As Bernie Suggested: The Way to Make America Great Again Is to Be More Like Scandinavia
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When Anu Partanen moved from her native Finland to the United States in 2008, she was looking for the American dream. You know the one: the family, the career, and the idea that if you work hard enough, you will be successful, prosperous, and happy. Plus, Finland is freezing cold and dark in the winter. America, by comparison, seemed flooded with sunshine and opportunity.
What she found instead was a nation battered by the financial collapse and lacking everything that had made life so comfortable in Finland: the five weeks of paid vacation in the summer, the free healthcare, the relative job security. In Finland, she'd been almost stress-free, but here, it seemed like just about everybody was struggling to keep their head above water. A few years after she'd moved to the US, a British politician summed it up perfectly: "If you want the American dream, go to Finland."
Partanen, who is now an American citizen and lives in New York City, argues for America to adopt the "Nordic model" in her new book, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life (which comes out from Harper Collins today). The book takes stock of education, work, health, and more as they exist in America and in countries like Finland, Sweden, and Norway. In one chapter, she hones in on the work-life balance in both countries and finds that the very thing that we think makes America so great—our innovation, entrepreneurship, and businesses savvy—is actually stifled by policies that force employees to work too hard, too long, and to the point of misery.
We spoke to Partanen about the differences between work in America and in countries like Finland, and why she believes the key to success is in the Nordic model.