Janteloven: the great leveler

Earlier I alluded to a fairly well-known but somewhat counterintuitive explanation of Denmark’s top happiness ranking: low expectations. Danes aren’t the most cheerful and effusive nationality. They don’t rate highest on emotional well-being and positive affect. Their lives are relatively comfortable, manageable and well-regulated, and that’s reason in itself to be satisfied. But the life evaluation parameter reflects not not only people’s immediate emotional state and circumstances but also how they view their lives overall, their past and their future prospects.

Danes may not set their sights especially high, but things turn out all right after all and they can’t complain about their lot. This is one of the secrets of their well-being: Underpromise yourself good fortune and get it overdelivered. Perhaps things turned out fine because they didn’t set their sights so high. A simple recipe for equanimity?

A law against individualism

This attitude may owe something to a distinctive Scandinavian social principle that’s usually reviled for being tyrannical and spiteful: janteloven (the Law of Jante). The term comes from a 1933 novel by Aksel Sandemose. Jante is the fictional town where the story takes place, and it operates according to an ethos defined in ten blunt commandments. For example: “You should not believe you are anything special. . . . You should not believe you are better than we are. . . . You should not believe you’re good for anything. . . . You should not believe anyone cares about you.”

It is taken to represent the extremity of small-town conformism and resentment toward individual striving and success: provincial, stifling, anti-intellectual, self-satisfied. But it also reflects a general orientation toward collective existence that is more often found in smaller, homogeneous populations. The individual’s deference to group values can be sensed in some characteristic Danish expressions. For example, you insist on your right to do something by saying “Jeg vil have lov til …” (I want to be allowed to …). You object mildly to a pushy individual’s behavior by invoking considerations of “us others”.

Janteloven may partly explain why fewer Danes are dreamers with big ambitions. Why they tend to prefer secure jobs and stable familial and social relations instead of chasing high salaries, social prestige, large houses and cars. A certain humility may narrow their outlook, but it also makes them pragmatic. They’d rather settle for a reasonable standard of existence than take risks for more.

Low ceilings

Janteloven can thus be understood as the perfect opposite of the American dream – that no matter what station you’re born into, there are no limits to what you can achieve by dint of ambition and hard work. Danish has a phrase that some (happy) visitors and emigrants to the US use to describe their new surroundings – “high to the ceiling,” a more modest version of the English “the sky’s the limit.” Janteloven also contradicts the American positive-thinking industry and the self-esteem movement, which held that unconditional praise boosts initiative and performance (apparently a fallacy that sometimes caused well-intentioned programs for ghetto schoolchildren, for example, to backfire).

When you hear references to janteloven today, it is usually being disparaged by people who endeavor to excel in sports, entertainment, business and other areas. But it is also praised occasionally as a salutary constraint on arrogance and egotism, for example in the temperamental handball star Anja Andersen, who led the Danes to a gold medal in the Olympics and later, as a coach, often wore a t-shirt with the slogan “Fuck janteloven.” (Yes, “fuck” has become part of the Danish language, spelled the same as in English in the imperative form. Sometimes, when Andersen's hecklers in stands persisted, she ran down the court flashing them the finger.)

Humble origins

I think differences in janteloven’s influence can be discerned among various demographic segments. It is probably strongest among the older generation who grew up closer to the time Sandemose’s novel portrays – also a period of hardship and Occupation by the arch-villains of modern history. It is clearly more palpable in rural areas than urban ones, and that generation was much more rural than contemporary Denmark is. Half the population lived on farms until the 1950s. In my generation, which came of age in the early 1970s, relatively few attended gymnasium and university; most were still labeled “unbookish” by ninth grade and started an apprenticeship in a trade. Today Denmark’s peripheral arc is maligned as an economically stagnant “rotten banana” where no intelligent young adult would willingly stay.

Janteloven seems less pronounced among the subsequent generations. There are plenty of accomplished individuals in Denmark who defy it – scientists, athletes, designers, tech innovators, and recently a slew of Michelin chefs – a disproportionately large number among the international elite, it seems. Businesspeople are often ambitious, switching jobs frequently to climb the corporate ladder. Generous maternity leave and daycare programs give women greater opportunities to develop their careers. Astute teenagers make a good income endorsing fashion and personal care products on YouTube and Instagram.

Decline and mutation

It is not surprising to see less influence of janteloven in younger adults, who grew up exposed to American celebrity culture. With an increasing number going on to higher education and professional careers, the strivers weren’t stigmatized as before. The Danish school system puts much emphasis on oral performance. Many exams are oral, and even in gymnasium, students get separate grades for oral and written performance. I have often been impressed with Danes’ confidence and poise when giving presentations and impromptu talks and then sometimes afterward surprised that the same person’s written work is slipshod or incoherent in its details.

