| Posted: 14 May 2008 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | 11
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"Do you know of a book that was written last year that concluded that Scandinavians were the most independent people on earth? They simply let the government take care of the life things, which gives them the time to wander around in the forest and go on holidays. It was in the news a while back but I forgot the name. It might have been Swedish. "
I don't know the name of this particular book. It may have been part of one of the many international surveys done under the auspices of the UN. I know Scandinavia usually scores high on standard of living /quality of life surveys.
As far as I understand it the argument is that Scandinavians in general have more leisure time (we have between 4 and 6 weeks of paid vacation and a 37,5 hour work week), and with higher relative wages (and higher minimum wages) there is no need to work overtime to pay for basic services, our disposable income is higher. We also have universal healthcare and health "insurance". There is little violent crime, and there are few obvious schisms in society. Our press also generally scores higher on "freedom of the press" issues than the US (Which is ironic given that we have weaker free speech laws and many newspapers, in Norway at least, receive government subsidies.) Our freedom to travel (in the world) is less restricted than that ofUS citizens. Etc.
In short we have the time, the opportunity, the piece of mind and the space to enjoy our freedom in practice. (Generally speaking. We still have a lot of poor people who don't have full access to that level of economically guaranteed freedom.)
The US may have greater freedom in theory, (Just reading the bill of rights tells me that you do) but fredom in practice requires something more substantial. It requires the ability to actually exercise those theoretical rights. (which, in my view, is the difference between Liberalism, that seems content to argue for the theoretical freedom produced by the absence of government, and Social Liberalism that uses a bigger government to ensure freedoms in practice at the potential cost of freedom in theory. But I'm not a Social Liberal, so don't trust my definitions.)
I think we Scandinavians might be a bit too welcoming of the results in studies like the book you mention, it is after all very flattering to be on the top of a "good" list. But the core issue of the argument you mentioned is that a certain economic freedom across the board guarantees personal freedom. The more people who have a decent personal economy, enough to improve not just standard of living but - indirectly- quality of life, the more people who are "free" (provided that the government supports those freedoms.)
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