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Originally Posted by snowjeeper
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I would question your source for ranking these countries. The ranking comes from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development whose motto is "For a stronger, cleaner, fairer world economy". I can make any ranking I want for which countries are the happiest if I get to choose what makes people happy. Obviously they see an environment where the government has more control over your life as a source of happiness and therefore it ranks higher.
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Just like Sweden, Denmark is a Nordic welfare state with most of its services free to the citizens. Expect to pay 72% of your money to the government on the highest income tax bracket. According to Wikipedia Denmark has the worlds highest taxes! When buying a car in Denmark one has to pay 25% VAT to the import price of the vehicle and then a 180% registration tax on top. That means when a car sells for $20 000, you have to pay an additional $45 000 as taxes for the government (total of $65 000).
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I am just saying that a lot of things are subjective. If you take a group of kids who are supported by their parents and allowed to smoke pot and snowboard everyday and compare them with a group of kids who are working everyday to put themselves through school, the kids who snowboard and smoke pot everyday will score higher on the happiness chart as well.
Welfare states like these can rank high on a happiness scale because they take a lot of the things that make us worry and be unhappy out of the equation. People do not worry about their jobs because they are being taken care of by the government. These countries also have the added benefit of not having the racial and class warfare that divides America. Socialism works very well in these countries because they are small and have a fairly homogeneous society that likes the system. It really can be a great system on a smaller scale. (This is another reason that I argue quite a bit for states rights. States should be able to decide for themselves what is best for their citizens. In some places that would mean a more socialized state in others a more libertarian state might work.)
Also, to be fair, Denmark was in terrible shape in the mid-90s. They had 15% unemployment and were having trouble paying for all of their social programs. They cut unemployment benefits by more than half and have lower corporate tax rates than the United States. They have pulled out of their slump and that alone should create a larger sense of well being within the country.
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