The Scandis, were are told, are the happiest people on Earth. What, other than Agnetha Fältskog and general ABBA-MANIA, makes these folks so happy? Thomas Kostigen, in his Ethics Monitor, points out the Scandis pay the highest tax rates in the world and then opines on the source of their happiness.

Simply, you pay for what you get. Taxes in the U.S. have taken on a pejorative association because, well, we are never really quite sure of what we get in return for paying them, other than the world’s biggest military.

Healthcare and other such social services aren’t built into our system. That means we have to worry more about paying for things ourselves. Worrying doesn’t equate to happiness.

It says social welfare programs include health insurance, health and hospital services, insurance for occupational injuries, unemployment insurance and employment exchange services. There’s also old age and disability pensions, rehabilitation and nursing homes, family welfare subsidies, general public welfare and payments for military accidents. Moreover, maternity benefits are payable up to 52 weeks.

He also points out that they don’t work as hard to get their happiness either.

Oh yes, and the average workweek in Scandinavian countries is less than the U.S.’s

We need to take better care of ourselves.

Then, right on cue, comes this item from Sweden.

Insurance agency staff facing more threats

16 May 09: The number of threats against employees of the Swedish Social Insurance Office (Försäkringskassan) is growing, according to the authority’s head of security, Berit Sjödin.

“This is totally unacceptable,” Sjödin told Sveriges Radio (SR).

She said the growing number of threats might be connected to increasingly stringent rules governing the country’s social insurance benefits.

Social Insurance Office staff have faced threats of violence against themselves as well as suicide. A third of the 181 incidents reported so far this year have involved an individual who has threatened to harm him- or herself.

That doesn’t sound like bikini clad socialist maidens serving up lsurströmming on affordable Ikea kitchenware, does it?

“During the year, more and more individuals will receive the news that they are no longer entitled to sickness benefits, and we are prepared for the number of threats to increase. We cannot be niave about the situation.”

At the end of the year, a large group of people currently receiving long-term sickness allowances will lose their benefits.

“Most often, the individuals behind these threats are extremely desperate. Totally normal people who lose it when their economic situation falls apart. Of course, we are sympathetic with them, but it is totally unacceptable that our staff are exposed to this,” Sjödin said.

That ugly situation exemplifies the truth that a government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have. The problem for the hopeless Swedes in the article is that the dependency imposed on them by the state has also taken away their ability to take care of themselves. Swedes have put all of their economic eggs in one basket. When the state fails them, they are without financial recourse and without opportunity to remake themselves. They are trapped in an economic cul de sac.

Perhaps there is more to happiness than living as wards of the state dependent on government for survival. Maybe the key to happiness isn’t “having” stuff but more closely related to “getting” stuff. There are plenty of haves – pop tart skanks like Lindsay Lohan, various Kennedys and Rockefellers and all manner of royally miserable royalty – who seem a hell of a lot less happy than your average American .

As a matter of fact, it seems that divorce, drug abuse and suicide are foundational values of the Hollywood set who, like the Swedes, don’t have to worry about “healthcare and other such social services.” If happiness is lack of financial worry, American celebrities sure have a funny way of being happy.

Interestingly, Sweden, Denmark and Finland all have higher suicide rates than the United States. Finland’s rate is 210% of the United States. The reality is that poverty and wealth are not good suicide predictors.

Sweden and Denmark both have high per-capita income as well as comprehensive social welfare for the aged. They also both have high suicide rates among the elderly, as well as in the general population. Greece and Mexico, which have a far lower (economic) standard-of-living than Sweden and Denmark, have particularly low rates, though higher in the elderly than in the general population. Interestingly, during times of economic prosperity, the elderly suicide rate goes down while the suicide rate of younger adults goes up in the U.S.

Frankly, living in a cradle to grave welfare state where I am dependent on the government for the basics of survival doesn’t sound like the path to happiness to me. In fact, it sounds like the life of a lap dog on a short leash. Happiness is a funny thing and can be very difficult to understand or predict. Stories of lottery winners who become miserable in their new found wealth are at least as common as those in which the winners find happiness. Nevertheless we all assume that winning the lottery is the same as winning happiness.

In the final analysis, happiness is chimera and probably has much more to do with its pursuit than anything else. Once the pursuit of happiness is no longer possible because there is nothing to pursue, happiness slips through our fingers. That is why Jefferson wrote we are endowed by our creator with the right to pursue happiness, not the right to be happy.

I would guess that Scandis are happy in spite of, not because of, their welfare state. Happiness is not, as Kostigen claims, born of the right to government entitlements. In fact, cradle to grave dependency created by lifetime government entitlement likely contributes to deep unhappiness. Dependency eats away at the soul and crushes the spirit and that is not a happy condition.

Then again the Swedish Bikini Team makes me very happy.

Hat tip to ODL for the inspiration.

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