Has Denmark been knocked out of the Democratic debates?

With Joe Biden’s primary win in Michigan and most of the other Super Tuesday II states, I thought it might be time to retire Denmark from the presidential election debates. Sanders has continued to compare his “democratic socialism” to the Danish and other Scandinavian social democracies, but voters in the more populous states after the Nevada caucuses, with some nudging by the Democratic National Committee, have mostly said No thanks. It is unclear whether they did so because they reject Sanders’s platform, they don’t believe it’s feasible, or any number of other reasons – they find Sanders ideologically rigid or less electable than Biden. Sanders still has a substantial following and could draw out the primary contest, but it looks like his socialist revolution will have to wait until a future election cycle.

So it is curious that also on Super Tuesday II, Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that it is Biden who “is the true Scandinavian.” Sanders, with his hostility toward free markets and other features of a liberal democracy, writes Friedman, “probably couldn’t get elected to a municipal council in Denmark today.” That’s an exaggeration. He could be elected to Copenhagen’s city council, which is notoriously “red.” In 2017, the far-left Red-Green Alliance won 18% of the vote, more than any other party except the center-left Social Democrats, enough to enable them to pursue their vendetta against automobiles, for example. But Copenhagen is an exception, and Friedman’s point generally holds: Sanders would belong to a fringe movement in Denmark. The country wouldn’t vote for nationalizing the transport and the energy industries. Of course, many of Sanders’s signature proposals already exist in Denmark, so the comparison isn’t clear-cut.

(If some think I should therefore disown the subtitle of this blog, with its reference to a “socialist monarchy,” my excuse is that it was a provocative exaggeration intended to draw a stark contrast. I do confess, however, to being mistaken in an early post in 2016, when I assumed too easily that Sanders was really a social democrat and not a dogmatic socialist.)

Utopia or the best of both worlds?
But what, according to Friedman’s thinking, is the stealth Scandinavian program that Biden may not even know he is a proponent of? Friedman gives a good summary of the welfare state services and benefits that Sanders admires, the heavy taxes that they require, and other features crucial to Denmark’s prosperity that Sanders ignores or overlooks. The most important of the latter is a free market economy that is open to entrepreneurship and globalization. There is little of Sanders’s demonization of corporations and billionaires. Proponents of a planned economy of the type Sanders’s favors are a small minority that has been held in check in recent years by alternating center-left and center-right administrations.

The second aspect that Friedman highlights is the “high-trust social compact among [Denmark’s] business community, labor unions, social entrepreneurs and government.” His point is that such cooperation is impossible if you accept Sanders’s premise that capitalism is essentially evil and its success stories are owing to greed and corruption. The wages of around two-thirds of the Danish labor force are governed by agreements between employers’ associations and labor unions. Friedman recalls a meeting of the Danish “Disruption Council” that he attended. He watched “corporate leaders, national union leaders, educators, social entrepreneurs and cabinet ministers” brainstorming respectfully and understanding the need to compromise for the sake of greater good.

Viking Joe the mediator
It is less clear how Biden fits into the Scandinavian model. He obviously has a much more modest approach to reform than Sanders and would pursue an expansion of the social safety net incrementally. He has a broader ideological and demographic appeal, to no small degree because he is more pragmatic and less ideological than Sanders. Any prospect of reducing wealth inequality and poverty or job and healthcare insecurity depends on reducing the polarization and gridlock in Congress, and Biden, as a moderate with a more collegial history and relations with Senate Republicans, is eminently better qualified than Sanders to forge a basis for cooperation – assuming that Republican congresspeople would return at least partially to their senses after the departure of the evil wizard who has bewitched them. 

Biden’s critics on the left will point out that you can’t be a senator from Delaware for many years without being a good friend to corporations, a very good friend, as they might put it (the same people who would say that Friedman is a good friend to neoliberalism). One curious feature of Danish parliamentary politics is that on a few occasions in recent years, the left-wing administration has enacted conservative measures that the preceding right-wing administration did not even attempt, and vice versa. If the parties had held strictly to their ideological profiles, they would have encountered resistance from the other side. Although there has been a gradual drift toward the right that dismays a significant segment of the electorate, there is much to be said for the increased efficacy of policies based on consensus-seeking. Biden has a better chance of achieving that than any of the other candidates.

