Norway's many lessons

[momopi]

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary ... 5065.story

Norway's many lessons
Peaceful, stable, wealthy, but not immune to the world's shockwaves.
Timothy Garton Ash

June 3, 2010

"Equal pay now! Equal pay now!" The chant echoed up to my hotel window in Oslo, as strikers and their supporters marched past the Norwegian parliament. How could this be? Are there strikes even in paradise?

By most comparative measures, Norway is something close to a paradise on Earth. It is one of the world's richest countries.

It is also one of the most equal. It has a welfare state that is the envy of social democrats everywhere. Mothers get 10 months' maternity leave with full pay. Last year, the country led the world in the United Nations' well-respected "human development index," which combines measures of life expectancy, literacy and standard of living. Norway is free, rich, peaceful, safe, healthy and, so far as anyone can measure these things, happy. Oh yes, and in these times of fiscal hardship, it has a budget surplus of more than 9%. And it gives more than 1% of its gross national income in overseas aid; so it's virtuous too.

No wonder all sorts of people cite it as proof of all sorts of things.

British Conservative Eurosceptics like Daniel Hannan and the newly elected, aptly named, member of Parliament Mark Reckless hold it up as an example of how well Britain could do if it left the European Union. How wise the Norwegians were to vote no to EU membership, in 1972 and again in 1994. If only we had voted no, we too might be as rich, safe, healthy and happy as they.

For Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, by contrast, Norway is an example of the benign effects of equality. In their influential book, "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better," they cite Norway several times, along with other Scandinavian countries, to illustrate the many good things that come with greater equality: welfare provision, fewer teenage pregnancies, high levels of literacy and social trust.

"Humbug!" cry others. The key to all this is simply oil. The whole egalitarian social democratic model is actually sustained by Norway's vast exports of oil and gas, the revenues from which it has been stashing away into what is now the world's second-largest sovereign wealth fund, with a value of about $440 billion. If the fund goes on growing as it has been, it will even — uniquely in Europe — almost cover the future pension obligations for an aging population. So, according to these hard-nosed hydrocarbonists, the only way you can continue to enjoy such an old-fashioned statist model of social democracy is to "drill, baby, drill."

Norwegian happiness is, to so speak, paid for by global warming.

Or then again, perhaps the key to Norway's success is just being, well, Norwegian. Maybe it is their unique traditions of sturdy self-reliance, hard work and community pulling together, celebrated in history and legend, with imaginative reference back to the Vikings. After all, the country was doing quite well with its exports of fish, timber and manufactured goods, and its shipping industry, even before it struck oil in the 1960s.

I know far too little about Norway to judge what is true or false in any of these versions — and what is missing from all of them. But Norway is a good illustration of the danger of drawing too-simple lessons from the experience of other countries, or of projecting onto them lessons you want to draw for your own. Often you end up falling into the fallacy of confusing correlation with cause.

Some years ago, people argued for a big expansion of the number of students in higher education in Britain. They pointed to Germany: It had more students in higher education; it was doing well economically. But the number of students in higher education had little to do with Germany's economic success. The spread of the Massenuni, the mass university, did, however, have quite a lot to do with its universities' slide down the international scales, and actually impelled some of its brightest students to study in Britain. What Britain should have emulated was Germany's historic focus on high standards of technical education, at all levels. The point is not that you can't learn from other countries' experience. The point is to learn the right lessons and how they fit into your own national mix.

While I was thinking about these traps of translation or imitation, another demonstration pulled up under my Oslo hotel window. It was much smaller and messier, without the union stewards. Its chant was "Boycott Israel, Free Palestina!" The night before, Israel had attacked the aid flotilla to Gaza.

So even distant, fortunate Norway is not entirely immune from the shockwaves of world politics. It has struggled, like most European countries, to integrate its growing population of Muslims. It depends on European markets to take its exports. Its massive national pension fund depends on the performance of global stock markets.

If things go really pear-shaped in the rest of Europe, Norway may yet face a reverse wave of modern Vikings coming to look for work and welfare on its happier northern shores. I'm told EU citizens can come and live here for up to three months while job-hunting.

Tempted, anyone?

Timothy Garton Ash, a contributing editor to Opinion, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

[adam917]

I don't think many are tempted. Lots of people prefer warm climates over cold/cool ones which can explain why Canada is nearly empty for instance. Sure it may be cool to experience the nearly continuous daylight in June in the northern parts of the world but then there is the opposite experience that few like in December. I don't mind cooler weather compared to where I live but perhaps even I would be tired of the cold after 6 or 7 months straight of it. It's usually somewhere between late February & April that you just get tired of it, especially if the cold came early like October. Then when summer weather finally does come, the temperature isn't warm enough to go swimming comfortably or wear shorts or do much of anything even remotely summer-related. Sure you can go on holiday somewhere warm of course, but unless you can afford to stay for a while, you'll be back before you know it wishing you could live where you just spent the last 1/2/3/4 weeks.

I wonder, how many people on here would move to Norway or anywhere else with a similar climate provided virtually everything they need would be supplied to them and they could live a reasonably decent life?

Maybe I'm wrong and I'm not quite alone and what I rambled about above is all wrong and there are more people who wouldn't mind living in such a place...