Research shows that a modicum of overconfidence is advantageous in encouraging initiative and performance. But consider their performance on the PISA tests, which make an international comparison of schoolchildren’s academic skills. In the 1990s, Denmark was shocked to see that, despite the highest education spending in the world, its scores had fallen to the average level, and they've hardly recovered since. But the most striking result was that Denmark had the largest discrepancy between students’ estimates of how well they had done and their actual performance. That is, they led the world in overconfidence or self-conceit – not exactly the hallmarks of janteloven.

And the millennials grew up not only in an urbanized Denmark, with more mobility, diversity and opportunities, but also digitally connected to the rest of the world. Although they may seem spoiled and narcissistic, they are contending with a new version of janteloven, the pressure to keep up appearances under the constant surveillance of social media, and are reporting stress, anxiety and depression. They're not the ones who are driving up the happiness score.

Affinity with socialism

Although janteloven’s influence has gradually waned over the past century, it still exists in Denmark. Danes may still manifest a skepticism about others’ big ambitions, but now it’s more likely to take the form of friendly teasing than browbeating or ostracism. It may still serve a useful function by moderating vanity, braggadocio and excessive competitiveness, but it may also sometimes go too far. There is certainly disapproval of those who bend the rules or exploit loopholes and weaknesses for personal gain, and in some circles it can extend to people who accumulate inordinate wealth by perfectly lawful, productive work.

That invites a simplistic summary in political terms. Can janteloven explain the Danes’ preference for the collective security of social democracy over less regulated market competition and the possibility of larger rewards? Is the marginal income tax rate of 56% the measure of its abiding authority? It’s tempting to equate janteloven with socialism generally. Even though Denmark has one of the lowest Gini coefficients in the world, the far left sounds the alarm at any uptick. Its campaigns to redistribute wealth from the wealthy to “us others” – such as in the marginal rate and inheritance tax – are known as the politics of envy. The perpetual debate over the size of the welfare state can easily be boiled down to a struggle between the conflicting interests of the individual and the crowd.

Humiliation, American style

If it were possible in the US, would Americans be better off with a dose of janteloven? At the moment, it's not necessary. It would be nice if Wall Street banksters and the rest of the new oligarchy were more susceptible to shame, but that’s wishful thinking. For ordinary Americans, it’s too late. Earlier it might have tempered their delusions of grandeur when they fell for the speculative bubble of the decade. But since the latest crisis, much of the former middle class has been demoted to service-sector jobs by robots, software, and offshoring; retirees earn no interest on their savings because of the Fed’s ZIRP; young college graduates are buried in debt; etc. etc.

These days, the bottom 80% don’t need their neighbors telling them they’re not special. The global economy and the paralysis or indifference of Washington have already made that clear. The popularity of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders testifies to their diminished expectations. For enterprising, diligent individuals, America still holds great opportunities. But despite janteloven, the conditions for upward mobility are generally better in Denmark than in the US.

That doesn't mean America needs more socialism, though, if it’s only temporizing bread and circuses on borrowed money. The problem isn’t unbridled capitalism; it’s a corrupt version suffering from corporate welfare, cronyism and cartels. These rent-seeking rackets have created a structural jantelov that's holding the underdogs down. It delivers its injunctions both overtly and subliminally. It exhorts them to mindless consumption as their ticket to status, for example, when they haven't saved for a trip to the emergency room, let alone unemployment or retirement. In the US, we don't tell individuals they're worthless; we tell them to dream while we surreptitiously confiscate their worth. 

Sanders for Prime Minister

Just when Bernie Sanders’s chances of winning the Democratic Party nomination are being written off and the Hillaryites (or whatever they’re called) are nagging him to drop out of the race, interest in his democratic socialism has blossomed in another quarter: His candidacy for prime minister of Denmark has been announced.

By now everyone knows of Sanders’s fondness for the Danish welfare state. I have mentioned that the Danes are keen on founding clubs and organizations. Now two of them, Peter Ahrenfeldt Schrøder and Jacob Esmann, have launched the “Sanders for Prime Minister” association (Sanders som statsminister). They outlined its objectives in an op-ed piece in Politiken, Denmark’s largest-circulation daily.

This is a clever prank, and also a serious one. The club spends much less space advancing Sanders’s platform than making a detailed critique of the current Liberal government and the Danish “right wing”, which the authors argue are attempting to systematically dismantle the distinctive foundations of Danish “welfare society” (in Europe, “liberal” means free-market proponent). It gives a fine summary of Sanders’s main proposals and explains how the corresponding institutions in Denmark that partly inspired them are being eroded. In other words, how Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his fragile assemblage of supporting parties (which command a majority in parliament by a single vote) have weakened some of them and are looking to do more damage. Here’s a summary for those who don’t read Danish:

Privatization wet dream – alas deferred

Education: An across-the-board budget reduction at universities that will shut down degree programs in some unpopular subjects. Proposals to require a minimum level of grades to enroll in gymnasium and vocational school, which the authors argue will reduce opportunities for disadvantaged youth. A proposal by supporting parties to reduce the (six-year) educational stipend and replace part of it with loans.

