Superior? To whom?

All I’ve said is that this group, under this set of circumstances and environmental conditions, has this descriptive characteristic.

It is racist in the sense that we see a group as inferior or superior based on an extremely simplistic notion of how evolution works and the effects of environment on evolution over an extremely short (evolutionarily speaking) timeframe.

Also, the difference between “adaptable” (see my words “ability to adapt”) and “have adapted” is significant. One (”adapted”) refers to changes in the organism over time, the other (”adaptable”) refers to an organism’s ability to survive in varied environments. It is, perhaps, a subtle distinction, but it is an extremely important one.

I believe that you are also misunderstanding the term “learned” as I have attempted to use it. When you learned to read, was that something that your culture did or did you, individually, acquire that ability? Please don’t go into the cultural development of reading. If you prefer, substitute “swim” or “dress” for “read.”

Nobody’s oppressing anybody; nobody’s making any claim of superiority or supremacy.

Nobody here except for you, of course, with your claim that, in terms of poverty, Swedes (or Scandinavians) are superior. Combine that claim with a total lack of supporting evidence tying that to the genetics to which you also refer and, yeah, it sounds suspiciously like racism.

Nor is Sweden much wealthier than other countries when you look at our BNP - what wealth we, as a society, have stem directly from our high taxes and system of redistibution throughout society. I believe that our culture of cooperation and consensus (that is we discuss an issue until all can agree) is the key.

From what folks here have said, racism is power + prejudice, with some quibbles maybe about what kinds of power count or don’t count. But this scenario doesn’t appear to have either power or prejudice involved. Nobody’s oppressing anybody; nobody’s making any claim of superiority or supremacy. All that’s being asserted is that one particular little group has - to borrow the evolutionary language that Jake is using - adapted and learned a particular set of character traits that has served them well, in one narrow area. (Jake - adapted means that your gene pool has been selected for the traits that are good for the environment you’re in. Learned means that your culture has done the same. So you’re saying exactly what Milton Friedman said.)

I don’t understand how this idea of Mr. Friedman’s is in any way “racist”. I wish someone would explain it to me.

That is just dangerously close to the racist ravings of JimB in his comment (7/4 at 6:21PM) over at Pandagon (link).

Not to mention overly simplistic and unsupported by any evidence thus far. Human beings are so wildly successful because of their ability to adapt and to learn. So, it’s possible that Scandinavians survived so well because they adapted to conditions and learned the best way to succeed in those conditions. You know, as opposed to having the stupid and the lazy die out without passing on their genes.

There are ethnic group differences, largely based on isolation and natural selection for local environmental conditions, on a variety of traits. Some are small, some are fairly large; I don’t believe that’s controversial. (If it is controversial, how do you explain the adaptations of skin color, eyelid structure, body hair, and the like among racial groups historically living under particular sets of conditions, without invoking group differences founded in genetics? Is it racist to know that Eskimos have really high levels of body fat?)

You didn’t answer my questions. How is it racist to think there’s a connection between being ethnically Swedish and not living in poverty? And, is it racist to notice objectively true things?

I can’t be sure of it, if by “sure” you mean in possession of peer-reviewed studies. I just know it to be true. (In the case of Scandinavians living in Scandinavia, it’s indisputable. Those countries have incredibly low poverty rates in general.) I’ve met people all over the country, from all ethnic groups. They all have lovely diversity, etc. But I never met any poor Swedes; the poorest Swedes I’ve ever met were people living in voluntary austerity while they gathered resources for some great project.

The economist was asserting that Scandinavians weren’t poor because of their wonderful economic system. Friedman thought that Scandinavians in America (and in Scandinavia) weren’t poor because the individual (rather than systemic) factors that bear on poverty have been savagely beaten out of their cultural and genetic inheritances by a few millenia of the harsh conditions of Scandinavia. When you live on the Arctic Circle, if you are lazy, you die. If you are stupid, you die. If you are antisocial, you die. And so on. Cultural institutions are subject to the same pressures. So Scandinavian immigrants to the US were drawing from a pool of people whose cultures told them “work or die” and whose genes had gone through the same filter.

