Ed Miliband, the leader of the British Labour Party, was attending a conference on social mobility, where experts butted heads over the question of whether people around the world were achieving a better life than their parents. For decades, if not centuries, the country that had best secured a person’s opportunity for upward mobility had been the United States. No longer, said Miliband. “If you want the American dream,” Miliband quipped at the conference, “go to Finland.”
