Denmark is capitalist, yet the article insists that capitalism has failed. Denmark is also 90%+ white and heavily native-born, ethnic Danish people, but I doubt the good professor is advocating a move toward greater cultural homogeneity. Even the article cannot ignore that last point: The genius of Denmark is not big science, but fast common purpose.
Common purpose comes from people who have a great deal in common, people who share a value system, a culture, and a way of life. That’s harder to do in societies where you can’t tell who’s been around five minutes and who’s been there five generations. And it is near impossible to do in nations that have imported people who are hostile to the native culture.
On a smaller scale, South Dakota did not shut down when the pandemic arrived. It did not panic, it did depend on govt to dictate every waking move. It is also a world apart in culture from, say, New York, especially the city.
Su Mac
3 years ago
Classic ivory tower misunderstandings of American society. Nowhere does personal and financial contribution to charity and community like Americans – even as a society of individualists they are focused on giving a hand up and individual betterment. And which sector of American society represented the largest increase in gun ownership in the last months as cars were set ablaze, malls boarded up, windows of local businesses were smashed and the police pulled back out of their communities? BLACK. WOMEN. How does that fit in with your cliches?
At their best, Americans behave as you say; we saw that with the rescuers in small boats during the Dallas floods a few years back.
Sadly, many Americans are often not at their best. And the problem is not restricted to the mega-city jungles.
Andrew Harvey
3 years ago
Sorry, but this article is a word salad of platitudes.
Yes, Denmark seems like a nice country and the author highlights some good qualities. Too bad they have the highest levels of personal debt of any country in the world. And their animal welfare standards are a bit of a shame. None of this, however, provides any actionable information about how to deal with Covid-19.
“.. highest levels of personal debt..” Lower government debt as % of GDP; higher GDP per capita, higher productivity, lower Gini coefficient, better public services, lower C19 death rate, better current account balance, AND much better looking people.
Like most English – like Nick Cohen – you don’t know much about about the danish economic system. Here is a short primer from our National Bank. – Analyses by Danmarks Nationalbank and others show that the vast majority of Danish households have robust finances and are resilient to an interest-rate hike or a prolonged period of unemployment. Most families have sufficient scope in their budgets to be able to handle e.g. rising interest expenses at their current income levels. Others have savings that they can eat into if their incomes are not quite sufficient, even for longer periods. The share of households with robust finances is particularly high among those with mortgage debt. It is relevant to focus on this group, as mortgage debt accounts for the lion’s share of household debt. – + Most danish employees has a well fundet pension fund – most Danes pay between 15-18% og their wages to a employee owned pension fund, depending on their job. WE are rather rich. And our State finances are well founded too even after Corona. https://www.nationalbanken….
Well, you may be telling Andrew Harvey off, but what about Sir Paul Collier – Harvey May denigrate Denmark but how is this comparable to the British situation. And Collier is supposed to be a high ranking economist, not to mention a knight!
Rather like most of the human race, judged by the world wide panic that is raging around C-19.
John Stone
3 years ago
From the Oxford Blavatnik School of Government website:
” Our supporters range widely, from our original donor Len Blavatnik to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Amersi Foundation, the Inamori Foundation, the Africa Initiative for Governance, the Lemann Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Wellcome Trust and many more.”
Oxford is a morass of philanthropy all apparently to stitch us up with very likely the same networks behind them: the Martin School, the Uehiro Foundation for Practical Ethics, the Jenner Trust, the Oxford Internet Institute. Behind them are the super rich.
‘Trusted leadership is valuable in building new common purposes quickly, such as we suddenly all needed with Covid.’
All a national level all trust ln leadership was destroyed by Iraq, followed by Libya, the response to the financial crisis, MPs expenses, the response to Brexit and various other issues. Their contempt for us is matched only by our hatred of them. And, due to the catastrophically authoritarian and incompetent response to Covid I now hate the Tories as much as I hate Labour.
Meanwhile, hardly anybody trusts the leadership at local levels, although I am currently quite impressed with Burnham, who has always been a little more human and rational than most politicians.
Anyway, It is not necessarily common purpose we need, but common sense. Sadly, there is no chance of that at any level of authority or within any arm of the British state. The whole system is devoid of all integrity, competence or accountability. At least in China there is some accountability. If you don’t run things properly you are out. If you are corrupt you are in jail. Or worse. If we are going to be run by vile authoritarians they might as well be possessed of some competence and accountability. The pathogens that have infested the western mind are, I think, terminal.
