Sustainable modernity: The Nordic model and beyond

the inspiration of our work on sustainable modernity in Scandinavia comes from the evolutionary thought especially davidstown Wilson and his colleagues from the evolutionary Institute what we found seductive about their approach is their emphasis on the role of cooperation and pro-social behavior in the evolution of human and animal species we've been always reading Darwin they say Darwin is not about might is right his message is that the human evolution and the most successful species succeed not because they're selfish genes but because of the of the skill in collaborating with one another and they're caring for one another one of the most famous examples of collaborative defense is found among the musk oxen when attacked by wolves they form a circle with the calves in the middle and their horns facing out this collaborative behavior allows them to fence off other attackers and in this way they survive in the hostile world now what does this mean at one level between the oxen there is collaboration but at another level between the oxen and the Wolves there is competition and the oxen are so much better off because they collaborate a good analogy in human society is actually a football game we're a team which consisted only of egos such as Maradona or Renaldo's would lose bhisma Lee to a team that knows how to play in tandem in other words while selfish Ron Aldo's beat ordinary players in one-to-one couplings a team of cooperative players will beat a team of selfish prima donnas so what does this have to do with the Nordic model firstly it stands in contrast to the neoliberal model exemplifying crude Darwinism where competition run all the way through between individuals between firms and between societies in ideal socialism on the other hand the ideal is organized collaboration on all levels now it has been argued that the Nordic model is a middle ground between neoliberalism and socialism as we see it however the Nordics combined them but with full collaboration at one level and sharp competition at another in this way they can combine a competitive advantage of collaboration let's take the Norwegian petroleum economy the basis of its success is the development of a highly competitive and technically advanced offshore industry but the super profits from oil extraction have been collectively appropriated by society and put into the petroleum fund so here again we have the special combination of collaboration and competition at different levels that characterizes the Nordic model now you see the core question in volusia nari scheme of things is how has it come about that the Nordic countries are such masters of collaboration and this is where culture comes in we argue that although the Nordic societies differ economically and politically they share a common and very strong moral culture which has for ages promoted a pro-social cooperative mindset the co-operative habits of the heart have been transmitted by folk takes family values national literature's political visions and the models of cultural heroes it is enough to think of the Norwegian escalating the Swedish people angstrom and the Finnish mummy trolls to see the emphasis on the value of teamwork skilled in the art of teamwork the Nordics can successfully compete internationally while some of the world's most open economies of course the Nordic model is not without challenges such as globalization digitalized economy or integration there are many clashes and collisions however at the end of the 20th century in the beginning of the 21st the Nordics have managed to create what we call a sustainable modernity and well-being societies so for me the most interesting feature of the Nordic model is that Norway has scaled up what takes place more or less naturally in small groups if you look at small groups then we've really evolved by natural selection to live in small groups and to cooperate in small groups it's there that it's easy to hold each other in check to be known by our actions the most interesting thing for me was how most the Nordic model is geared towards a way of doing politics rather than a way of producing distinct policies the focus on on on compromise on negotiations tying stakeholders to the eventual outcome makes up for a high level of competence a high level of trust and a high level of stabilities across the Nordic countries so that while policies varies over time and between the countries the way of doing politics is quite similar think in terms of the gender equality regime we have developed a rather unique model of work-life balance that encourages people and parents to be both active in working life and to have a family life at the same time and it goes for women as well as for men I think the most interesting feature and one that's really misunderstood by an international audience is that the welfare system is not just a social safety it's a it's a way of doing capitalism in Norway as a country in particular that is exposes itself to international competition it's an export-driven economy and that means that Norwegian capitalism is quite dynamic you have firms and sectors that go out of business and then you do have you have a you do have a social safety net that catches these people when they're ejective from the labor market but when you have you also have active labor market policy that make sure that they get education that they're retrained sometimes even that they're moved to sectors that are really active and productive the Nordic combination of collaboration and competition can be quite paradoxical at times we see this in that climate policies on the one hand with a large forests they've more than sufficient bio capacity to absorb the emissions from their small populations so they could in principle just relax nevertheless the Nordics are still eager supporters of international collective climate action and they even like to see themselves as frontrunners so for the Nordics collaborative climate responsibility and competitive economic growth have to go hand-in-hand so I think that while the system has many strengths and should certainly be viewed as a model there are very important challenges I think that there's a problem with its political sustainability as we've seen I don't I don't believe that the Nordic model was something that was necessarily born directly from the social democratic imagination but Social Democrats played a very large role in making its construction possible and we've seen Social Democratic parties decline throughout Europe and also in Scandinavia and so I think that to the extent that the Social Democratic parties underperform in elections and we see the rise of neoliberal center-right and right-wing parties I think one danger which is both internal and external is what we call the neoliberal narrative neoliberal thought it basically makes seems to make a certain kind of sense and seems to justify forms of individualism which are in fact a toxic to society another difficulty which is growing is increased polarization both within societies in between societies the Nordic model and the process of the Nordic model is collaborative and cooperative and as the polarization increases as the hostility between parties between audiologists increases if thus is brought into the Nordic model we will not be able to make the compromises to get the good policies that we have so far to an unprecedented extent the younger generation the United States is very interested in the Nordic model in good measure because of Burnitz and is very successful campaign where he almost won the presidential primary and he has motivated more young people and since I've seen in 1960s when I was a younger person myself I think younger people have stayed involved even if they aren't necessarily for the reason of Bernie Sanders and there have been a number of a younger people have been elected or running on Social Democratic platforms in the Democratic primary to a higher degree than ever before there is also the fact that most younger people in the United States don't find the word socialism or social democracy at pourraient in any way there's a sense in which all nations need the same ingredients the same core design principles to function well in that sense the success of Norway can be exported by exporting those core design principles but every nation has its own history every nation has its own mechanisms whereby these design principles are implemented and often that cannot be exported and so it's a matter of learning from Norway and other successful countries and then thinking about how the active ingredients can be adopted

Channel: SUM Centre for Development and the Environment, UiO

Views: 3,321

Keywords: The Nordic Model, Nordic Model, Sustainable societies, Sustainability, Evolution Institute, Nina Witoszek, Atle Midttun, David Sloan Wilson, Nik Brandal, Cathrine Holst, Jerry Lieberman, Kelly McKowen

Id: 8yvTLxIziaQ

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2019