Viking Economics (16 page)

When I began to teach in an Oslo high school, I worried about getting to work on time, since I lived at the opposite end of the city from the school. Berit tried to reassure me, but I found myself starting my morning journey long before I needed to, sure that my first trolley would be late, that I would miss the connection to the subway, and then miss the connection to my next trolley. For one thing, I kept thinking about the winter snow and ice that certainly would wreak havoc with trolley schedules.

I finally accepted that the 7:30 morning trolley would be there at 7:30, if not 7:29, and not even snow would make me late for school.

This isn’t only a result of substantial public investment to create a quick, efficient and affordable public transportation system. Nor is it all about taxing cars and gas so hugely that many Norwegians find it expedient to use public transportation for routine travel. My experience also reflects a pro-work and pro-freedom orientation to how Norwegians use space.

In 1999, Norway passed a law banning large shopping malls outside city centers. It was done “to revitalize city centers, reduce sprawl, and encourage use of public transportation.” Within the framework of that national law, most land-use decisions are made on the level of the municipal government, as large as Oslo or as small as a village. The decision-making is democratic rather than largely influenced by corporate interests.

As a result, everyone—even in the largest cities—lives close to
nature, an easy ride by trolley or bus to a stress-reducing walk in the woods.
¹¹³
I asked Berit about the large bins that were attached to the backs of Oslo trolleys when winter came. She laughed. “You’ll see,” she said. On weekends I saw people load their skis in the bins, ride to the end of the trolley line, and go cross-country skiing all day.

The equality theme, expressed through policies that are universal rather than tied to income and consumer prices, has a particular meaning when we think about land use. It turns out that an economic design can resist the commodification of nature.

I never go to Oslo without taking the time to walk through the world’s largest sculpture park made by a single artist—Gustav Vigeland. The park took decades to build. I’ve walked over the eighty acres in rain and shine, morning and sunset, and can never get enough of the 200-plus sculptures that display us humans in our vast range of expression.

The park came about because of a deal made in the 1920s between the city of Oslo and Vigeland, whose brilliance was recognized early. The city would give him a stipend and a building where he could work and live, and in exchange he would give the city all of his subsequent works.

Extending that tradition in their current economic design, Arts Council Norway (financed by the Ministry of Culture) provides guaranteed income for about 500 artists at a time. Additionally, it provides artistic grants for hundreds of artists.

Although any society might choose to support art for art’s sake, I suspect that this is another place where synergy can be found: respecting artists as workers and not expecting them to starve in attics, combined with supporting their freedom, is likely to yield productivity that may unleash another Gustav Vigeland—and the cash-rich tourists who flock to Oslo to see the public park he built.

Even artists may get encouragement to maintain some balance in their work lives. To earn a little extra money in Norway, I once took a two-week job filling in for the pianist in a tourist hotel. The public employment agency that arranged the job (at no fee) said they would come by to check to see if I was doing okay.

About midway through my first evening a man came into the dining room and took a seat but ordered only coffee. After a couple of hours he signaled to me he’d like to talk. I met him and realized he was from the agency. He complimented me on my playing but suggested one change in my performance. I should, he said, take more breaks.

In my early periods in Norway I had the usual outsider’s worry that strong economic participation by the state might reduce ordinary people’s willingness to roll up their sleeves and do their share. The worry doubled when I learned about the low participation in organized religion, since in my country faith groups so often do the mobilizing to perform voluntary service. Still another reason that voluntarism in Norway might be undermined, I feared, is that a lot of the nonprofit organizations in civil society were funded largely by state grants rather than voluntary donations.

My assumptions took a beating when I rode the trolley to visit Berit’s nephew Håvard and his partner Gerd. The pair and their young boys live in a part of Oslo high on the side of a mountain overlooking the Oslofjord.

Håvard works in a business and Gerd is a dancer active in Oslo’s alternative-theater scene. We sat in their back yard with the customary coffee and chatted about our lives. Gerd mentioned that a big
dugnad
was coming up on the weekend when neighbors prepare their soccer field for the young people’s fall season.

“Stop,” I said. “What’s this about the neighbors?”

“Maybe you haven’t learned that word yet, George,” Gerd said. “It’s
dugnad
—barn-raising!”

Now I was confused, and said so. She laughed and described the strong Norwegian tradition of voluntary work when people work together to build a new boat landing, or assist a neighbor whose house partially burned, or even do a barn-raising.

Initially embarrassed not to have heard of this, I decided to forgive myself. The
dugnad
is under the radar, hard for foreigners to see. I later learned that the Danes have the same tradition, and use the same name for it. I found that that 40 percent of all Danes do voluntary work in cultural and sports associations, NGOs, social organizations, political groups, and so on.
¹¹⁴

For Norwegians, the practice is so important that when Norway’s national broadcasting service ran a contest among listeners to find the word that most expressed the national character, the winner was
dugnad
!

And, thanks to an economic model that fosters work/life balance, people have abundant time to volunteer in the community.

There is no way that the ancient Vikings could have successfully braved the uncertain seas and explored unknown lands if they had not paid enormous attention to craft, to skill. They would also have been a one-generation wonder if they had not learned how to pass on their lore to the young. They did so for centuries. They clearly did what Brazilian educator Paolo Freire regards as the heart of learning: act, reflect, then act and reflect again.