As for ‘Greed is Dead’, really, do me a favour. It is more rampant than ever, across the oorporate, governing and public sectors.
Didn’t stop the British people from voting for the 2 main parties that institutionally supported the war. The party that opposed the war didn’t win the GE2005!
Only 61.4% of the great British public saw fit vote in 2005. For most of us the Iraq War was a “quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing”.
Which tells you a lot about the British people and the media from which they suckle. Whatever, I never voted for New Labour, not even in 1997, so I don’t have the dead on my conscience.
If you voted Tory, you voted for a party which was keener on the Iraq War than Labour, in terms of percentage of MPs opposing it. The Labour opponents were the Labour Left, people like Jeremy Corbyn.
Meaby that’s why the English left prefer to talk about the Iraq war 20 years ago instead of Iraq today. A generation ago young left would express solidarity with the young Iraq people who fight for a better future today, they don’t care.
stephensjpriest
3 years ago
Hello Unherd
Full national lockdowns should ONLY be used against coronavirus as a last resort because of the ‘collateral damage’ on mental health, says WHO boss
But he said total lockdowns caused ‘collateral damage’ and should be avoided DAILY MAIL /news/article-8846019/National-lockdowns-resort-says-boss.html
Sheryl Rhodes
3 years ago
The author knows nothing about volunteerism and positive community response to disasters in the United States. We have no shortage of either behavior. Moreover, our tradition of individualism and “can-do” spirit results in spectacular and heroic efforts in response to disasters—we don’t always wait around for some official government to give us permission or come up with a plan; we just do it.
Since the author was specifically speaking about how many Brits responded to a call for volunteers in response to the Covid crisis, my point about how Americans respond enthusiastically with volunteering (and money) in times of crisis is completely on point. We just do, and anyone who thinks we do not is uninformed.
In response to your unsupported leap from my statement that we Americans, too, respond in times of crisis, to an assertion that Americans ONLY respond in times of disaster, that’s also demonstrably false. Data shows that Americans are very generous in donating time and money both locally and abroad.
My quibble is with the author’s illogical and unsupported assertions about American volunteerism. There’s no logical connection between an uptick in firearms sales and volunteerism. You can be concerned enough about personal safety, in a time of civil unrest when police protection has been purposefully withdrawn, to decide to arm yourself–AND also give time and money to help out your community.
Andrew Crisp
3 years ago
The unscientific dictatorship is the same here as any European country.
Aden Wellsmith
3 years ago
So we have mixed economies.
So lets look at the socialist element, the welfare states.
USA, $230 trillion pounds of debts, zero assets, hidden off the books. 30% of taxes going ont he debts.
UK. £14 trillion pounds of debts, zero assets. hidden off the books. 30% of taxes going on the debts. Annual rate of increase, 10%
So austerity, wealth inequality, pensioner poverty, lack of investment all caused by the socialist welfare state.
In re the US, I wouldn’t say “zero assets”. The US has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. That’s still must be worth something. But, yes, it is sure not worth $230,000,000,000,000.
1. The top echelon (say the top twelfth) gobbling too much of the cake
ie big business and finance, plus tech entrepreneurs (+ all the hangers-on of the above) wrecking capitalism for the sake of their selfish and unbridled Appetites and Egos
Thus
2. The desperate need for welfare measures to rescue much of the population.
The Homesteaders who built America were dispossessed by big business and the banks – not by “socialism” or welfarism.
David Redfern
3 years ago
What a lot of ideological drivel. No wonder we’re in the mess we are with these loonies influencing our youth.
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
Perfect article for imperfect times but having read the comments below, it now seems I’m the odd one out.
Seems ethnic nationalism led by Andy Burnham might be the solution in the UK.
Andrew Crisp
3 years ago
What a load of bollocks! Idiotic restrictions are as prevalent here as any other country. I have witnessed the illogical restrictions imposed here that the public have followed like mindless sheep.
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
UK should invite the Danes to liberate the country from BoJo/Tories. Let’s call it Glorious Revolution 2.0.
I am aware of Max Weber’s work on Protestantism and capitalism but I would argue that it was in Renaissance Italy that capitalism was born (finance, banking, accounting, etc.) And Spanish/Portuguese voyages made possible the flood of gold/silver to Europe.
