reply
Do you mean that the danish "model" is broken, because the public finances run with a deficit and/or because of unemployment? It is still not obvious for me what you mean by broken.
Since the number of people employed in the public sector hasn't increased by more than around 10% since the 1980s, and the unemployment rate is now actually relatively low (5.8%), one could argue that the model really does work. It hasn't crashed over a period of 30 years. Public spending was excessive during the 2000s, so the "model" does need some refinement, and will like continue to undergoing constant refinement as the economy fluctuates.
The unemployment rate is currently dropping, and it is lower than e.g. UK (5.8% vs. 7.7%) and certainly Southern Europe. Unemployment is a reoccurring problem in a historical sense, and a much bigger problem in most of the world than Denmark. People everywhere struggle to find jobs as a consequence of increased automation. Especially, uneducated people.
Denmark is running with a deficit at the moment, but there have been years with surplus too. Of course, that could be explained by the income generated from natural resources (oil+gas), just as the deficit could be explained by fluctuations in the world economy.
The deficit in 2013 is expected to be 1.2% of GDP which isn't bad compared to everywhere else. National debt compared to GDP is higher in many countries: http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/774/economics/list-of-nati...
Another point you mention is that it is hard to grow a company because of lack of ambition in Denmark. It is hard to grow a company in Denmark, but I personally consider high salaries as a bigger problem than lack of ambition.
On a positive side, because there is very good support for unemployed people, Danish employment laws are less restrictive than many countries, making it much easier for companies to hire and fire their employees. Flexibility is very good thing for a company that wishes to grow.
If you say automation is making it hard for people to find a job, what do you propose as an alternative to educating people (you mention a large part is overeducated)?
Lowering taxes for corporations was a ridiculous idea. It is higher almost everywhere else, and nobody could give a compelling argument for lowering it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
Corporate tax is paid of the profit, before the profit is distributed to its shareholders. 3 percentage points lower tax of dividends, before income tax, will not change much for the shareholders of Danish corporations.
You also haven't pointed to a country with a model you feel is working better.
[+] [-] Zigurd|12 years ago|reply
But, as Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." Do you plan on listing your git check-ins on your tombstone? Will your epitaph be "He was ambitious?"
Most of us on this forum are fortunate enough to enjoy most of our work and are well-paid to do it. Much of our work has novel interesting and innovative results. Many of us are happy to keep working as long as we can. All the greater shame on us for not having the imagination to visualize what life is like outside our fortunate circle.
[+] [-] ThomPete|12 years ago|reply
I grew up from fairly humble means and have seen my father being fired, our house go on foreclosure, him struggle with 3 jobs to make enough of a living and my mom being stuck as a cleaning lady.
Perhaps you never experienced life outside the fortunate circle, but I certainly did and I have no ambitions of ending there again.
[+] [-] cmdkeen|12 years ago|reply
It's entirely possible to have a successful career working 9 to 5, with a sensible commute, in vast swathes of the UK. I've spent 4 years in Edinburgh and have always lived within a 10 minute walk to work, often within a World Heritage Site.
The childcare costs are however a good point of something that other Northern European countries tend to do better at. Though our recent government spat over the ratio of staff to children shows that the public just aren't rational on the issue so changing it would be hard.
[+] [-] Spearchucker|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ForrestN|12 years ago|reply
I've only been to Denmark a few times but I think the feeling I got is that they are happier because they have managed to largely sidestep the otherwise ubiquitous trap of perpetually escalating expectations.
The American/capitalist model is that each achieved goal is a platform for the next goal. Growth is what matters. Being satisfied with a decent job and a peaceful context in which to love your family is not any less ambitious than desiring to get rich or "change the world." It's just ambitious in a different direction.
Americans, for example, optimize for economic performance. Danes, I think, optimize for happiness. The tantalizing, troublesome idea that captivates me as an American is that money as an abstraction of 'value,' when survival is assumed, might only be desirable as a tool for being happier.
And if the pursuit of money, on a societal level, interrupts the pursuit of happiness, that implies that we capitalists are doing it wrong.
[+] [-] kfk|12 years ago|reply
1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, sixty five, after 2 years of work experience).