Don’t vote socialist yet, Democrats

Denmark is back in the Democratic primary debates. When Amy Klobuchar listed various people that Trump blames instead of himself, she included “the king of Denmark.” Denmark hasn’t had a king for more than 60 years, and Trump didn’t blame the queen either. After Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called his proposal to buy Greenland “absurd,” he described her remark as being “nasty.” At his request, Queen Margrethe had invited him to visit Denmark, and after Frederiksen’s response, he canceled the visit. If he had come, he would certainly have found something to blame her for – perhaps for not banning the Trump Baby Balloon – but in this case, Klobuchar’s charge was inaccurate.

As model egalitarian societies, Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries remain in the background of the Democratic campaign, though, as they were when democratic socialist Bernie Sanders praised them in the 2016 campaign. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presumably know more about Denmark’s welfare state than Klobuchar does about its royalty, and their proposals of radical reforms to reduce social and economic inequities have found an eager audience among a segment of Democratic voters. About half the Millennials polled favor socialism over capitalism. If other countries can provide universal health care, tuition-free university and subsidized daycare, why can’t the supposedly greatest country in the history of the world?

The risks of failure
I can generally recommend Western European social democracy, although it is not quite the socialism that many American Progressives suppose and it is not clear that its socialist tendencies are responsible for its relative prosperity and social harmony. I don’t think this is the moment to bet on a major fiscal restructuring in the US, however. The country is in a political and cultural crisis with a rogue administration dividing the population into factions that can’t understand and communicate with each other. The domestic polarization is worse than it has been in 50 years, and in foreign relations, the administration has destabilized the world by alienating democratic allies and encouraging authoritarian regimes. The stakes have rarely been higher, and the Democrats’ priority should be to end the misrule. A platform of drastic reforms would greatly increase the chances risk that Trump will be re-elected. 

Trump’s base is apparently impervious to dishonesty, disinformation, corruption and consummate boorishness. And a sitting president with a fairly sound economy and no primary challenger in his own party has a huge advantage in the general election. If the Democratic Party is pulled toward the Progressive fringe, it will lose the centrists of both parties and the independents that it needs to win. Demands for open borders, health care for undocumented immigrants, late-term abortions and gender self-identification would alienate moderates. The country cannot afford the risks of another four years of Trumpism. It might be unrecognizable afterward, assuming that the Orange Oaf could be pried out of the office even then.

The risks of succeeding
Even if a Progressive Democratic candidate wins the general election, the implementation of structural reforms to mitigate wealth inequality, economic insecurity and Wall Street abuses is far from certain of becoming a reality. They would be very expensive and require enormous deficit spending, and the partial financing from a wealth tax, a higher capital gains tax, a financial transactions tax and more would most likely crash the stock market and cause a recession, probably another serious one. The market, which has been propped up by the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates and spigot of repo loans to the largest banks is long overdue for a correction, which would be blamed on “democratic socialism” or fears of the same. It would be used to discredit reforms and make it even harder to implement them.

There is a better chance of improving social welfare by first aiming to recapture the White House and restore a traditional liberal democracy before trying to overhaul the healthcare sector and the financial markets. If that succeeds, then it won’t be many terms before AOC and her cohort will get their shot at fashioning post-capitalist, post-racial, post-gender republic.

Move to Denmark

You may not have noticed, but this blog has been inactive for some time. Since around the time it became apparent that Bernie Sanders was out of contention for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. It was no longer as relevant to consider whether the Danish “socialism” Sanders favored could be transplanted in the United States. But even before that, it was mainly speculation. There was never a real possibility that it could displace the pseudo–free market of American society. That prospect was unrealistic economically, politically and culturally.

