I’m looking for perspectives on which countries most effectively combine high quality of life with low social and economic inequality.
I’m looking for perspectives on which countries most effectively combine high quality of life with low social and economic inequality.
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.
PS I can’t remember the population of Sweden off the top of my head so I just guesstimated. No idea on # of refugees, just picked that one out of a hat to illustrate a point. 200k could be about right, could be lower or could be higher. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
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.
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.
Yo, I think you are attacking the wrong person here.
I don’t know where you read into what I said and got off track because I am not the strawman you seem to be painting me as…?
I am totally on the side of the refugees in these scenarios, I never said otherwise. The subtext of what I was saying was it is a good thing for any culture to be open to outside influence and the Scandinavian countries have been isolated culturally more so than many other areas of the world. Honestly, one of my favorite pastimes while living in Sweden was calling out the Swedes for the racist bullshit, and very specifically around this exact topic.
They opened their borders for refugees because they had space, stability and wealth to share with those in need. That does say a lot about their culture and wanting to help others but the system shock it caused created backlash that has yet be be resolved. You can’t treat some citizens one way and another set of citizen another. I did not say the social safety net shouldn’t be provided for them as I believe they should have every right as equals in their new country. I honestly wish my opinion on the matter could be used to stop this schism on the opposite side of the world to where I currently live but I don’t have that ability. Racists are gonna racist and as much as I hate that I am powerless to stop it worldwide.
I grew up around many cultures; many of my friends parents were first gen immigrants and didn’t speak the native language but they tried. I don’t fault them one bit for not learning it, languages are hard. I’ve learned 4 as an adult, none have been easy but my interest in foreign languages started when learning foreign words/phrases around the dinner table at my friends houses growing up.
Oddly Swedish was the most difficult but not for the usual reasons. I tried to speak it but Swedish people would inevitably hear my terrible accent and then just assume I know English and respond that way. Hard to practice when everyone under the age of 60 speaks fluent English and want to show it off. But that is Swedish pride for you, I can’t dismiss that maybe they opened their borders to refugees with the assumption their life was so much better than what the refugees were used to that they would of course want to assimilate to Swedish culture. Which kind of is the basis for the whole problem, they didn’t expect the refugees to have a different opinion and made no space for them to do so. Which is also why they need to assimilate towards each other, not only in one direction, and that takes a few generations worth of time.
It kinda feels like you parroted what I said back to me but… angrily? It feels like you’re working something out that doesn’t really have anything to do with me. It’s ok though, I think we are both on the same page.
I apologize. You’ve misunderstood the intent of my comment. I wasn’t, in any way, attacking you. I was just providing commentary on one small part of your comment regarding the general opinion on and summary of the issues. None of what I said was meant to be accusatory or even directed at you at all. Those uses of “you” were rhetorical, not actually you. Sorry that I wasn’t clear about that. It sounds like we are in more or less complete agreement.
Got ya, no worries!
I can get into one of those rhetorical “you” soliloquies as well from time to time when incensed about an issue. I completely understand and I’m glad we are fighting the same fight.