Individualism is one of the great foundations of Western culture. But unless society secures personal independence and basic security for the individ… - Anu Partanen

All told, thanks to these various forms of freedom from the old-fashioned logistical dependence on one’s parents, children in Nordic countries have an easier time successfully managing the transition to adulthood. What a disaster, an American might think, that young people could end up on welfare straight out of school.

Finally a special committee published its recommendation: Finland should create a unified public school system. Reactions were all over the map. Primary school teachers believed that every student could learn equally well, while university professors tended to be skeptical. Politicians were divided.

[...] Markus Jäntti, a Finnish economist at the University of Helsinki, who with his colleagues looked at inherited disadvantage—in other words, how much worse your chances are for success if you’re born into a low-income family. They found that in the United States, 40 percent of men who were born into the lowest income bracket stayed in it. In the Nordic countries, that figure was only 25 percent. [...] America is no longer the land of opportunity, northern Europe is. This is the reality that led the British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband to make his surprising statement in 2012: “If you want the American dream, go to Finland.”