Orla 28
3 years ago
The professor claims to have refuted capitalism but fails to acknowledge communitarianism has been refuted as nothing more than a cult of the wealthiest top 1%. Communitarianism still leaves us with a wealthy elite ruling class, many from said higher social class have made their money off the backs of the tax payer, now they want a panopticon styled communitarian system to give us back charitable tokens in the name of community. Instead of government welfare we will have welfare doled out by the billionaire class in the form of stakeholder capitalism dressed as communitarianism. Acknowledging the flaws within central bank money creation and adjusting accordingly solves many of the issues the Professor highlights. The communitarian cult is nothing more than a vague and verbose way for the billionaire class to condense power under the guise of humanitarianism.
Amitai Etzioni is the cult leader of communitarianism, he is israeli.
Orla 28
3 years ago
The professor claims to have refuted capitalism but fails to acknowledge communitarianism has been refuted as nothing more than a cult of the wealthiest top 1%. Communitarianism still leaves us with a wealthy elite ruling class, many from said higher social class have made their money off the backs of the tax payer, now they want a panopticon styled communitarian system to give us back charitable tokens in the name of community. Instead of government welfare we will have welfare doled out by the billionaire class in the form of stakeholder capitalism dressed as communitarianism.
Acknowledging the flaws within central bank money creation and adjusting accordingly solves many of the issues the Professor highlights.
The communitarian cult is nothing more than a vague and verbose way for the billionaire class to condense power under the guise of humanitarianism.
Amitai Etzioni is the cult leader of communitarianism, he is israeli.
Tony Buck
3 years ago
Our current Selfish Individualism must be replaced by Altruistic Individualism (co-operative Individualism, if you prefer).
Repeat: MUST !
This is not a mere option.
For the first time since 1945, we are in a time of crisis. And in such times, WH Auden’s line “We must love one another or die” becomes constant political necessity, not mere ethical aspiration.
Denmark is capitalist, yet the article insists that capitalism has failed. Denmark is also 90%+ white and heavily native-born, ethnic Danish people, but I doubt the good professor is advocating a move toward greater cultural homogeneity. Even the article cannot ignore that last point:
The genius of Denmark is not big science, but fast common purpose.
Common purpose comes from people who have a great deal in common, people who share a value system, a culture, and a way of life. That’s harder to do in societies where you can’t tell who’s been around five minutes and who’s been there five generations. And it is near impossible to do in nations that have imported people who are hostile to the native culture.
On a smaller scale, South Dakota did not shut down when the pandemic arrived. It did not panic, it did depend on govt to dictate every waking move. It is also a world apart in culture from, say, New York, especially the city.
Classic ivory tower misunderstandings of American society. Nowhere does personal and financial contribution to charity and community like Americans – even as a society of individualists they are focused on giving a hand up and individual betterment. And which sector of American society represented the largest increase in gun ownership in the last months as cars were set ablaze, malls boarded up, windows of local businesses were smashed and the police pulled back out of their communities? BLACK. WOMEN. How does that fit in with your cliches?
At their best, Americans behave as you say; we saw that with the rescuers in small boats during the Dallas floods a few years back.
Sadly, many Americans are often not at their best. And the problem is not restricted to the mega-city jungles.
Sorry, but this article is a word salad of platitudes.
Yes, Denmark seems like a nice country and the author highlights some good qualities. Too bad they have the highest levels of personal debt of any country in the world. And their animal welfare standards are a bit of a shame. None of this, however, provides any actionable information about how to deal with Covid-19.
“.. highest levels of personal debt..”
Lower government debt as % of GDP; higher GDP per capita, higher productivity, lower Gini coefficient, better public services, lower C19 death rate, better current account balance, AND much better looking people.
SE the link above
Like most English – like Nick Cohen – you don’t know much about about the danish economic system. Here is a short primer from our National Bank. – Analyses by Danmarks Nationalbank and others show that the vast majority of Danish households have robust finances and are resilient to an interest-rate hike or a prolonged period of unemployment. Most families have sufficient scope in their budgets to be able to handle e.g. rising interest expenses at their current income levels. Others have savings that they can eat into if their incomes are not quite sufficient, even for longer periods. The share of households with robust finances is particularly high among those with mortgage debt. It is relevant to focus on this group, as mortgage debt accounts for the lion’s share of household debt. – + Most danish employees has a well fundet pension fund – most Danes pay between 15-18% og their wages to a employee owned pension fund, depending on their job. WE are rather rich. And our State finances are well founded too even after Corona. https://www.nationalbanken….
