Going Dutch

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03european-t.html?pagewanted=all

by ido • 17 years ago

64 66 17 years ago

miked2• 17 years ago

A Dutchman replies:

http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=8a80f624-92a7-...

The NYT article doesn't make any mention of the fact that emigration from the Netherlands in 2004 was the highest since 1954. This makes me wonder if things are really as wonderful there as the article claims, although it does a pretty good job of pointing out the pros and cons.

dhoe• 17 years ago

The article does not mention this fact because it's not true: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=nl&v=27. The net migration rate merely stopped growing.

miked2• 17 years ago

Thanks for the catch. I've corrected it as per below. My source was (my memory of) a statement in a book that I read a while back. From a 2005 article:

http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/local_news/why-are-they-all-...

"In 2004 almost 50,000 people born in the Netherlands decided to leave and live in a foreign country. Since 1954, the number of emigrants has never been so high. The Dutch economy, with the exception of the early 1980s, has never been so poor since 1954.

The Netherlands is undergoing the longest period of stagnation in two generations, according to the latest statistics from the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis."

jonas_b3• 17 years ago

Even if it was true, would that in the case of NL indicate anything in regards to its taxes-welfare state?

I thought it was a widely held "fact" that the NL is overcrowded and that dutchmen should try to find their lebensraum elsewhere.

sfk• 17 years ago

"Dissident voices are ruled out of order and successfully demonized (Pim Fortuyn), killed (Theo van Gogh) or face such severe threats to their security that they are forced to emigrate, as in the case of Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who violated the Dutch norms of “consensus” by insisting on publicly discussing female genital mutilation; honor violence; honor killings; and forced marriages."

The author conflates many issues here. Most people disagreed with Fortuyn because he was a right-wing populist who managed to form a fringe party that consisted of sorry losers. The guy himself was intelligent, witty and utterly narcissistic. He was like a character in Oscar Wilde's plays who had a bon mot for everything and solutions for nothing. Not the kind of person who should have political power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn

gaius• 17 years ago

Not the kind of person who should have political power.

That is up to the voters to decide, no?

cousin_it3• 17 years ago

No, the author doesn't conflate anything. Yes, the people mentioned differ in many ways: gender, political views, popular image... But they do have something in common: they vocally attacked Islamic practices and were punished.

rjprins• 17 years ago

The guy is all for harder sentences, more jail time, etc. Criticizing judges on these matters is like telling experienced programmers they don't code well. They know what works and what doesn't. The numbers about rape and manslaughter are all out of context, we know nothing of the circumstances. And lastly, since when was putting people in jail longer an effective policy against crime?

Anyway, what I think the most important issue is that the people in positions of power (1) actually try to do the right thing and (2) that their views on what is right are not too skewed. Both of which are generally true in the Netherlands I believe.

Lastly, on conformity as mentioned in the original article: I would not even know what is meant with conformity. True, you will have to conform to store closing-times which is a silly rule that needs to be changed. But there are hardly any social norms, you may be openly gay, atheist or deeply religious and wear whatever you want. Just don't expect to be viewed as sympathetic when you dress ostentatiously (where would you be?).

'lack of inidividual initiative': Why should people be individually be burdened with taking care of social problems, when we have a government in place just for that task?

jules4• 17 years ago

> But there are hardly any social norms, you may be openly gay, atheist or deeply religious and wear whatever you want.

From what I see on the TV and read in newspapers this is changing.

ilitirit• 17 years ago

I didn't see the point of a good portion of that response because the author kept referring to the past. It was only after 6 paragraphs that he started tackling the current model, and he does that by not only describing the issues surrounding it ambiguously ("fair amount"), but also by using the past as an argument:

> I would argue that the economic consensus model in the Netherlands is quite recent in historical terms, and that even today, it contains a fair amount of conflict.

> In 1982 the Dutch state...

And the 4 paragraphs later he ends with:

> These changes are worth noting, but they came about only after extremely difficult struggles that took decades.

Some of the social issues he raises are interesting, but overall I feel that this is a poor response.

jules4• 17 years ago

This is ridiculous:

> they are forced to emigrate, as in the case of Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who violated the Dutch norms of “consensus” by insisting on publicly discussing female genital mutilation; honor violence; honor killings; and forced marriages.

