19 votes

The grim secret of Nordic happiness – it's not hygge, the welfare state, or drinking. It's reasonable expectations

11 comments

  1. nothis
    Link
    Interesting take, I always wondered how these happiness ratings relates to those photos of people avoiding each other at Finnish bus stops. Also: What a refreshing non-clickbaity title! It...

    Interesting take, I always wondered how these happiness ratings relates to those photos of people avoiding each other at Finnish bus stops.

    Also: What a refreshing non-clickbaity title! It summarizes the whole article well, reading it clarified details. As it should be!

    6 votes
  2. nacho
    Link
    If we were to simplify the success of the Nordic Model to a single factor, whether we measure the Model's purported success by happiness or other measures, I'd argue the answer is simpler and more...

    If we were to simplify the success of the Nordic Model to a single factor, whether we measure the Model's purported success by happiness or other measures, I'd argue the answer is simpler and more boring than what's usually reported.

    Obviously there are many factors at play that interact. cultural values, degree of trust in society, historical background, natural resources, historical population and demography at technological and cultural inflex points, and yes expectations.


    However, I'd argue that if we were to focus on only a single factor, that factor should be labor rights and the resulting valuation of labor in society.

    From the early 1900s a heterogenous Nordic setting of past mini-empires and nations without independence changed pretty homogeneously to social democracies with increasing general rights.

    Worker's rights like rights to vacation, minimum wages, employee representation on company boards, employee participation in a host of processes affecting the workplace, regulation against union-busting, against unfair employee sacking -- essentially all the qualities that in the 1940s led towards more modern social democracy.

    Businesses and public employers were forced to pay much more for each worker-hour, and crucially they were forced to include employee representatives in developing and innovating in the company. The result are strong mechanisms to invest in workers. To strive for efficiency and gradual improvement, to ensure that jobs are meaningful, that workers gain responsibility otherwise your running costs are too expensive, or your workers will strike hurting your company extensively.

    You can't just use people and then fire them, throw them away and replace them with new people with new skills. That's quite literally illegal. You need to ensure that your trash collector, your plant worker and your caregiver at a retirement home can be efficient employees worth at least the same wage as new workers for over 40 years from career start to retirement.


    What follows is a system where you visit a Nordic factory and meet a skilled worker who after 20 years in the job makes decisions only the chief engineer in a similar factory in Germany would be allowed to make. Hierarchy flattens, inequality lowers and everyone by necessity is invested in public services and systems for everyone work as well as possible.

    There are large costs of having this type of system. Opportunity costs, economic costs, personal costs and state restrictions imposed on everyone. You lose people who can move elsewhere to earn much more from peak skills.

    It's up to a democratic society to determine what costs and benefits they wish to balance in what amounts. Those are (political) value judgements without right or wrong answers, but legitimate preference decisions.

    By the numbers and things you can measure, this worker- and business union model of organizing society seems to work quite well. I think that's why large international companies almost universally seem to fight tooth and nail against union participation and generalized worker rights: Caring about workers means you'd have to optimize for more than the money-number on the bottom line.


    Tl,DR: Nordic people report being more happy because they are more happy because their workplaces have to give a shit about them. It doesn't hurt that everyone's in the same boat so the expectations are more realistic, but that's not the main thing.

    5 votes
  3. [7]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [6]
      FishFingus
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      It could also mean that very depressed people in Finland are more successful at committing suicide, so only the happy people show up in the statistics. Edit: ...I get the sense that maybe I'm...

      It could also mean that very depressed people in Finland are more successful at committing suicide, so only the happy people show up in the statistics.

      Edit: ...I get the sense that maybe I'm off-base or missing something, which I tend to do.

      1. [5]
        MimicSquid
        Link Parent
        Would you like to back that up with statistics? Otherwise, where is that coming from?

        Would you like to back that up with statistics? Otherwise, where is that coming from?

        3 votes
        1. [2]
          Grzmot
          Link Parent
          Sounds like an opinion to me, not a factual statement.

          It could also

          Sounds like an opinion to me, not a factual statement.

          3 votes
          1. MimicSquid
            Link Parent
            That's why I also offered him the option of going into his opinion in more detail if he didn't have statistics.

            That's why I also offered him the option of going into his opinion in more detail if he didn't have statistics.

            2 votes
        2. [2]
          FishFingus
          Link Parent
          Eh? I thought it just logically followed, because you can't really poll people who aren't there.

          Eh? I thought it just logically followed, because you can't really poll people who aren't there.

          3 votes
          1. MimicSquid
            Link Parent
            Does that mean that the USA has more people who've traveled to other dimensions and not returned than anywhere else, because we fail to poll them?

            Does that mean that the USA has more people who've traveled to other dimensions and not returned than anywhere else, because we fail to poll them?

  4. [3]
    Akir
    Link
    As a side note, this website has advertisements so bad that I decided to switch from using Firefox on iOS to Safari because for some reason you can't block ads on it.

    As a side note, this website has advertisements so bad that I decided to switch from using Firefox on iOS to Safari because for some reason you can't block ads on it.

    1 vote
    1. [2]
      culturedleftfoot
      Link Parent
      I'm using Firefox with uBlock Origin on Android and am not seeing any ads. If it's available on iOS, I highly recommend it over ad-blockers.

      I'm using Firefox with uBlock Origin on Android and am not seeing any ads. If it's available on iOS, I highly recommend it over ad-blockers.

      2 votes
      1. Akir
        Link Parent
        That’s why I vastly prefer Firefox to chrome on Android. But Firefox is gimped on iOS because of Apples stupid policies regarding web browsers.

        That’s why I vastly prefer Firefox to chrome on Android. But Firefox is gimped on iOS because of Apples stupid policies regarding web browsers.

        2 votes