Someday I hope we’ll be able to have some contributions from the Faith and Work Collective on this blog. In the meantime, I’m going to keep telling you to go read their stuff. 🙂 Great post by Kevin Kinghorn, talking about the Denmark/Scandinavian model of economics from the perspective of someone who has actually been to Denmark:
The discussion about Denmark is of particular interest to me because I’ve had extended visits there on four occasions. In fact, I’m currently there right now—my daughter is attending a Danish ballet school for 5 weeks. Over the years, I’ve had the chance to observe quite a bit about Danish life. And I’ve talked with quite a few Americans and Brits who have made Denmark their home.
I don’t want to get into debates about the Danish (and wider Scandinavian) models of governmental services and safety nets. I would just want to say that there are some strikingly positive aspects to this model, as far as I can see.
I have not been to Denmark, but I have British relatives and can say some of the same things about the social safety nets and universal healthcare in Britain from the perspective of having actually observed people benefiting from them. When my husband lost his job and we were unable to get healthcare at anything under $1000 a month until the passage of the Affordable Care Act, we happened to be visiting family there who asked us numbers of polite variations on “why is your country crazy?” (Because they were British, they were very polite. By the way, they are still asking.)
Kevin has a lot more to say, including two important Christian criteria for evaluating any economic model. Check it out.
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