It’s still worthwhile to make the thought experiment, but we may need to take a different perspective. If you’re sympathetic to the egalitarian ethos or curious about living in a society that fosters greater happiness and life satisfaction, then don’t wait around for the US to reform itself or its plutocracy to share the wealth with the bottom 80 percent. No matter which one of those two cretins wins the election next week, things are unlikely to get any better. On the contrary, expect a recession, another financial crisis, increasing civil unrest. . . .

Just do it

So just move here. That’s right, simply emigrate to Denmark or somewhere similar. Need to hear the reasons again? Universal healthcare. Paid maternity, paternity and medical leave. Five weeks’ paid vacation. Subsidized day care. Free college. Stipends for study. Unemployment benefits for graduating. Few guns, little crime. . . . Leave all that xenophobia, identity politics, runaway militarism and high infant mortality behind. But not everyone all it once, please.

Is it really possible, though? Can you just drop by as if on vacation and land a job? You can’t just hang out here indefinitely unless you’re from another EU country (see if you can get hold of a Romanian passport). For an extended stay, you need a work and residence permit. But some succeed in finding a job while visiting and using it to expedite their application.

Engineers welcome

Denmark has an official policy of encouraging well-educated persons to immigrate that is similar to the US visa program for skilled professionals. There’s a surprising number of Indian doctors working at hospitals in Jutland, for example. Industry associations regularly decry the lack of native STEM graduates. There are also eastern European carpenters, prostitutes and other tradesfolk, although they’re from the EU and can move in and out freely according to demand.

The policy doesn’t always work as advertised, however. Some people with advanced degrees arrive and find that Danish employers prefer Danish credentials, but “Western” immigrants are viewed much more favorably than others and aren’t considered a threat to worsen the country’s integration problems.

Be a global citizen

So, if you’re resourceful and persistent, yes, it’s possible to find a job. The hiring process at large companies can be drawn out and frustrating, but you can do a lot of exploring and preparation online before you come here because Denmark prides itself on its extensive digitalization. There are several guides and services to help: Expat in Denmark, Life in Denmark, Work in Denmark and New in Denmark.

If you can survive until you get an income and a residence permit, then you’re entitled to all the same social benefits as Danish citizens. And if you don’t use certain benefits, then after several years you can apply for Danish citizenship. The rules on that and the difficulty of the citizenship test can change significantly whenever the government switches between the right- and the left-wing coalitions, but the Danish Parliament just recently passed a law allowing dual citizenship. That means you can always bail if America collapses under the weight of its empire and apartments in San Francisco suddenly become affordable.

Capeesh?

But don’t they speak a foreign language here, you may be wondering, and doesn’t that pose a bit of a problem? Not as much as you’d expect. Danes are about the most fluent ESL speakers around, and they like to show it off. There are jobs at international companies that don’t require Danish, particularly in tech, biotech, finance and shipping. A small country needs to export. In industries with labor shortages, broken English is the lingua franca of globalization. Some expats have been here for years without speaking Danish. It’s certainly advisable to learn the language, though, in order to immerse fully yourself in the happiest society.

That reminds me not to omit the simplest way to emigrate and enjoy all the benefits of the country: marry a Dane. While it facilitates integration greatly, of course it entails certain obligations. A lesson for another day, but I’m sure there’s also an app for that.

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?

Socialized medicine – dangerous to your health?

Health care is probably the testiest issue in Bernie Sanders’s campaign to pull America in the direction of a welfare state. The Danish single-payer system, like its counterparts in rest of the developed world, costs only about half as much as health care in the US as a percentage of GDP. Do Americans get twice as much or twice as good care for the expense? Hardly. According to the WHO, the US system ranks 37^th in the world in 2016, just below Costa Rica (in this department Denmark is little better, at No. 34).

Nevertheless, the US political establishment as well as many citizens demonize universal health care systems as dysfunctional communism, even as people complain about higher fees under Obamacare. This perception must owe something to lobbying and PR clout of the insurance-pharma-hospital corporation cartel that is so solidly entrenched it can’t be meaningfully reformed without a severe dislocation in the economy. I’m not advocating any specific changes because I wouldn’t know where to start. But as the boomers become increasingly feeble, the number of diabetics accelerates, and inflation in the price of services in the sector continues at double the core rate, somethin’s gotta give.

