My reaction to "The Nordic Theory of Everything"

 So I read the Nordic theory of everything by Anu Partanen, and much like the last several books I read, I'm going to respond to it.

Generally speaking, I liked the book. I will say one thing it did make me was depressed. Depressed at how messed up America is. The author grew up in Finland but immigrated to America and ended up seeing both sides of the spectrum. And the big thing that came out for me was how STRESSFUL American life is. How we have no decent safety nets, and an extremely individualistic culture that tends to put everything on the individual in a sink or swim fashion. 

The Nordic theory of everything is really the Nordic theory of love, and how Nords see themselves in relation to each other and society. And honestly? Their views are a lot closer to my indepentarian views than the US is. They desire a society in which people can come together in free association as equals, promoting financially independent individuals by having the state provide the basics in life. From cradle to grave, as you often here it said of Nordic countries, the government takes care of a lot of things for you. Nordic countries provide free and universal childcare, free and universal schooling including college, safety nets to get people into suitable jobs, universal healthcare, and of course, care for the aging. Their relations to their work is also far healthier than America, with little pressure to work long hours, long parental leaves, and long vacations. Most jobs are unionized, and wages are good, and exploitation is low overall. Honestly, it's almost utopian. While Nords tend to grumble about everything, they have the best lives on the planet as it is, and their system works. 

As Anu came to America and had to deal with life here, the stress of everything freaked her out, from having to worry about healthcare, childcare, and saving for childrens' college. The effects on her mental health are again, pronounced. It reminds me of how I feel about living in America as an adult, and how I struggle to handle this stuff myself. Our country is very backwards, and very stressful. We think that living with less government makes us free, but it really doesnt. Our system is extremely backwards and regressive. I think the real lesson is the real free people are in Scandinavia, because they're the ones who have government services to ensure we never have to go without. Yet, we like to gaslight people into thinking they're weak and cant hack "real freedom" if we actually want that stuff. THe toxic positivity of our country's culture is very harmful from a mental health perspective, and honestly, it affects me too, so I have to sympathize with the author here.

Like, I'm gonna be honest, I don't agree TOTALLY with the Nordic theory of everything. Mostly because I take things one step further, and support a UBI and the right to say no. I tend to generally agree with the ideology. Yes, by having the government do things, we can be more free, we can not worry about the basics in life. Many difficult and challenging logistics are taken care of and we dont need to work ourselves to death to survive. And i like the idea of people being independent and not being forced into coercive relationships. But here's the thing. To me work IS a coercive relationship. And the nordic theory of everything still is conditional about working a job and putting in your time. You're not getting this just for existing or being alive. You gotta work and contribute too. And while this model is a step up from America, this is more Bernie Sanders than Andrew yang for me, if that makes sense. Like all of these benefits are taken care of, but you're still expected to work at a job. And while work culture is far less oppressive and there is work life balance, idk, I feel like living in America I've soured on work in general.

I guess a big issue I have with the Nordic theory is I dont think it can be applied super well here. Even if we implemented all of the policy changes, unless the culture changes, it's not going to matter. if anything that's the problem with America in the first place. We were moving in this direction and then people fell for Reaganism because the collectivism was stifling, and we quite frankly have a racial dimension to our politics that ethnically homogenous Scandinavia doesn't have. Like, this stuff requires a collectivist mindset to work, and our country is just too divided. There's too much identity politics, too many sub cultures, and I really don't think that Americans can and will accept the stifling collectivism that is required to make this work.

In some ways my indepentarian mindset actually is kind of like an American approach to the Nordic Theory of Everything, but rather than expecting the culture to dictate the policies, I simply allow my policies to give people the freedom to self determine and then sit back and watch the culture change from there. like in Finland, most jobs are unionized. Here in the US, we undid unionization. Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, union jobs in manufacturing gave way to non union service jobs, and any attempts to unionize are crushed. I honestly think if we just had a UBI or could get that through, it would FORCE changes here, because the people would have the freedom to say no. It would force changes because the people would no longer accept the status quo because they dont have to. I feel like that's the issue with Putnam's upswing too. His model had like decades of cultural shifts eventually translating into policy, and then America regressing back to individualism. I try to harness individualism to give people freedom, and this would force changes that have collective outcomes. While UBI would be incredibly difficult to pass, once it did, I suspect it would stay because like social security no one would wanna touch that stuff. It would basically have a ratchet effect making rollback impossible, because the people would probably riot if they did. Currently, the US is able to avoid having safety nets because the ones that do exist are limited and conditional. They split america into people who benefit from them, and those who dont and largely resent their existence, and we're unable to enact changes as a result. Our discussion involves one side defending flawed safety nets, and one side not doing so.