Well, you may be telling Andrew Harvey off, but what about Sir Paul Collier – Harvey May denigrate Denmark but how is this comparable to the British situation. And Collier is supposed to be a high ranking economist, not to mention a knight!
Communitarianism is just that, verbose, vague and full of platitude, the difference is the billionaire class get more power.
Sheep are pretty much the same in any country: unquestioning, compliant, contented in their ignorance.
True, the question is your sheepdog better.
It’s not a sheepdog that’s needed but rather that gladiator of dogs, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier .
Rather like most of the human race, judged by the world wide panic that is raging around C-19.
From the Oxford Blavatnik School of Government website:
” Our supporters range widely, from our original donor Len Blavatnik to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Amersi Foundation, the Inamori Foundation, the Africa Initiative for Governance, the Lemann Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Wellcome Trust and many more.”
Oxford is a morass of philanthropy all apparently to stitch us up with very likely the same networks behind them: the Martin School, the Uehiro Foundation for Practical Ethics, the Jenner Trust, the Oxford Internet Institute. Behind them are the super rich.
So who is all this conformism really for?
Indeed, Cui Bono?
‘Trusted leadership is valuable in building new common purposes quickly, such as we suddenly all needed with Covid.’
All a national level all trust ln leadership was destroyed by Iraq, followed by Libya, the response to the financial crisis, MPs expenses, the response to Brexit and various other issues. Their contempt for us is matched only by our hatred of them. And, due to the catastrophically authoritarian and incompetent response to Covid I now hate the Tories as much as I hate Labour.
Meanwhile, hardly anybody trusts the leadership at local levels, although I am currently quite impressed with Burnham, who has always been a little more human and rational than most politicians.
Anyway, It is not necessarily common purpose we need, but common sense. Sadly, there is no chance of that at any level of authority or within any arm of the British state. The whole system is devoid of all integrity, competence or accountability. At least in China there is some accountability. If you don’t run things properly you are out. If you are corrupt you are in jail. Or worse. If we are going to be run by vile authoritarians they might as well be possessed of some competence and accountability. The pathogens that have infested the western mind are, I think, terminal.
As for ‘Greed is Dead’, really, do me a favour. It is more rampant than ever, across the oorporate, governing and public sectors.
“…leadership was destroyed by Iraq…”
Didn’t stop the British people from voting for the 2 main parties that institutionally supported the war. The party that opposed the war didn’t win the GE2005!
Only 61.4% of the great British public saw fit vote in 2005.
For most of us the Iraq War was a “quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing”.
It doesn’t change the fact that the British people voted for the same parties
Which tells you a lot about the British people and the media from which they suckle. Whatever, I never voted for New Labour, not even in 1997, so I don’t have the dead on my conscience.
If you voted Tory, you voted for a party which was keener on the Iraq War than Labour, in terms of percentage of MPs opposing it. The Labour opponents were the Labour Left, people like Jeremy Corbyn.
Charles Kennedy? I voted for him for precisely that reason.
Not enough of you!
H.L. Mencken understood the people correctly 100 years ago.
Meaby that’s why the English left prefer to talk about the Iraq war 20 years ago instead of Iraq today. A generation ago young left would express solidarity with the young Iraq people who fight for a better future today, they don’t care.
Hello Unherd
Full national lockdowns should ONLY be used against coronavirus as a last resort because of the ‘collateral damage’ on mental health, says WHO boss
But he said total lockdowns caused ‘collateral damage’ and should be avoided
DAILY MAIL /news/article-8846019/National-lockdowns-resort-says-boss.html
The author knows nothing about volunteerism and positive community response to disasters in the United States. We have no shortage of either behavior. Moreover, our tradition of individualism and “can-do” spirit results in spectacular and heroic efforts in response to disasters—we don’t always wait around for some official government to give us permission or come up with a plan; we just do it.
In other words, the USA is only a good society at times of disaster.
At all other times, it is a sad and lonely society plagued by social problems.
Eg the opioid and other drug epidemics now ravaging the American heartland
Since the author was specifically speaking about how many Brits responded to a call for volunteers in response to the Covid crisis, my point about how Americans respond enthusiastically with volunteering (and money) in times of crisis is completely on point. We just do, and anyone who thinks we do not is uninformed.
In response to your unsupported leap from my statement that we Americans, too, respond in times of crisis, to an assertion that Americans ONLY respond in times of disaster, that’s also demonstrably false. Data shows that Americans are very generous in donating time and money both locally and abroad.