She was forced to emigrate because she lied about her past. If she hadn't she wouldn't have been allowed in in the first place.

davidw3• 17 years ago

This is the sort of thing that people can argue endlessly, and ultimately, unproductively about.

wolfish• 17 years ago

It's true that these arguments do seem to go on forever and very rarely does someone change their viewpoint based on these discussions. But debates on the value of incentives, the role of government and charity, and efficient resource allocation are important topics citizens would be wise not to avoid.

davidw3• 17 years ago

Avoiding them here doesn't mean avoiding them entirely.

delano3• 17 years ago

Some of the symbolism is a bit extreme but overall it's a pretty good overview of life in the Netherlands. There is a level of comfort here that I haven't experienced anywhere else however that comfort has both positive and negative consequences. This is the only article I've read that touches on that aspect of life here. And I'm glad he mentioned the lack of anything open 24h a day and rarely past 6 (some grocery stores are open until 10). It's madness!

By the way, if you're interested in the history of the Netherlands, there's a dutch movie coming out later this year about the flood of 1953: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230194/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953

lethain• 17 years ago

I lived in rural Japan last year, and had similar experiences with stores being open or lack thereof. There were three restaurants and two bars. One restaurant never opened for dinner, another was run by a family, was closed at 8PM and was closed on Sundays, the third was run by one woman and was closed for dinner on weekends and also tuesdays. One of the bars' closing schedule involved being closed on the third Sunday of each month. Grocery stores closed by 8.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how things must have been to live 50 years ago, and how much we've come to take (this very limited sense of) openness for granted.

delano3• 17 years ago

Whoa, an irregular schedule to boot. You must have had to do a lot of pre-planning.

ovi256• 17 years ago

Pre-planning is hard. Let's go shopping.

Anyway, when in Rome, do as the romans. Hard if they have weird customs, I agree.

jimbokun• 17 years ago

That's pretty weird, considering Japan probably has more 24-hour convenience stores than any country on Earth.

You must have been pretty far out in the "inaka". :)

http://jet.wikia.com/wiki/Inaka

pragmatic• 17 years ago

That's how it is in rural America (Midwest, the South) also.

You need a large population to support 24 hour consumerism.

nihilocrat• 17 years ago

Also had a similar experience while living in Munich a few years ago. I learned I had to plan out my food purchases much better, but otherwise it wasn't very inconvenient. Definitely a change of pace, and I comforted myself thinking that it meant people didn't have to work at their crappy grocery store jobs late / on Sundays.

If it somehow enabled 50 cent beers and 2 euro bottles of (good!) wine, I am not about to complain.

nw• 17 years ago

Generally the Dutch like their system, and I think it works pretty well for them. But as the article suggests, it works because they have such a communal spirit and sense of shared values. Americans have that individualist spirit and we are a very heterogeneous group with little in common beyond our love of freedom to roam and make a buck.

Perhaps a small New England state could pull it off (and they do try) but to engineer a Dutch system from Washington is asking a bit much. The author perceptively observed that Dutch don't trust government any more than we do, but have a strong sense of communal responsibility to each other. That is only possible on a small scale, I think. After all, they only have 16m people on a tiny piece of land.

When I lived in Holland some years ago, one of locals pointed out this irony: "You Americans have only two political parties but can't agree on anything, while we Dutch have dozens but pretty much see eye-to-eye on everything."

jules4• 17 years ago

> After all, they only have 16m people on a tiny piece of land.

Do you think that matters? I feel no more connected to people living 100 km away than people living 300 km away.

biohacker424• 17 years ago

Individualistic spirit my butt. Americans aren't a special and unique snowflake. Every country's system is largely an accident of history.

ijnbhuy• 17 years ago

Ironically The Netherlands was meant to be the model for the USA, with all power local to the states and a stadhouder in Washington to manage things. Somehow the English model of land holding lords and a king in his white castle won out.

benzim4• 17 years ago

To think that the social welfare state is a natural outgrowth of churches setting up schools and hospitals is completely ridiculous. The two things couldn't be more opposite. Social welfare emerges as a result of the collapse of Christianity in a society. The Dutch will talk about how they don't think anyone should be without health care, but if they saw someone in need they wouldn't help them. I don't know which comes first, but people who believe in social welfare seem to believe they have no personal responsibility to help those in need. Look at the average giving of the Dutch or someone like Joe Biden who while talking constantly about compassion gave an average of $369 per year for the last decade. Social welfare leads to an almost complete lack of the personal compassion that is at the heart of Christianity.

turkishrevenge• 17 years ago

"but if they saw someone in need they wouldn't help them" -- this applies to Christians and non-Christians alike. Similarly, a Christian or non-Christian could easily help such a person as well.