I know Partanen claimed it's not culture and this could happen here too, but policy, but honestly, i do think to some extent it is culture. Like the education section just seems foreign to me. We have education funded by local governments, some overburdened, some not so much, with wealthy suburbs not wanting their precious tax dollars to go to the unwashed masses who live in the inner cities. We have a very segregated society, racially, culturally, and as long as that exists and there are multiple Americas each with their own special interests, we cant have nice things. Also, living in an inner city. Yeah, like I can see independent students with little oversight working. The crime in my area is insane, and it's mostly teenagers and young adults. Because of the poverty, and the sub cultures that go with it. Again there's a lot of elements of American society that the Nords just don't have to deal with. 

Also, the US is such a large country geographically, with so many different areas, and honestly, i just dont think it's possible to have a system where everyone can get a job, let alone a good job. Our economic model seems to defy the very concept, and resists it at every turn. You raise wages you create inflation or unemployment. You reduce wages and you have more employment, but people cant make ends meet anyway. How is someone in rural south carolina or west virginia or mississippi supposed to benefit if their towns are poor as crap? What about someone in the rust belt like in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan? I mean, honestly, I feel like the author just kind of handwaves away some of the deep economic divisions that exist here. We have cities sometimes where people are extraordinarily wealthy and opportunities abound, and then tons of the country with the opposite, where poverty and joblessness are increasingly a way of life and people struggle to get by. There's a real reason behind my mere laziness why I say "jobs are not the answer". It's because they AREN'T. If you expect everyone to have a good job at a good wage and fair working conditions these days I have a bridge to sell you. Yang is right. Trying to make more jobs for people is like filling a bathtub with a giant hole in it. 

So, idk. I feel like my own ideology is borne out of my uniquely American circumstances, living through the 4th industrial revolution and it wreaking havoc on my community. There's a lot we have to learn from the Nordic model. Universal healthcare, free college, free childcare? BASED! But we also need UBI. And that's one gap that I feel like the Nordic theory has. It's still based on jobism, and we need to move beyond it. My ideology is basically, the Nordic model, but with a UBI. I see it as the next step in our political evolution toward a better world. It's like Nordic Theory +. 

One thing I will say though, and I know this is much to the dismay of the person who recommended me this book, but I will say this just further cemented the idea that "leftism" isnt the answer. I feel like the calls for "leftism", as in "socialism" and other similar ideologies in the US, are borne out of a system that has largely abandoned the economic needs of America. It rings of JFK's quote that when the means for peaceful change become impossible violent revolution becomes inevitable. America is failing its citizens, so some are radicalizing into "socialism" and seeing things in increasingly dogmatic ways, where in 2016 I would agree with these guys on mutual goals surrounding the Bernie Sanders campaign, but now I think these guys are looking increasingly extremist. Look, we don't need to go full socialism to achieve our goals. The Nordic theory demonstrates that. The Fins, who much of the book is about, fought several wars against the USSR to preserve their way of life. They're not fans of literal communism neither. Nor am I. The Nordic model accomplishes all it does under a system of free market capitalism, and my own Yang style human centered capitalism isn't much different. Again, it's just nordic theory with a less job centered focus and more emphasis on UBI. So, honestly, the solutions come from improving capitalism, not overthrowing it. The two party system, however, must be overthrown as it exists in its public form. And it should be done peacefully, through a mass voting effort against it. Join the forward party, people. 

Anyway, that's my opinion on the Nordic theory of everything, I have a lot of positive things to say about the book, but I also have some gentleman's disagreements with it on topics like UBI, the future of work, and whether its changes can apply to the US, which is a much different and more diverse country culturally, ethnically, and geographically. Honestly, I feel like my politics are basically the Nordic theory, but applied to the US's specific problems and needed solutions. There's a lot of similarities in theory, but also a ton of differences. Ultimately, I see a similar divide as the Putnam book between individualism and collectivism here, and the solution isn't one or the other, it's a hybrid of both. The collectivism of the Nordic countries or the past 1950s era of the US is a bit stifling to me. But at the same time, we go WAY too far with individualism, and we implement it in all the wrong ways. We need a theory that reaps the benefits of collectivism, while also reaping the benefits of our individualist culture. And that's why my politics are as they are.