My quibble is with the author’s illogical and unsupported assertions about American volunteerism. There’s no logical connection between an uptick in firearms sales and volunteerism. You can be concerned enough about personal safety, in a time of civil unrest when police protection has been purposefully withdrawn, to decide to arm yourself–AND also give time and money to help out your community.
The unscientific dictatorship is the same here as any European country.
So we have mixed economies.
So lets look at the socialist element, the welfare states.
USA, $230 trillion pounds of debts, zero assets, hidden off the books. 30% of taxes going ont he debts.
UK. £14 trillion pounds of debts, zero assets. hidden off the books. 30% of taxes going on the debts. Annual rate of increase, 10%
So austerity, wealth inequality, pensioner poverty, lack of investment all caused by the socialist welfare state.
No wonder people want to blame capitalism.
In re the US, I wouldn’t say “zero assets”. The US has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. That’s still must be worth something. But, yes, it is sure not worth $230,000,000,000,000.
No, caused mainly by:
1. The top echelon (say the top twelfth) gobbling too much of the cake
ie big business and finance, plus tech entrepreneurs (+ all the hangers-on of the above) wrecking capitalism for the sake of their selfish and unbridled Appetites and Egos
Thus
2. The desperate need for welfare measures to rescue much of the population.
The Homesteaders who built America were dispossessed by big business and the banks – not by “socialism” or welfarism.
What a lot of ideological drivel. No wonder we’re in the mess we are with these loonies influencing our youth.
Perfect article for imperfect times but having read the comments below, it now seems I’m the odd one out.
Seems ethnic nationalism led by Andy Burnham might be the solution in the UK.
What a load of bollocks! Idiotic restrictions are as prevalent here as any other country. I have witnessed the illogical restrictions imposed here that the public have followed like mindless sheep.
UK should invite the Danes to liberate the country from BoJo/Tories. Let’s call it Glorious Revolution 2.0.
What a splendid idea. We could also offer them ‘Danegeld’, as we used to!
Access to fishing grounds should be good enough (Danegeld = Danefisk).
No, expand your own fishing industries. But of course Denmark has made fishing deals with England since the 13. century
Capitalism was built on the Protestant faith + the accompanying virtues and public spirit
All those things died in the 1960’s.
Only ghosts and pretences now remain.
I am aware of Max Weber’s work on Protestantism and capitalism but I would argue that it was in Renaissance Italy that capitalism was born (finance, banking, accounting, etc.) And Spanish/Portuguese voyages made possible the flood of gold/silver to Europe.
The professor claims to have refuted capitalism but fails to acknowledge communitarianism has been refuted as nothing more than a cult of the wealthiest top 1%.
Communitarianism still leaves us with a wealthy elite ruling class, many from said higher social class have made their money off the backs of the tax payer, now they want a panopticon styled communitarian system to give us back charitable tokens in the name of community.
Instead of government welfare we will have welfare doled out by the billionaire class in the form of stakeholder capitalism dressed as communitarianism.
Acknowledging the flaws within central bank money creation and adjusting accordingly solves many of the issues the Professor highlights.
The communitarian cult is nothing more than a vague and verbose way for the billionaire class to condense power under the guise of humanitarianism.
Amitai Etzioni is the cult leader of communitarianism, he is israeli.
The professor claims to have refuted capitalism but fails to acknowledge communitarianism has been refuted as nothing more than a cult of the wealthiest top 1%.
Communitarianism still leaves us with a wealthy elite ruling class, many from said higher social class have made their money off the backs of the tax payer, now they want a panopticon styled communitarian system to give us back charitable tokens in the name of community.
Instead of government welfare we will have welfare doled out by the billionaire class in the form of stakeholder capitalism dressed as communitarianism.
Acknowledging the flaws within central bank money creation and adjusting accordingly solves many of the issues the Professor highlights.
The communitarian cult is nothing more than a vague and verbose way for the billionaire class to condense power under the guise of humanitarianism.
Amitai Etzioni is the cult leader of communitarianism, he is israeli.
Our current Selfish Individualism must be replaced by Altruistic Individualism (co-operative Individualism, if you prefer).
Repeat: MUST !
This is not a mere option.
For the first time since 1945, we are in a time of crisis. And in such times, WH Auden’s line “We must love one another or die” becomes constant political necessity, not mere ethical aspiration.
People thinking of the common good is not the same as them all having to think the same thing, as determined very likely by global oligarchs.