Since Norway became wealthy on oil in the ’60s, it’s prided itself on
its commitment to the weak and ill-fated and has been put on a pedestal
by every left-leaning candidate everywhere
writes Hannah Spier in The Spectator regarding The Dark Side of Norway’s Social Democracy (The Alarming Rise of Disability Claims and Entitlement Culture). The Norwegian psychiatrist based in Switzerland, author of the Substack Psychobabble, adds that "Being a fully-fledged Norwegian patriot
who celebrates our national day religiously, the deterioration of the
social democracy is painful to behold."
Little do they [the ubiquitous left-leaning candidates] know that in 2022, 52 percent of the Norwegian population received government financial aid, with 10.5 percent
of the population on disability leave, a number that is estimated to
increase by about 2.5 percent each year. The rate in psychiatric
disability is rising drastically in the youngest, while pensioners sell
their hard-earned houses to afford ever higher taxations on
lower-than-promised retirement payouts.
In 2012, there was an uproar in Norwegian news media because of a new phenomenon called “å nave,” which is slang for someone using social welfare.
… This year, governmental financial aid for 18- to 29-year-olds is at an all-time high, three times
more than that in 1995. Among the Gen Zers on welfare, 63 percent claim
to have psychiatric problems. They claim to have exactly the type of
symptoms subjectively diagnosed by a health care worker whose natural
proclivity is to have sympathy for them — not hired as a guard dog but
trained to see suffering.
… Left-wing politicians tend to liken getting short-term disability aid
to driving on the motorway and waiting for a petrol refill on the hard
shoulder. The problem is that Norwegians have never learned the
responsibility needed to make sure that there is petrol in the car in
the first place. Now, the hard shoulder is packed with cars waiting to
have their refill — as is evident in the fact that 81 percent of those who receive short-term disability leave go on to receive lifelong disability pay.
Related:
Denmark may have free universities and a national health system, but what is its free education and health care actually worth?
In Scandinavia … the weather is appalling, the taxes
are the highest in the world, the cost of living is similarly
ridiculous, the languages are impenetrable, the food is (still) awful
for the most part … Sweden is supposedly "neutral" (it’s not, and has not been
for decades) … since the days when it sold iron ore to Hitler … The Norwegians have … taken their foot off the gas in terms of
their work ethic … [And] Denmark has the highest direct and indirect taxes in the
world, … the
highest energy taxes in the world, car import duty of 180%, and so on … How the money is spent is kept deliberately opaque by the authorities.