Given the overall message of Christianity (read: Christ) then, by your definition, there should be no want or suffering in the world, but yet there is. You are free to believe what you want about the Dutch, but at the very least, you have to admit that they have created a society that attempt to provide some basic standard of health and social well-being to its citizens. Not the same can always be said for other "compassionate" Christian societies.

benzim4• 17 years ago

But it doesn't apply to Christians and non-Christians alike. Conservatives and especially Christians give far more time and money to help those less fortunate.

"Finally, the single biggest predictor of whether someone will be charitable is their religious participation.

Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money: four times as much. And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization:

"Actually, the truth is that they're giving to more than their churches," he says. "The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities."" http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730

You're misunderstanding Christianity. Jesus said: "For you always have the poor with you" Matthew 26:11. Christians don't believe that its possible to eradicate poverty. In fact we believe that society will continue to grow worse until the end. The point is not to build a utopia, it is to personally help those you see in need.

mtinkerhess• 17 years ago

To believe in social welfare is to acknowledge that everyone has a responsibility to help those in need, and that the state should enforce that responsibility.

anamax• 17 years ago

That's true only if you believe that what the state does is necessarily and only helpful. (There are other requirements as well, but I'm limiting myself to two of the more obvious problems.)

Govt help programs, at least in the US, are aimed more at benefitting middle class providers than the poor who are supposedly the beneficiaries.

jules4• 17 years ago

> The Dutch will talk about how they don't think anyone should be without health care, but if they saw someone in need they wouldn't help them.

[citation needed]

benzim4• 17 years ago

I was referring to this quote from the article.

"If you tell a Dutch person you’re going to raise his taxes by 500 euros and that it will go to help the poor, he’ll say O.K., he said. But if you say he’s going to get a 500-euro tax cut, with the idea that he will give it to the poor, he won’t do it. The Dutch don’t do such things on their own. They believe they should be handled by the system. To an American, that’s a lack of individual initiative."

tybris2• 17 years ago

European countries have far more social structure than the US. People are part of groups (tribes) formed around religion, culture, nationality, language, political ideals, labour, and even football. It is the group, not the individual, that takes care of its members. Members of the group contribute and the leaders decide what happens with the contributions. This model doesn't fit individual compassion, because it would distantiate you from the group ("you (member) think we (the group) are not doing enough!?").

That being said, Christianity was in fact the binding element that provided Western-Europe with its strong social structure that still exists today. It was not so much the Bible or morale that bound them, for most it was in fact the fight against catholic oppression that led to Calvinism and other reformations. Without support or leadership from the Vatican, protestants formed scattered social groups, in which members had to protect and support each other. In doing so they found themselves reinventing the biblical message. To protect the family, social gatherings (sunday prayers), give to the poor (prevent them from stealing), take care of the weak. Again, not as individuals, but as a group.

The US on the other hand, was formed through immigration of people who had little or no social relations with each other. The result was an individualistic society where everyone took care of themselves. However, such a system is not inately human. There is no one to take care of the inevitable unfortunate. The individual compassion that is enabled by the lack of social commitments cannot begin to pay the rent for a single mother, the health care bill of a retiree, or the school books of a poor man's daughter. As economic tides reveal the pain of individualism groups are formed.

Gradually, America is shifting towards a stronger social structure. Middle-America finds refuge for its mediocre economic opportunities in evangelical Christianity, whereas the people along the coast-lines are bounded by progressive politics. The growing schism between these groups is exemplary of the social bonds getting stronger.

This also reveals the dark side of social structure. Deep hatred between different groups. A hatred that far exceeds any individual conflict, a hatred that has led to all of history's atrocities we know so well. Yet, the social bonds are unavoidable. Man is meant to live in a tribe. That is how we evolved.

ellyagg• 17 years ago

Speaking only for myself as a US citizen, I'm proud of the fact that the US has led the world in per capita income the last few decades. For a country our size to consistently be number 1 or near the top (depending on who's doing the analysis) is pretty amazing. I think there's room in the world for a country with an ethic that favors aggregate production. Why does everyone have to be the same?

People are free to move to a country with a value system that's more closely aligned with their own, e.g., one that seeks to flatten wealth disparities. But that's not what people want, it seems. A lot of people feel a strong impulse to convince others that their value system is the best.

tybris2• 17 years ago

> I'm proud of the fact that the US has led the world in per capita income the last few decades

Huh? Aren't they on par with countries like the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, etc?

dschobel• 17 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...

actually quite a few spots behind.

sethg• 17 years ago

Ezra Klein points out that even though the author of "Going Dutch" describes "a cultural tendency not to stand out or excel...the very antithesis of the American ideal of upward mobility", if you compare actual statistics, the US has less economic mobility (as measured by the relationship between parents' and childrens' income) than many other industrialized nations.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=0...

Going Dutch

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