Consider Finland a model

I enjoyed my short visit to Finland two years ago, but I had no idea of many of the social systems in place there. Robert Kaiser has a fascinating piece up in the Providence Journal (replayed via CommonDreams) that points to a number of characteristics of Finnish society. Among the ones I’m fascinated by:

This too seems to be part of Finnish egalitarianism; most Finns don't boast or conspicuously consume (except perhaps when they buy fancy cars). Finnish authorities know how much everyone earns, and they pro-rate traffic fines depending on the wealth of the malefactor. Last year, the 27-year-old heir to a local sausage fortune was fined 170,000 euros, about $204,000 at the time of the fine, for driving at 50 miles an hour in a 25-mph zone in downtown Helsinki.

and

Manuel Castells, the renowned Spanish sociologist who teaches at the University of Southern California and has been writing about Finland for nearly a decade, argues that Finland's ability to remake itself followed from its success in creating a welfare state that made Finns feel secure. "If you provide security and it is felt, then you can make reforms," he told me.

What else might we learn from them?