Nick Kristof is Wrong About Norway
What liberals still don't get about Scandinavia
A few days ago, columnist Nick Kristof published a lengthy piece of reporting on the Scandinavian model in the New York Times. Pegged to the Fourth of July, and published in print under the title “Learning From Nordic Happiness”, its unstated subtext was that America may actually have things to learn from the North European model, and Norway in particular. In this sense at least, the effort was clearly well-intended. Kristof, for his part, is a self-described progressive and much of the piece consists in presenting evidence that countries like Norway do not, in fact, suffer from the kinds of social and economic maladies their American detractors so often assert. In that spirit, here’s how it begins:
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