2. There is a huge amount of people living on welfare State.
3. The University system is far from ideal. Not much competition, grades are given almost randomly and tend towards a political 7 (average)
4. You pay 180% (one hundred and eighty) of taxes on top of the value of a new car (180%...) when you buy it
5. The cost of living is high, very high
6. Foreigners, if they are not from US, are not very welcomed (say what you want on this, it's been my and others impression). Compare this with, say, Germany, and you see a big problem right there
7. There is not really much good work. I get it, 5-6 mln people, but finding a work in Denmark without Danish is like finding the eldorado
Overall, I would not take this country as a "model". If you want a model, take Germany. Germany managed to get out total destruction (world war II) and the whole West/East mess without asking help to anybody. Germany today is probably one of the most open countries to foreigners. The Police in Germany is great with everybody (I had my bad experiences with the Danish one doing absolutely nothing wrong...).
Sometimes you need to look deeper to see what's really going on in a country. "Working hours" should not be the only way we measure things.
[+] [-] mjn|12 years ago|reply
They aren't that high if you consider what they include. My take-home pay proportion stayed about the same when I moved from California to Denmark (I didn't qualify for the special foreigner tax, which would've made it even lower). The effective (rather than marginal) tax rate if you make a middle-class salary in Denmark is ~40%, including what the U.S. splits out as payroll taxes. In California, I paid about 30% total, but that didn't include healthcare. I had to buy health-insurance separately, and it cost me about 8% of my income. Also, Danes don't have to make student-loan payments, which is another quasi-tax on middle-class American incomes.
The relative comparison does depend on where in the middle-class (a broad term) you are: Denmark's tax rates are more competitive if you make $70k than $200k, in part because they're progressive, and in part because healthcare, student loans, and payroll taxes bite a bigger proportion of your paycheck in the U.S. if you make $100k or less. It also depends on whether you're self-employed: in the U.S., individually purchased health-insurance plus 15% payroll taxes for the self-employed take a big bite of your income up front.
As far as cars, I found my transportation costs have gone down significantly, precisely because I don't have to own a car, since the transit and bikeability is good. I had no choice previously, because the Bay Area's transit sucks (no, Caltrain + VTA Light Rail is not good enough). So that was another 5% or so of my income sunk into owning a car that I'm now free of. Overall, a bigger % of my income here goes into my bank account as discretionary income. And that's not even accounting for the greater peace-of-mind (and implied present value) of having a better safety net.
[+] [-] joakleaf|12 years ago|reply
Taxes are maxed at 57% for income above $70000/year. It is around 40% for income less than $70000. The initial around $10000 are not taxed. You'll never get to 65%.
A huge amount of people living on welfare is not by itself a bad thing. It is better than having the running around in the streets looting to survive.
Both the University of Copenhagen and of Århus are on the world top 100 list. http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-uni... . I don't know why you think grades are given randomly or politically, or why you are missing competition.
Cost of living in Denmark is lower than e.g. Norway... It is also not necessarily a bad thing. Salaries are also higher.
Danish is the official language. I suspect you'll have as much difficulty finding a job in Germany where you don't have to speak German, or in France w/o French.
With that said, it does sound like you had some bad experiences in Denmark.
[+] [-] adaml_623|12 years ago|reply
Well the Brits have an institutionalised system of honouring people who achieve.[1] Everyone from sports people to business people. Obviously it's incredibly political but it is taken very seriously.
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_honours_system
[+] [-] vidarh|12 years ago|reply
A good illustration of the extreme importance of being self deprecating is how a big part of Norwegian mythos around the Norwegian royal family is how the then king took a tram when wanting to go skiing in '73 during the fuel crisis, and "even" took out his wallet to pay (During a period, using private cars during the weekends was illegal, and while the royal family almost certainly would've gotten dispensation, they judged it to send a bad signal). Google even autocompletes "kong olav trikken" (king Olav tram) for me if I type in "kong olav", and you'll find pictures of it in most Norwegian history books...
(The hilarious part is that this was partially staged: the press heard he'd taken the tram, and nicely asked if they might be allowed to come along next time and were given the ok by the palace; had people in general been more media savvy at the time, it'd likely have had the opposite effect)
[+] [-] mrweasel|12 years ago|reply
People are generally happy for the success of other people, and if they even managed to create jobs for others it's even better.
[+] [-] Dewie|12 years ago|reply
To me janteloven seems more like a subtle attitude that is not really discussed much but is rather felt (like many cultural norms, really).
#Relevant because it's part of Scandinavia
[+] [-] auctiontheory|12 years ago|reply
So if Denmark is in some way "better," it's only better for those who are allowed to join the club. Of course, that doesn't mean others can't adapt Danish ideas about education and redistribution to our country.