By All Accounts, Denmark Is the Happiest Country in the World

Denmark is at the top of the list.

Is it our capitalism that keeps us from being able to emulate the Danes?

Last year’s World Happiness Report from the United Nations ranked Denmark the happiest nation on Earth. Over the past 30 years, in survey after survey, this nation of five and a half million people consistently beat the rest of the world in the happiness stakes.

In Denmark, everybody has free access to hospitals and surgery. Schools and universities are free and undergraduate and graduate students get monthly student grants for up to 7 years.

Unemployment benefits are generous, as is government help finding a job. And government spending on children and the elderly is higher than in any other country in the world per capita.

In Denmark, if you become unemployed or ill, the government will support you and get you back on your feet.

Why isn’t this possible in the United States? Well, actually it is. Or, rather, it would be, if we had the political will to make it so. There’s nothing about capitalism that keeps us from taking care of our citizens.

None of these benefits is incompatible with a free-market economy. They are exceptions to the rule of competition that can and should be made, because they are necessities and/or deemed essential to the public good.

The rationale of public utilities’ being closely regulated is widely accepted. Capitalism can’t work if you don’t exempt necessities. How would you feel if you were too poor to buy fresh water and were therefore allowed to die of thirst? Well, that’s what the know-nothings in Congress are trying to do to food, shelter, and healthcare.

So, we already exempt some necessities from the discipline of competition. All we need to do is add the other Danish-style benefits to the services provided by the Government. The free marketplace will work just as well without those few services.

In fact, it will work much better when the major causes of suffering are eliminated. The people will be able to contribute more when they are healthy and happy.