Be Like Me
The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle, by Michael Booth, London: Jonathan Cape (a division of Random House Group, Ltd.), 2014, 406 pages, paperback.
In the age of Bernie Sanders, the myth of Scandinavian Utopia has yet again tickled America’s collective fancy. If we could all just be more like the Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes, goes the refrain, our problems would be, if not solved outright, at least considerably alleviated. After all, Scandinavia is the Place That Makes Socialism Work, eloquent testimony to the desirability of Big Government, if only it’s run by the right people. Scandinavian countries have for decades enjoyed among the world’s highest standards of living, education, and overall quality of life, sustaining peaceful, prosperous, orderly societies in which violent crime is almost nonexistent and people work to live, and not the other way around, spending their copious leisure time traveling the world and drinking one another’s health. Such, at least, are the fashionable clichés.
However, British author Michael Booth’s new tour de force, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle, gives a sobering look at the sociopolitical realities in Scandinavia (including Iceland and Finland, which are more properly included with Sweden, Denmark, and Norway under the label “Nordic countries”), an honest appraisal that will have Americans suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or Danish Delusion giving a second thought to relocating to Bergen, Malmö, or Helsinki.
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