It seems that the ancient Vikings, by paying attention to discovery, learning, and passing knowledge on, gave themselves extraordinary freedom at a time when many people would rather stay home.

Although today’s Nordic education surely looks different from that of its forebears, the intention is still to give people an expanded opportunity to experience freedom. The first step is to invite individuals to educate themselves as far as formal institutions will take them, without personal expense getting in the way. The freedom for individuals builds on equality of access.

Free entrance to university education is now contested in many countries, including in Norway’s former models, Germany
and the UK. The Norwegians do not see the sense of adding tuition barriers to post-secondary education. Students can access loans and grants to handle living expenses while studying. Adding substantial debt to the shoulders of a young adult setting off on a career is a serious subtraction of freedom, and it also reduces the risk-taking that stimulates innovation and a dynamic economy. While free universities have disappeared from London and New York City, from Canada and California, the Nordics hold firm: they will not load tuition debt on the backs of their young people who want further education.

The seven Norwegian public universities are not the only institutions that are tuition-free. Free public post-secondary schooling is available for technical fields like seafaring, business, engineering, and agriculture; for arts fields like performance and visual arts; and for professions like medicine and law.

The goal is education for all—workers and farmers, as well as professionals. That is why Norwegians see education as a life-long, accessible resource. Adult education classes in a wide variety of subjects are so widely available that in any given year more than 750,000 adults take courses—about one-sixth of the population.

What is the economic result of the Vikings’ priority on education? In 2009, the management consulting company McKinsey & Co. became curious about this very question. It ran the numbers and found that “if U.S. children did as well as students from nations such as Finland, our economy would be 9 percent to 16 percent larger.” The study estimated that under-investing in education is costing the American economy $1.3 to $2.3 trillion every year.
¹¹⁵

Educational under-investment actually undermines our historic claim to being a meritocracy in which talented working-class
children are encouraged to shine. A new study by Sean Reardon of Stanford shows that the “gap in test scores between rich and poor American children is roughly 30 to 40 percent wider than it was twenty-five years ago.”
¹¹⁶
Such a finding in the Nordic countries would prompt vigorous national discussion.

Quality education is smart economics, especially in a globalized economy. Setting a high standard of education and creating free access is a design that reflects, and further serves, equality and individual freedom.

For my first ski vacation, Berit and I joined relatives in their hut in a remote valley. Once I learned enough to ski on my own—my proud teacher was ten-year-old Harald—I skied to the 1950s Norwegian equivalent of a rural “one-room schoolhouse.” Because I was aiming for a teaching degree myself in Pennsylvania, I was curious about rural Norwegian education.

I arrived at recess time and found the children skiing on a steep slope behind the school. I was envious as I saw how easily they maneuvered. It obviously pays to be put on a pair of skis as soon as you can walk.

The teacher was happy to talk with me as we watched the children playing. I asked about teacher-student ratio in this school and wasn’t surprised when he said that teachers had small classes. One of the most consistent findings of research in the United States is that class size hugely influences educational outcomes. The secondary school where I taught in Oslo had small classes.
¹¹⁷

“Our school is slated to get an addition,” he said. “A gym is to be built.”

A wry smile spread across his face. “Country schools never used to have gyms because the children skied to school and were in excellent shape. Now, because of school buses, the department of education worries about the children’s physical condition. So they are building gyms!”

I grinned back. There is no escaping contradictions.

A bigger conflict was posed by immigration. Some immigrant fathers who were eager to send their sons to school objected to sending their daughters.

On one side were Norwegians who insisted that respect for people with different cultural values requires that the fathers be accommodated. On the other side were feminists sticking up for equality.

The debate is settled. Now the fathers who want their daughters to stay in the kitchen must allow them to go to school. Fathers might complain that their freedom to continue their own tradition is not being respected, but in Norway freedom is not the only value that matters. Equality helps shape legislation.

What may have tipped the balance was the view that education is itself a core expectation in Norwegian society and only those who can accept education for all are welcome.

This chapter shares a few snapshots of Norwegian education from the point of view of the students moving through the system, paying particular attention to the design choices that enhance students’ own freedom.

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland share roughly the same model of education. The children start school at age six or seven, late compared with some other countries.

In the first year, children play a lot of educational games and activities that help them to understand what intentional learning in a group is about. They learn the alphabet that year, and begin a bit of English. In Norway, the typical student goes through the seven years of elementary school in small classrooms without formal grades; feedback is given informally in light of individual differences, and students take tests home to show to their parents.

Grading starts at age thirteen or fourteen, when young people graduate into
ungdomskole
(the lower secondary school; literally translated, youth school). For the next three years they learn to take more individual responsibility for what, in the Nordic countries, is expected to be lifelong learning.

The children’s slow start doesn’t leave them out of the running internationally, judging from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Tested at about age fifteen, when they’ve had two years of
ungdomskole
, and compared with their peers in seventy-four countries, Norwegians ranked nineteenth in sciences, twenty-fourth in reading, and twenty-first in math. (The United States ranked respectively twenty-third, twenty-first, and thirty-first.)

Norwegians see no reason to be in a rush; most students will continue in the regular school system until they are nineteen.

In their second year of
ungdomskole
students get to choose an elective. These fourteen-year-olds’ options usually include German, Spanish, and French, or additional Norwegian or English studies. (They have already been learning English since first grade.) Music is one of the core subjects.