 How the European system works

I don’t understand how the new US system works because I’ve never had to use it. But I can describe the single-payer system in practice and give you an impression of whether it’s really impractical, annoying or dangerous.

In Denmark, everyone selects his or her own general practitioner. If you need to see a doctor, you book an appointment on a website, and one is usually available within a week or two, sooner for urgent situations. When you arrive at the office, you swipe your health insurance card in a terminal. If you need tests or treatment by a specialist or in a hospital, your GP books the referral online and you make an appointment. You can renew prescriptions online and see all your medical records from a secure centralized database.

You never get a bill from the public system. You don’t need to make a bet on the size of copays and deductibles. You do have to pay for prescription drugs, dentistry and glasses. But you can get generic drugs and can also a partial refund on other services from a nationwide cooperative health insurance plan that most people subscribe to at modest premiums.

Susceptibility to abuse

People don’t seem to become hypochondriacs or abuse the unlimited services as much as you (and the Freakonomics guys) might expect. As I understand, 30 or 40 years ago, when unemployment was very high, there was a wave of disability diagnoses that removed a segment of burned-out hippies and alkies from the labor market statistics. They’ve cracked down since then.

If you’re really determined to exploit the system, though, you may be able get validation for less visible ailments like stress, depression and back pain, and the rules for salary compensation are generous. With a doctor’s recommendation, you can take up to 120 days off before your employer can fire you. But blatant indulgences are frowned upon, at least in polite circles.

Those waiting lists

The main questions about the system concern the infamous waiting lists and the quality of the care. Although they aren’t as long as many Americans seems to think, waiting lists do prompt many complaints. Operations and procedures that are categorized as not being urgent may be scheduled several months off, and there may also be delays in testing or treating threatening conditions. When people start dying on waiting lists, Parliament sometimes intervenes to adjust the “guarantee” for treatment within a certain period or to allot emergency funds to shore up resources. My impression is that few people are seriously hurt by the delays, but that’s little comfort if you happen to be one of them.

There is an alternative to waiting lists – private insurance, which is provided to a certain number of people by their employers. My most recent referral to a specialist set the difference in stark relief. The appointment at a public hospital was in more than three months. I got immediate approval for private treatment from the insurance company and an appointment the same day at a private hospital with one of the country’s leading cardiologists. With the insurance, there’s no copay for treatments that can be referred to public facilities. There is a small copay for other things covered by private health insurance such as physical therapy and psychotherapy.

But are they proficient?

It’s difficult to judge the general quality of care, but I’ve had enough contact with the system to form an opinion. I’ve had several good experiences with knowledgeable and capable physical therapists. But the competency and conscientiousness of GPs seem to be uneven. The great majority are probably fine, but some seem bored and blasé. I’ve heard of several instances of a misdiagnosis or lack of diagnosis of a serious illness; they seemed disturbingly common among patients in the oncology ward.

This deficiency may be partly owing to the system. Danish GPs earn a good salary, but nothing like American doctors’. They’re not as ambitious, nor are they as motivated to order all possible tests and other precautions against malpractice suits. Hospital doctors are apparently more ambitious. A complaint that gathered steam a few years ago during a waiting-list debate was that some of them had second, more lucrative jobs at private hospitals that they seemed more interested in.

The perils of bureaucracy

One drawback in the hospital system is that patients are not assigned to a specific doctor. Department or team members takes turns making the rounds, and each new one has to familiarize herself with the patient’s journal again. That can be annoying, especially when their opinions and recommendations are inconsistent, and it makes the overall experience less personal and assuring.

There have also been instances of insufficient oversight, occasionally shocking. Last year a psychiatrist who was brain-damaged himself was found to have prescribed the wrong medication for several patients, with fatal consequences for one of them, and the Board of Health had apparently not acted upon complaints.

When the stakes are high

I must say, however, that altogether my experience with serious illness in Denmark has been positive, and that covers two RFA treatments for arrhythmia and my late wife’s five years of oncology care. There were a few problems – a strange lack of resolution to operate on an abdominal adhesion and a seemingly prejudicial dismissal of an application for alternative cancer treatment in Germany, which was supposed to be available to EU citizens.

