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Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right-and How We Can, Too - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right-and How We Can, Too

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"Helps to lift the lid on what makes Northern Europe tick."—Forbes Magazine

Liberals worldwide invoke Scandinavia as a promised land of equality, while most conservatives fear it as a hotbed of liberty-threatening socialism. But the left and right can usually agree on one thing: that the Nordic system is impossible to replicate elsewhere. The US and UK are too big, or too individualistic, or too . . . something.  
In Viking Economics—now with a new afterword by the author—George Lakey dispels these myths. He explores the inner workings of the Nordic economies that boast the world’s happiest, most productive workers, and explains how we can enact some of the changes—including universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and a month of paid vacation for all—that the Scandinavians fought for surprisingly recently. We, too, can refuse to be governed by the elites and embrace equality in our economic policy—here’s how. 

ISBN-13: 9781612196213

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Melville House Publishing

Publication Date: 07-11-2017

Pages: 320

Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

George Lakey has been active in direct action campaigns for six decades. Recently retired from Swarthmore College, where he was the Eugene M. Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change, Lakey was first arrested at a civil rights demonstration in March 1963, and his most recent arrest was on March 29, 2018, as a participant in the Power Local Green Jobs Campaign. His latest book is How We Win: A Guide to Non-Violent Direct Action Campaigning. He lives in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Discovering Today's Vikings Beyond the Guidebooks ix

Part I How They Got to the Top

1 Vikings as Iconic Adventurers, Then and Now 3

2 Making Their Way in a Globalized World 11

3 Vikings Get Lost. Bankers Go Wild 27

4 Iceland Creates the Biggest Crash, then Rebounds 35

5 How Norwegians Empowered Themselves to Adopt the Nordic Model 53

Part II Design for Living in the Nordic Countries

6 More Start-ups than the United States: Support for Entrepreneurs, Workers, and the Equality of Women 75

7 Family Farmers and Cooperatives: Key Players in the Nordic Model 95

8 Preventing Poverty: Nordics Learn How an Advanced Economy Can Abolish Poverty 105

9 Creating Work/Life Balance 131

10 Breaking Barriers to Education and Lifelong Learning 143

11 Paying for What You Get: The Viking Approach to Taxes 161

Part III Today's Challenges, for Them and for Us

12 Allowing Racial and Other Differences to Work for the Common Good 179

13 Reaching for High Goals on Climate Change 205

14 How Relevant Is the Nordic Model to the United States? 221

Afterword: New Questions for a New Era 249

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 267