If the former, I suspect the statement is correct, but it’s also meaningless - very few legal, first-generation immigrants of any nationality are poor, due to selection effects. (There are a few specific historic exceptions, involving the US government deliberately seeking very poor immigrants to do jobs like railroad work).

If the latter, I’m wondering how you can be sure that Americans of Swedish decent are less likely to be poor than Americans of other backgrounds. It’s not like there aren’t any poor white people in the US. (I assume that most Swedes are white, although to tell you the truth it’s not like I’ve ever been to Sweden.)

In neither case is M.F.’s argument particularly clever or telling. The main reason M.F.’s argument, as quoted by you, is defensible is that it’s so unspecific and undeveloped that you can’t pin it down to mean anything at all. Why does he (or you, since you thought it worth quoting) think that Swedes in the US aren’t poor?

And he didn’t imply it. He stated it. And it’s empirically true. There are no (or very, very few) Swedes who live in poverty.

Is it racist to note objectively true things?

Any party that holds power ends up having to make some “right-wing” (and some left-wing) decisions, or the state goes kerplunkt.

I think Sweden has a great system, on balance; the difficulty with is it that there are unique Swedish strengths and circumstances that aren’t replicable outside your unique position. Milton Friedman once had an amicable debate with a Swedish economist who said that “in Sweden we have no poor people”; Friedman’s riposte was that in America, among Swedes, we have no poor people either.

Every party says that that is what they want. What their politics actually lead to might vary.

From what I understand even our right-wing parties would seem left-wing in the US. On the other hand our socialist demokrat government has made some decisions that would seem right-wing to you. (And too me - I actually see them as being in the center rather than on the left-wing - though it’s a big party with many fractions.)

I think that it is our proportional democracy that makes our system work for the best more often than not.

I am also very proud to say that when ALL of the establishment, all the money, every media, the government and the opposition both, was for Sweden joining the Euro, people read up on all the facts and argued and discussed in the streets and everywhere else and the people voted no to the Euro. My younger sisters stood on the square in the town where they lived then every day after school - giving people information and answering questions.

We are the proof that legwork and superior arguments pays off.

For Medicare. For Medicaid you just show up. It works more like a free system with a veneer of payments; my understanding is that the Medicare payments are there to provide some disincentive/brake on casual use, not to bring in real revenue. (The guy who really just wants some attention and doesn’t have anything wrong with him might refrain from clogging up the doctor’s office if it’s going to cost him $25 to get seen.)

Maia -

Medicare is universal; you pass an age milepost, you’re in. I’m really not sure about the progressive/regressive nature of the taxes involved; the US tax system is mixed, with some components being highly progressive (income taxes) and others being flat or regressive (retirement taxes).

I don’t know enough about Joss’ politics to make a definitive statement; I would wager with 70% confidence that he’s a democratic socialist in the American mold rather than the European or Pacific. Meaning, comfortable with markets and entrepreneurial economic organization, but desiring a very strong government-provided safety net and extensive bootstrapping for the people on the bottom of the ladder. I don’t know what that would be called on your side of the pond.

Back to Joss, sorry I missed the link Robert - you said:

He’s basically a democratic socialist, and he says that the Alliance is basically a benevolent, enlightened state); to me, that adds up to Alliance = Sweden with a vigorous foreign policy)

See I’m already having problems with the different between democratic socialist and social democrat. Where I come from social democrat usually means a liberal with a little more integrity - someone who wants to go back to say 1972. Whereas Democratic Socialist means anything from a uncommitted radical to a Marxist. The only reason I don’t stalk Joss is because the Pacific is in the way, and I don’t know enough about his politics to know where on the left his politics fall.

Even more importantly just because he describes the Alliance as a benevolent enlightened state, doesn’t mean that it’s his idea of a perfect state. I don’t think Joss ever says it’s a socialist state (he does say that it stands for feminism, but I don’t have the vaguest idea of what he means by that).

What I actually meant was that when hospitals are state-owned there is no need to consider patients monetary status at all. As I understand it this (insurance, medicare, how affluent a patient is) takes lot of time and energy on everyones part.