Wrong question Bob. If they had heart and hope why aren't they trying to be more like us?

This also ignores the free-rider benefits that Finland gets as a small country, particularly in the development of technology. That's not to slight Finland, but that context has to be considered.

Luciferous;

Why should they be? I've posted on this general subject before but there's no fundamental reason that one can't have a happy, wealthy, productive society that backdrafts on the pace setters. You only have to be like the USA if you want to compete with the USA. If you value things other than being in the A-list then you can make very different choices.

Every few years, there's another country that is held up as doing everything exactly right while we do everything exactly wrong. The tell-tale is that it is always a different country.

"The tell-tale is that it is always a different country."

Not only that, but just after a slew of such stories appear, the country being held up becomes another victim of what must be a variant of the Sports Illustrated cover story curse.

Poor Finland. Sell your Nokia stock now.

Another question to ask is if they would have even survived as a nation this past sixty years had the US not been there in the background. It was touch and go whether they would have ended up in the Soviet sphere at the end of the war, without the US they would have and along with the other Baltic states would no doubt still be there, a backwater of the Russian empire rather than a free nation. They would have waved bye bye to their ethnic and religious homogeneity, their language too even. So for their idyllic life, someone has to pay a price, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that the US has done just that. The same goes for the rest of pacifist, wellfare-ridden EUtopia.

It's unfair to say the Fins didn't pay for their freedom, they fought like tigers in ww2 and deserve alot of credit. But it's true to say it wouldn't have made any difference, they are a tiny country that would have been eaten up by one dreary fascist empire or another without the USA.

So today they don't spend anything on defense, how nice for them.

Isn't Finland right up there in the suicide rate and heavy drinking department?

"...but it also has a fertility rate of just 1.7% and as a result a rapidly aging population, which won't be able to pay for all these social services."

Maybe we could give them a few of our illegal aliens?

Mr. Kaiser tip-toed right to the brink of advocating uniculturalism before he realized where he was. Must have soiled his armor.

"they fought like tigers in ww2 "

As German allies, against the Russians.

Finland lost WW2, as Raoul correctly pointed out, as they were allied w/Germany against the USSR. Interestingly, it is the only axis allied country not occupied by the allies at the war's end. Finland put out the "tervetuloa" sign for us during the cold war, enabling us to put our ear up to the USSR's door.

In 1917, when Finland gained its independance from Russia, a German prince was invited to become Finland's king, but the people voted for a republic instead.

Very good comments on the "free ride" angle.

As to the "Why can't we be like Finland?" question posed by the Washintom Post article, the answer is obvious. It is a free ride arguementr of another stripe. Our cultursl diversity demands the disciplines of the market to ensure that each of us pulls his or her weight.

Repl. Obj.: Yeah, yeah, we all know that such safety net as we have is already used as a hammock by many. Forgetaboutit. Our system works because it is in balance--we don't fall off the edge of ideal types.

In 1940 the Finns did everything right and then got screwed. The winter war against the Soviet Union was a masterpiece showing how to defeat a vastly numerically superior opponent by using terrain, unit cohesion, and brilliant tactics.

No suicide bombers, no terror tactics....just straight up old fashioned strategy and tactics.

They had no choice but to ally with the krauts....Remember they already had the example of Czechoslovakia when they contemplated the benefits of allying with the French and (sadly) the British.

The U.S. benefits from a "free ride" of her own - Mexico.

If the U.S. had a Canadian-like society on both sides, and our legal immigration policies were still as self-defeating and xenophobic as they are now, we wouldn't have a huge and constant stream of easily-assimilating immigrants to provide cheap labor and babies.

Relying on native-born American couples to provide population growth would be a failure; we aren't reproducing at a replacement level (although quite close).

Part of the "terminal Europe" argument is quite explicitly that Europe lacks a Mexico to draw human capital from, being instead stuck with a North Africa.

Trying to compare Finland with the States is about as fruitful as comparing China with Vermont.

To the standard Nordic virtues of order and industry, for Finland you can add an instinctive small-country understanding that they have to compete internationally, which means filtering every tax and social initiative through a test of productivity, first class education and getting up in the morning. Serious poverty, civil war and international isolation are still recent enough to concentrate their minds. Also, there is socialism and there is socialism. Although big on taxation and regulation, the Nordics have by and large avoided the disastrous British and Central European habit of direct government management. But live there for a while and watch what happens when you try and step outside of the community consensus.

ligneus:

In terms of the sacrifices made by American troops, I agree, but do you really see U.S. military expenditures over the last generation as a net social and economic loss? Would the States be better off if you had spent like Canada, or is it more probable that, like us, you would have found more wasteful ways to spend the money?

Michael: How is that free-riding. Seems to me that it's arbitrage: we take a resource that the Mexicans have no use for and use it to build a nation just by moving it from one locale to another.

Peter: I'm always amused by the criticism that we spend "too much" on health care compared to nations with socialized medicine. Do you think that if we spent half as much as Finland, our critics would suddenly praise us for our efficiency?

They pay nothing at all, whatsoever, it's all free, except for the high taxes. Why do people construct arguments like that?

Peter's post about the 'standard Nordic virtues of order and indusrty' remind me of Milton Friedman's observation:

OPPONENT: We have no poverty in Sweden!
FRIEDMAN: That's funny, because we have no poverty among Swedes in America either.

it would be hard for any journalist to top the statement:
'..They pay nothing for education at any level'

as an exhibit of ignorance of basic economics.

My personal favorite -

At Absolutely No Cost to You!

David Cohen:

Except that Americans DON'T move Mexicans to the U.S.
On the contrary, the vast majority of Americans at least mildly support keeping Mexicans in Mexico, and OUT of the U.S. Our official immigration policies are designed to make emigration to the U.S. difficult, even for highly educated people.

The Mexicans just show up on their own, and we put 'em to work, and make their babies Americans.

If America had a rational immigration policy, then you would be correct.

We lure them.

Brit:

Even feisty, hard-working Finland is doomed. There is no nut too tough for Orrin to crack on this subject.

Michael: Isn't your point that ours is a rational immigration policy?

David Cohen:

Because rationalism = protectionism ?

I don't quite get the joke.

Because we basically have open immigration for those willing to pass one simple test: can they find a way into the US. After all, someone too dumb to find a way into the country is someone whose children we don't want as citizens.

"Isn't Finland right up there in the suicide rate and heavy drinking department?"

I think so, but that might have something to do with the fact that they live at the Arctic Circle. Six months of darkness tends to do that to people.

David Cohen:

Except that our test doesn't effectively cull the stupid; instead, we're essentially selecting the lucky and the desperate.

That's exactly who made us in the first place.

Walked into that one, Michael.

Finland is certainly among the very best little countries on this planet. A Canadian myself, I have lived in Finland since 1996 and seen the reality. Based on my experience, the blog of Bob Kaiser captures the essentials quite accurately.