You know I was saying about us being an emerging low-trust society an’all? Well. Well. Looky here. Via Jared Bernstein, the correlation between inequality and the demand for security guards.
Look ma! There’s our kid next to Italy and Greece. And there’s something weird about Belgium, but everyone knows that.
Testing comment form on Safari
Great – got through. As I was saying… something weird about Norway, too. Norway had its own National Socialist government (or two of them – the first Quisling government was a total mess and got replaced quite quickly; they let him have the wheel again later in the war when they were less fussed about setting examples of good governance); Belgium had not one but two home-grown Fascist parties, one of whose leaders Hitler took a shine to in a fatherly sort of way. As I understand it the Norwegian de-Nazification effort was really massive (much bigger than the French equivalent) & cut a huge swathe through the public sector – think Iraq and de-Baathification. Maybe they didn’t get the roots out.
I was actually thinking that it might be something to do with oil, or perhaps proximity to Russia. Also, Norway has conscription.
There’s something in the culture of Norway that’s just a bit more (small c) conservative than the “Scandinavian stereotype.” Not sure what it adds up to, perhaps is the way people are spread around, you get that Texas or Western Australia mentality…