Norway admittedly has gigantic, relatively recent, oil and gas reserves that allow it to fund all sorts of social programs. Not saying those are bad or anything, just not a particularly exportable model.
Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality?
Acamon@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Looking at this data Norway seems to have low levels of economic inequality, low rates of poverty, and a high median disposable income (behind Luxembourg but around that of France and Austria).
Its far from perfect, but I imagine social inequality for stuff like gender and race is pretty low, officially speaking at least. I get the feeling that Scandinavians can be a big negative about foreigners, but I have zero firsthand knowledge on that.
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 9 hours ago
Meron35@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Except that the Nordic has been replicated across all the Nordic countries, of which only Norway has vast natural resources.
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
Interestingly enough, Norway was already doing quite alright before they discovered the oil - they were at 10th place amongst all European countries. The oil has given them additional wealth, but it has become somewhat of a national myth that the oil is the sole reason for Norway’s success, leading to their current reluctance to spin the industry down, despite it running fully counter to Norway’s self-image of a green nation.
njm1314@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
It’s actually pretty exportable. There’s a lot of countries out there that have natural resources that should be the property of the people instead of wealthy individuals.
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 4 hours ago
If you’re going to start nationalizing previously established resources, that’s going to have all sorts of wild reprecussions and is not what Norway did.
But beyond the logistics, which similarly profitable resources are you thinking of?
njm1314@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Well if course it won’t be the same. Thats why you have to export it.
All of them. All of a nations natural resources rightfully belong to the people from oil to water. From rare earth minerals to timber.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
The only reason their society is that way is because it’s not diverse.
all the scandavaian counrties are having issues because of immigration is destroying their social harmony.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 4 hours ago
That’s not intirely true. Some people definitely are like that, like in any country. Others agree that if you work and pay taxes, you deserve all the same benefits.
Steve@communick.news 10 hours ago
Do you have sources you can cite?
In English if possible. Though I’ll understand if not, and make due with what you have.
nixon@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I lived in Sweden for a bit and have travelled through most of Scandinavia over the years, what that person is saying is true. Saw it first hand and it had only gotten more of any issue in the last 20 years.
99% homogenous culture with 99% literacy rate with a big social safety net and high taxes to pay for all the high quality of living. Then you take in refugees over and over again in the past 30 years. The refugees are being put into the same neighborhoods, they form communities since they are all suffering the trauma of displacement together. The communities want access to the huge social safety net but not have to pay taxes or assimilate/learn the native language. Both sides feels abused by the other and the problem just gets bigger and bigger over time.
It makes sense and every Scandinavian country has been dealing with it for a while now; it is a huge struggle for them. It is a challenging hurdle that none of them have been able to figure out how to resolve it.
Take Sweden for example, you have 9mil people living in a country about the size of California. Lots of room, resources and stability. Then 200k refugees need a place to call home. They have pride for their homeland and don’t want to forget it. The Swedes have just fundamentally altered the foundation of their society in a statistically significant way by bringing a very different cultural heritage, background, traditions and people it a mostly unchanged political system based on hundreds of years of tradition. There is a lot that both sides have to adapt to as it is a new paradigm for each to accept.
That’s a tough nut to crack and historically speaking one that is usually solved over a few generations as tensions calm and the two cultures mix. The ones who grew up with the two cultures always being present are usually the ones who resolve it once they are decision makers. Or it is constant tension until violence erupts and everyone always hates each other from then on. Flip a coin but I have my fingers crossed that Scandinavia figures it out. It is a beautiful part of the world that could use a bit of outside influence to spice up their geometric architecture and people.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
When I visited Oslo, I bumped into some pakistani lads, and we had a nice long chat about the history of immigration in Norway.
Back in the 70s, Norway imported lots of workers for the oil industry. At the time, most of them imagined that they would go back home sooner or later. if you live like your mind is in Pakistan, but your body is in Norway, it’s just not going to work long term.
In the next 30 years, more and more of them realized that they actually quite like it in Norway, since they have a job, house, car, family, children and so on. In the 00s they also started acting like it. Now, the immigrants and their children have been living like regular people for about 20+ years.
However, that applies to the fraction of immigrants who have already spent about 30 years in that country. Contrast that with the Afghani, Iraqi and Syrian immigrants in Sweden. They haven’t been there for 30 years yet, which means that they haven’t fully come to terms with the fact that they’ve left their home country behind and they aren’t going back. Once they cross that mental threshold, they begin to act like this is their new home country. Before that though, you can expect to see all sorts of nasty side effects.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
As anyone would and as should be provided to them lest they be treated as second class citizens in their new country. You want tensions to rise, restricting the same benefits that are a right for everyone else is a good start.
Again, as anyone might. But then, of course, this is non-negotiable. Maybe some subsidy can be given to help people get started in a new country with next to no resources, connections or money, but the taxes come with the perks and the perks come with the taxes. That’s just the beginning and end of that.
You couldn’t pay me to give the slightest fuck that a 1st generation immigrant, let alone a refugee who was forced to leave their home, doesn’t assimilate into the local culture or learn the native language. They have to obey your laws and participate in and contribute to your society. But they do not need to fall in line with your culture. I get that that can be challenging and cause some conflict. American history is full of this stories. But immigrants bring their own culture, their own language, their own races and religions. Those are not things to erased, they are things to be remembered, honored, shared, and ultimately merged.
And it won’t happen all at once. It will happen over generations. Their kids will assimilate a bit, and they’ll share their culture with their native peers. What’s strange and foreign now will become familiar ethnic diversity to your kids. A few generations from now, you’ll eventually have a shared culture that shares roots from distant places but comes together into one intertwined whole.
There’s certainly a lot of problems with America, and there’s been and is no shortage of bigotry and struggle against new cultures coming in. But that amalgamation of cultures, languages, cuisines, styles, architectures, myths, histories, religions, etc. into American Culture while still honoring distinct cultural and national identities is still one of our greatest features (when the nazi racists aren’t in charge that is). That’s the nature of being a nation of immigrants. Welcome to the Melting Pot, baby.
P1nkman@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I’m a Norwegian living in Denmark, and can confirm that the views stated are true, unfortunately. The racism is increasing really fast, buy do is the inequality for the general population, and there are many (not all, but many) refugees who refuse to learn Norwegian. There are even refugees who’s been in Norway for 30 years who don’t speak a lick of Norwegian, while their kids sounds like Norwegian native speakers.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 6 hours ago
But isn’t that actually an indication for strong assimilation? You can’t expect everybody to be a language genius :) but on the other end of the spectrum there could be sub-cultures that last for many generations.
toofpic@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
As a non-EU person in Denmark, I can confirn, that the “everyone is equal” club is not available for everyone
canihasaccount@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Would you recommend Denmark to someone from the US considering taking a job there?