http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pellissier2011326
Hank: I’ve heard that Denmark’s egalitarianism is reflected in its language and social manners—can you tell me about that?
Joern: We use gender-neutral word like sin, which has no equivalence in English. An example is “Enhver sin mening” which means “Everyone has his-or-hers own opinion.” In formalities we are also a lot more “rude” than American, French, Germans, and even Swedes. We rarely start a sentence with “Please” and we hardly ever use “Sir” or “Ma’am.” Additionally, we never use the often-false expressions like the commonly-used American greeting: “Nice to meet you.”
Danes are also the least gelotophobic nation on earth. Gelotophobic translates as, “fear of being laughed at.” An Aarhus Univerity study revealed that only 1.67% of Danes have this, due, in part, to our high degree of freedom of expression. Interestingly, Denmark has found itself in confrontations with Arab nations in the aftermath of the Muhammad cartoon crisis, and Arabs are at the opposite end of the scale; 33% of them suffer from gelotophobia.
We are also not overly respectful of authority, and political correctness is widely frowned upon. There is little respect for politicians. The general opinion is that any really INTELLIGENT man or women would consider it below themselves to waste their time as parliamentarians. Rather, they would aim for top-posts in the private sector. “Bad manners” are also on the loose in schools, where pupils show little of no respect for teachers. All in all, I would say that Danes are less cowed by status than anyone else I can think of.
Hank: I have heard that Danish wages are near-equal for most occupations. Can you provide some information regarding this?
Joern: It is true, we are the most equal in the world in terms of income. For example, a doctor at a public hospital makes less than $70,000/year (starting wages) and a garbage collector—or, to use the politically-correct term, “Renovation Technician”—also earns $70,000 on average. In Denmark, the income for the 10% richest is only five times higher than the 10% at the other end of the scale, whereas in the USA the difference is 16 times higher.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/13/the-spirit-level
we do better when we are equal
The basic principle of the Danish welfare system, often referred to as the Scandinavian welfare model, is that all citizens have equal rights to social security.
http://denmark.dk/en/society/
Indeed, looking down that OECD list of pre-tax inequality, you see some surprising things. After taxes and transfers, the Netherlands has about the same level of inequality as Germany and somewhat less than France or Italy. But before taxes and transfers, Germany, France and Italy are far more unequal; in fact gross income in Germany and Italy is more unequal than in America. You can't really say "in Europe, they have higher taxes and more transfers, which is why inequality is lower." That's true in parts of Europe. In other parts, inequality is lower because people just tend to earn relatively equal amounts of money.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/inequality-and-taxes
Oh, and the final and relatively obvious lesson is that if you raise consumption taxes, as many in America are sensibly proposing, you have to compensate by making income-tax rates more progressive. Otherwise you end up with poor people actually paying a higher share of their income in taxes than rich people do.
