The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

by Michael Booth

Top of this camp’s agenda is the downscaling of Denmark’s welfare state, which they feel has become unsustainable, and the reduction of Denmark’s taxes; they place less emphasis on economic equality and more on motivating society’s wealth-generators to improve Denmark’s poor productivity growth. This second camp argue that, far from creating the economic equality that Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia enjoy today, the region’s welfare state systems were actually founded on a broader social equality, which existed long before the public sector and high taxes. Bjørnskov claims that research into prewar trust levels shows that the Danes have always been a trusting people, and that trust and social cohesion prepared the way for the welfare state, not the other way around. “If you want to redistribute wealth, then it is easier in a high-trust society because you believe that the money will be distributed well to deserving people. We’ve always had trust, and this trust is the cornerstone of the welfare state,” he told me. “Yes, today Denmark has low inequality and the greatest happiness, but if there was a correlation you would also expect it to be true for other countries with low inequality. But it’s not.”