There was also a tendency to follow the usual practice of recommending new chemotherapy treatments that offer only a slight chance of a significant increase in the survival period. I think big pharma funds most clinical trials here too. But generally the specialists, surgeons, technicians, nurses and other personnel seemed capable, thorough and eager to use all the resources at their disposal to obtain the best outcome.

As with the waiting lists, lapses are rare, but that’s what you remember. If money is not an issue, you can be more certain of getting the best possible care in the US. But I doubt that the overall quality of care is worse in Denmark than in the States, and no one is financially ruined by an illness or accident that can bring plenty of suffering in itself. Or burdened by the ongoing premiums.

Socialism and happiness

Anyone who has been reading the first posts here must be wondering when I’m going to get around to addressing one of the main questions implied in the launch of this blog with its reference to Bernie Sanders’s campaign: that is, does socialism create happiness? Are people happier in welfare states? I want to investigate Denmark in general, not only its political and economic dimensions, but those aspects are of course most relevant for people who want to understand how Sanders’s platform might play out in the real world, if it ever gets a chance.

The short, simplistic, perhaps misleading answer is yes. Who wouldn’t prefer to have five weeks’ vacation, unlimited health care services, paid maternity and sick leave, free college, and everything else? The social democracies of Western Europe generally give greater personal security than the American free market. There’s relatively little poverty, a minimal viable standard of living, and help available from the system.

The Danish welfare state’s slogan is probably a line from a 19th century hymn by N.F.S Grundtvig, “… when few have too much and fewer have too little.” Denmark scores highest in happiness because it has the fewest low individual scores because the safety net functions mostly as it’s intended to and catches them.

Sharing the wealth

In a more egalitarian society, not only do fewer suffer privation and are fewer corrupted by superfluous wealth. People have more in common with one another, relate more directly to one another, and are more willing to cooperate, compromise and make sacrifices for the common weal.

One of the most striking differences in quality of life is evident in the so-called work-life balance. Besides the large amount of vacation time they enjoy, people work fewer hours per week, normally 37. Employers respect their evenings and weekends. There’s time for socializing at work, and business management is less hierarchical and authoritarian. Childcare programs are guaranteed, subsidized and better. The level of comfort in everyday life is higher than for probably all but the top quarter of the US population.

Too much of a good thing

Be that as it may, the Danish media are declaring an epidemic of stress – not only among careerists but also the unemployed, parents of small children, single parents, college students, high school students, civil servants, the police. Leftist sociologists tell them that they’re the not the beneficiaries of the welfare society but rather the victims of the “competition state.” This might be a clue that ample creature comforts alone don’t guarantee lasting well-being.

So, a few qualifications to the short answer: First, individuals want to maximize their material circumstances, but what happens when the abundance is readily available: the tragedy of the commons. The more welfare, the more that free riders can siphon off. The high achievers accept high taxes and slackers as the price of living in a stable society. If they want more upside potential and excitement, they can shop their app or startup to Silicon Valley.

Second, research in psychology demonstrates that happiness and status are relative, that is, dependent on social comparison. It’s the same hamster wheel at any given level. Danes don’t compare themselves with overworked, underpaid American burger flippers or starving Nigerians but to other Danes who know how to work the system. Hence their equal opportunity to feel stressed.

Small is beautiful, so are people like me

Third, other factors may be just as important in fostering happiness: for example, the small population, the relative ethnic homogeneity, the shared history and traditions that characterize all the contented northern European enclaves. What came first, the welfare state or a strong sense of community?

Homo sapiens evolved in the Pleistocene to live in tribes of up to around 150 members, and smaller populations are more likely to be egalitarian even without a policy of progressive taxation. When people know one another, they are more accountable; there is greater social cohesion, harmony and fellowship.

