Cultural Differences, Politics and Economics

As I do from time to time, earlier today I was talking to one of my cousins back in Denmark.

We like to catch up on a regular basis, in part because we are family, in part because we both like to keep up with the happenings "at street level" in our respective locations.

She has traveled pretty extensively in the US, including several 6-month stays, so she does have a grip on how this country "works," well beyond that of a casual tourist. I'm a Danish national, so I know Denmark and the mindset of the society, even though I have lived in the USA for several decades.

It makes for interesting conversation because we look at things more objectively than someone who has just read a couple of (likely biased) articles online and formed an opinion based purely on that. Or perhaps even just on "something a friend told them."

Invariably, we ended up on "the usual" topics of politics and the economic situation.

There are always some glaring differences that come to the surface, and they never seem to change much.

Denmark actually has one of the strongest economies in Europe, and the national debt there is pretty stable at around 35% of GDP, and has been since there was an upspike during "the Covid years."

As compared to the US, where the national debt has been more than 100% of GDP for more than a decade.

I suppose it's a bit ironic that that Denmark is a Social Democracy with a strong "welfare state" element, while the US is much more oriented towards free market economics.

Perhaps the hardest thing for my cousin to truly understand is this idea that much of the US "middle class" is little more than an unexpected $1000 expense away from homelessness.

I suppose the "middle class" is really more of an on paper idea than a reality. Why, I am not sure... beyond the fact that the US has a systemic consumption culture that is far less pronounced in Denmark. And it's not really an economic thing, so much as a psychological thing... as best we could determine.

That is to say, here in the US we equate "having things" with life being alleged better, and that mindset causes people to spend every last dollar they make on something, and even go unhealthily into debt in pursuit of that "something."

It's a subtle thing, to be sure... and we're talking generalizations, of course. But on a large scale, generalizations only need to hold a small amount of sway in order to shift a perspective a few percent in one direction or another... at which point it becomes an actual noticeable trend, rather than just supposition.

Naturally, we had to get on to politics and the upcoming Presidential election.

Since neither of us really "have a horse in the race," we ended up talking more about structure and processes of government than anything.

Again, we turned to cultural mindset differences. In the US, it is pretty much bred into everyone that government is not trustworthy. Naturally, that's going to set up a different situation from a culture where the majority of people believe government actually does serve their best interests.

That aside, my cousin wanted to know if I had any insights as to why the US tends to consistently elect old white men to high political office, in a day and age where the rest of the industrialized world's are far more representative of its general population.

Honestly, I had no good answers, but I did have to double-check that it wasn't just perception not based in actual reality. It isn't. Here's a nifty illustration from CNBC:

I have to speculate that much of the reason can be attributed — quite simply — to money.

Politics in the USA tends to be very driven by money, and generally the older you get, the more wealth you have had time to build, and that informs who you vote for... which — from a psychological perspective — is biased towards someone who "looks like you."

Here, I'm suggesting vote with your dollars, more than anything. With very rare exceptions, there is a broad slate of candidates towards the beginning of a major political race, but by the time the final candidates are left standing, they are often the older/oldest, because that's where the campaign funding ended.

As a matter of (publicly available) record, the median age of the Danish house of Parliament is about 46, while the US House is about 58, and the US Senate is 65.3 years.

I'm not sure whether this actually says anything of value about either society, but my cousin and I had a fun time trying to dissect these differences with an eye towards what it might mean for our collective futures.

We're both in our 60s now, and have a limited number of working years left. One of the things I have grown increasingly aware of over the years is that while the possibilities to the financial upside here in the US exceeds Denmark by many orders of magnitude, the average person is likely much better off in Denmark than in the USA.

And cultural exceptionalism aside, most of us are ultimately pretty average...

Thanks for visiting, and have a great remainder of your weekend!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2024-10-05 15:42 PST
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