These small nations function a lot like families. You can talk about raising your kids to work for values and all that, but you would still feed and clothe them otherwise. The "working" part is a value that you deliver teaching them to do it, how and why. We do not actually run our families like capitalist enterprises. We do not really make our children work for their food, not even on a farm - especially not on a farm - where the reward of a rich complex meal time and again their whole lives cannot be paid for by gathering eggs or weeding the onions. It is totally disproportionate in terms of cash money.

However, it is an important moral lesson.

That moral lesson is also taught in Denmark where university education is free to those who qualify. That is pretty common in Europe where place and station are more fixed than here.

We wring our hands over the American educational system, but there is no "system." We have like 14,000 school districts, plus charters, parochial systems, private (secular) schools and home schooling. The other nations that do have real national systems are small and monocultural. In Finland, every school private or whatever, must follow the national curriculum. And in Finland, everyone (mostly) is a Finn. You do not have arithmetic taught in Spanish. Heck, we have citizenship classes taught in Vietnamese…

I prefer the complex society. But I point out that the happiness factors and metrics are not just some vast collectivist conspiracy. They exist for a reason.

Maybe in the future, we can have a truly individualist society without families. I am not sure you would like that brave new (Objectivist) world.

I'm going there next week. I'm generally a happy person, but I'll look around for Danish happiness. :)

People talk about their taxes being higher. My impression from talking to European colleagues is their taxes aren't that much higher. (Someone with actual facts can correct me. I'm going on impressions.) But it seems like they spend all that money on things for their people. I disagree with that policy, but that's what they do. US taxes a lot, but spends a big chunk of it on military. If you believe we could get by with a small standing army and militia, all that spending is wasteful. If you believe the modern world requires a superpower, then we're being taxed to providing policing for the whole world. Either way, it's not a good deal for US taxpayers. So if we're going on tax and spending policy, maybe they have reason to be happier.

Slightly off-topic comment warning: This whole UN measurement of happiness thing makes me think of the old Robin Williams movie "Toys" where the "Happy Workers" song starts getting a little creepy and weird part way through the movie when the plot gets sinister.

Apparently they're still feeling good about 2010:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/denma...

I think the report is self-explanatory.

Denmark does not even contribute 1% of the UN's total budget. The U.S. is typically 22% ~ 25% depending on the year and the amount of Quantitative Easing of the dollar's value among world currencies. Is it any wonder the Danes are "happiest"?

What's happy for the UN is happy for everyone. Typical statist rubbish and another example of doublespeak.
Wonder why Trump hasn't blurted out how he will evict the UN from the US.
More tax dollars being wasted to obscure what a complete failure the UN is at their stated goals.

Ayn Rand defined Objectivism as follows: My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. (Appendix to Atlas Shrugged)

Yet another one of our words, happiness, has now been collectivized, this time by the UN. I have had it with the "brother's keeper" nonsense.

Given that the UN is publishing this, shouldn't this be the "Unhappiness" Report? ;)