The OCD alliance and Uncle Morten’s 70th

These qualities are supported by concrete customs and institutions. In Denmark, there is a robust tradition of local clubs and associations for all imaginable collective activities and interest groups. Families gather regularly – and extended families drive across the (admittedly small) country for baptisms and "round" birthdays – to cultivate their celebrated hygge (a special sense of familiar, cozy togetherness). Workplace departments commemorate personal milestones and hold weekly breakfasts.

Such conventions and routines didn’t come from social planning by bureaucrats, and large, multicultural societies cannot easily reproduce them. In this informal survey of Danish happiness, I want to look not only into its socio-economic foundation but also into these other possible contributing factors.

College for free

Abolishing college tuition fees is one of Bernie Sanders’s main proposals, and it’s no surprise that he’s popular among millennials, with student loan debt accelerating to staggering levels. Many can’t manage to repay it, and many who do keep up the payments can’t afford other things like a mortgage or rent or a child.

In several Western European countries, college, graduate school and vocational training programs are free. Denmark’s package is probably one of the most generous. Students get stipends while they study, beginning at 18, when their parents no longer qualify for a child allowance (the equivalent of a tax deduction for a dependent). They’re eligible for student loans on favorable terms, too, although they don’t accumulate crippling amounts. If that weren’t enough, if they don’t get a job as soon as they graduate, they’re eligible for unemployment benefits, even though they haven’t even begun paying the quarterly premiums. (The unemployment system works like a voluntary insurance policy, although most of benefits are subsidized by the state. Graduates are exempt from the normal requirements of a certain number of months of employment and up-to-date premiums.)

Too much of a good thing
How do Danish youth feel about this system? Do they appreciate the advantages they’re getting? Well, they tend to stay in school longer than the rest of the world. The average age when they finish professional training is around 28. They start elementary school one year later than in most countries, at seven, and many take an extra year, tenth grade, often at a boarding school, before starting gymnasium (the equivalent of a college prep high school program). After gymnasium, most now take a “sabbatical year” or two because they’re skoletræt (“school-tired”), and few complete university on schedule.

Some people argue that this leisurely approach is good because it gives them time to find out what they really want to do, and there’s some truth to that. But it can also encourage complacency. A couple of years ago a journalist found a character who became a sort of anti–folk hero and nicknamed “Lazy Robert”. He was about 40, and he’d managed to stay in university his entire adult life by switching to a new program whenever he was almost finished with one. He admitted that he didn’t want to work and was taking advantage of the system. A little while later he was apparently shamed out of his racket and got a spot on a reality show.

Pressures of student life
Danish students are loathe to lose any of their entitlements. In a recent reform intended to speed them up, the number of years they can receive the stipend was reduced slightly and the annual progress they must make to stay eligible was made more stringent. For example, if you fail or don’t complete a course, you have to complete in the subsequent semester along with the regular courseload scheduled for that semester. This caused an outcry, especially from those who work part-time and have trouble managing a full-time courseload. They say they’re going down from stress, or they have to quit their jobs and can’t pay the rent any longer. 

The latest cut came in a reform of the unemployment program last October, when new graduates’ benefits were reduced from about 82% of the full amount to 73% (except if they happen to have a child – Danish rules are precise and complicated, with exceptions to exceptions). They freaked out again.

Overcrowding 
They have a legitimate complaint about the difficulty of finding affordable rental housing in Copenhagen. Students don’t normally live on campus in dormitories; universities don’t have them. There are some run by private organizations that often aren’t in the vicinity of the schools, and their waiting lists are long. Rental apartments are scarce in Denmark generally, and rents in the city have risen sharply since the financial crisis.

But that difficulty is owing partly to the sharp increase in university attendance in recent years, which in itself could be a greater problem. The institutions are happy to have the business because they get funding by their headcount (the so-called “taxi meter” system). But an increasing number of university graduates are unemployed, while industry associations are warning of an acute shortage of plumbers, electricians and other tradespeople. Also increasing are professors’ complaints about the students’ lack of preparation, motivation and sound study habits. There’s rampant grade inflation and lax discipline for failing students; apparently they’re often given second and third chances to pass exams by review committees that include students.

