I wrote to a friend who spent a lot of time in Finland at a very elite level. Here is her response:
Bob Kaiser is a friend of my step-father's and I was actually supposed to help him out with the series of articles that he did on the country, but I wasn't there at the time .... As a whole, the article is accurate. Finland is a panacea in many ways, especially in health care and education. I lived there for most of 7/8 years and agree with Bob. There are a few things that he overemphasizes - university education is free, but it still costs to live, and the stipend is the same country-wide, so kids have to borrow more money if they want to go to university in Helsinki. Also, though the faculties at all universities are essentially the same, it is different to go to school in Helsinki, the nation's capital. Universally, Finns under 40 speak English. They graduate from high school fluent in 3 languages, astoundingly better prepared for achievement in the EU than what I imagine would be a large percentage of high school graduates from our country. Finland has the highest literacy rate in the world, close to 100 percent. The phrase he cited at the end, talkoot, is a broad one. Close equivalents that come to mind are "bee", as in sewing in quilting, or then barn raising. Finns have different kinds of talkoot, which commonly comprise a group effort to fix a friend's roof or renovate a house or clear some trees in the forest for a yard. My husband and his friends have a tradition of doing these every summer, many times. I am very much biased in favor of Finland, but I do realize the downsides. For example, there's a great contrast to the "can do" attitude of America. As an entrepreneur there, both starting my software company and my musical career, I was constantly faced with people emphasizing what I couldn't do and why, why my idea would fail, etc. For the longest time, until the mid-90's, bankruptcy was looked on as something shameful (often it resulted in suicide), as opposed to a natural course of the business cycle. I could go on and on about my second home. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