Health care: The Right Wing has a “wet dream” about introducing payments for health care services (although the government agreed to shelve the issue during its current tenure in office).

Pension: The Right Wing “came within a whisker” of reducing housing subsidies for 175,000 retirees.

Welfare and unemployment benefits: The government has “torn a big hole in the social safety net” by putting a ceiling on cash welfare benefits in an effort to make it more attractive to work. In 2010, the preceding right-wing government reduced by half the length of time you can receive unemployment benefits (to two years) and doubled the working period required to earn them. The Right Wing has also proposed limiting the right to strike.

Environment: The government wants to reduce climate targets, specifically a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 and a phasing-out of coal and natural gas by 2030 in 2035.

Tax evasion: Three Right Wing parties recently tried to repeal initiatives of the preceding center-left government to publish companies’ business tax payments.

Low inequality = social mobility = the true American dream

The authors conclude that the American dream thrives best in Denmark, and the reason is the welfare state. Denmark leads the world in creating equal opportunity, and there is a clear connection between low income inequality and social mobility. Yet the current government has promised one of its supporting parties that it will cut the marginal income tax rate (from around 56%). It does not understand that the welfare state is the best “competition state”. In the nutshell, the answer to the world’s challenges is more social democracy. (End of summary.)

Neoliberal expropriation

The trick word in that last battle cry is “world’s”. Yes, it’s clear that the troubled planet as a whole could use more of the civilized and equitable values of social democracy. But that doesn’t prove that Denmark needs a larger public sector just now. It’s been around 56% of GDP since 2008, now number 4 in the OECD.

These are the usual leftist charges that recent centrist governments (including the Social Democrats’) are betraying Denmark’s egalitarian ideals. They’re all debatable, and many seem exaggerated. They sometimes ascribe intentions rather than citing concrete measures, especially the intentions of the evil Right Wing (whose largest party, the xenophobic Danish People’s Party, is actually one of the strongest defenders of the welfare state). Some of the proposals of small supporting parties that are criticized are meant mostly as bargaining chips rather than realistic legislation.

The authors also subscribe to the assumption that reducing or shifting any funding for an entitlement always amounts to taking (or “stealing”) money that belongs to its current recipients rather than a possibly sensible revision of priorities. The government actually favors cutting not the marginal tax rate but rather the lowest tax bracket, even though many Danish economists, such as Nina Smith, believe that the former would be more efficient in increasing output.

Too many chiefs

Take the admission standard for gymnasium, which is a rather demanding college prep program. Enrollment has risen about 50% in the past decade: One third of the students would not have attended 10 years ago. Most kids who don’t meet the proposed requirement of C grades in math and Danish in the ninth or tenth grade don’t finish gymnasium and go on to college anyway (ninth or tenth because if they’re not ready after ninth, they can take an extra year to claw their way up to C). Is giving them an opportunity to fail at gymnasium the most productive use of tax revenues and of their formative years? Granted, a small number make a dramatic improvement and end up pursuing professional careers, but if the requirement existed, they would probably have been able to mend their ways by tenth grade.

Although I don’t know the circumstances of the retirees’ housing aid or the business tax transparency policy, I don’t find these Right Wing positions especially noxious and agree with the labor market and educational system reforms. I would rather criticize the government for just recently volunteering to join the bombing in Syria without a plausible exit strategy and for maintaining the so-called blackout law that restricts public access to ministerial documents (both measures have the support of the world’s saviors, the Social Democrats).

Welfare for growth

The authors’ most questionable assertion is that the welfare state makes Denmark competitive. One can appreciate the welfare state for the higher minimum standard of living and social cohesion it fosters, but it’s something else to imply that bigger government means higher productivity or that more transfer payments increase prosperity. Denmark’s GDP has been stagnant in this century. From 1991 to 2015, the annual GDP growth rate has averaged 0.35%, while Sweden, which has been dismantling its welfare state for two decades (despite its idealistic generosity towards refugees) has seen growth around twice as fast.

Countries with low Gini coefficients rank high in happiness, but the egalitarian mobility model is not so simple (almost all those countries are also small). Economic growth may increase inequality but at the same time raise the average standard of living. Let’s not even get started on the failure of integration in Denmark that the major left-wing parties also now acknowledge has left a “parallel society” stuck in “passive support” outside the labor market.

In any case, not all Danes think Denmark is the socialist paradise that some Sanderistas imagine. Most probably don’t. Most think its problems are all about socialism, though – either too little or too much. And Sanders for Prime Minister does a creditable service in delineating the fault lines. If you feel a Danish bern, you can join it by liking its Facebook page, how else?