Final grade
Despite Denmark’s participation in the general dumbing down of the affluent society, the educational system functions tolerably well. The attrition rate of about 30% may seem high but is not historically. When most students finish, they’re generally competent enough to do a professional job. They don’t often need to take service jobs for menial wages or start over afterward at coding bootcamp. They’re not saddled with onerous debt, so they can live on their own instead of with their parents, form a family, and prevent the population from shrinking.

Why not also in America?
So if this system works better than the one in United States, should the latter adopt it? I have to say no. Too many people attend college in the US already. The attrition rate is far higher than in Denmark. And according to several reports, the skills of many with bachelor’s degrees are scandalously poor, and the number who end up working at jobs that require only a high school diploma is scandalously high. Free tuition would only encourage more people to attend and result in a waste of resources. 

If the change were to be funded by reforming the tax structure, presumably by tapping the infamous one percent, it would have a wrenching and unpredictable effect on fiscal policy. Such a large cost should have more certain benefits, especially when the deficit and national debt are already far too high. There are other questions as well. The runaway rise in college costs is apparently owing largely to the growth in administrative positions and also to luxurious accommodations and facilities for students. What kind of incentives would subsidized tuition and virtually open enrollment give to college administrators?

Don't bet on it
So in this case, I don’t think the European system should or can be transplanted in America. I also think the scope of the entitlement in Denmark should be reduced. College in the US should be made more affordable by reforms; the student debt problem needs to be addressed; and perhaps competition with MOOCs and other innovative channels can make higher education more efficient. But for now, if American students want to avoid heavy debt, they could consider studying in Europe, where there are several English-language programs that are also free for foreigners or charge less than American colleges.

Bernie, you’re a social democrat

Bernie Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist,” a provocative label in neo–Cold War America. Most people still probably associate socialism with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc – a centralized authoritarian government with a planned and state-controlled economy that is the antithesis of America’s vaunted free-market capitalism. The two ideologies are usually considered mutually exclusive. That was the assumption when Anderson Cooper, in the first Democratic Party debate, asked Sanders to confirm that he’s “not a capitalist.”

In his explanation, Sanders adduced the example of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries as models of more equitable and compassionate societies. They have larger public sectors than the United States has; they have higher taxes and greater income redistribution; they have cooperation between labor organizations and business management. In short, they have more social security in the broadest sense, a stronger safety net.

Capitalist welfare states
These are social welfare states, like most of Western Europe, but they’re not socialist countries. They are commonly known as “social democracies,” and they consider themselves more capitalist than socialist. They limit economic inequality and promote social “solidarity” within open, market economies. Social Democratic political parties are found throughout Europe. They led the development of the welfare state, but more recently they’ve sometimes turned centrist, as in the UK and Denmark.

This seems to be the model Sanders is espousing, and his positions appeal to a significant portion of the electorate in these troubled times. But regardless of how feasible his platform may or may not be in the United States, he has given himself an unnecessary handicap by calling himself a socialist and encouraging the perception that one must choose between capitalism and socialism.

Sharing all the wealth
There are avowedly socialist parties in the European parliaments that are always agitating to enlarge the public sector. The Red-Green Alliance in Denmark advocates true democratic socialism. It was created in a merger of three small far-left parties, including the Danish Communist Party, in 1989. During the 2011 election campaign, when it was trying to broaden its appeal, someone dug up its platform, which apparently hadn’t been updated recently. It called for wholesale revolution, including the abolition of private property, the armed forces and the police. The reaction in the mainstream media was an eye-rolling smirk: “After the revolution, can I keep my toothbrush?” It was seen as a relic of 1970s utopianism and a PR gaffe.

Faux extremist
I doubt Sanders is plotting to confiscate personal toothbrushes or the means of production. But despite his surprising inroads against Hillary Clinton, the S word is a disadvantage as he tries to broaden his appeal. If he would simply reverse the order of those two words in his epithet, demoting the bugbear to an innocuous modifier, signaling reform instead of revolution and thus aligning himself more clearly with the mainstream European ideology he admires, he might get more people to listen to his message.