Ladybugs Plague Denmark

After the American Century

"The air was filled with countless dancing gnats, swarms of buzzing flies, ladybugs, dragonflies with golden wings, and other winged creatures." -- Hans Christian Andersen, "The Marsh King's Daughter"


A veritable army of ladybugs has descended on Denmark, as often happens at this time of year. Other nations suffer from plagues of grasshoppers or locusts, and for decades Americans have worried about the northward progress of the killer bees. But as befits a small and peaceful nation, Denmark suffers a more genteel nuisance, as swarms of ladybugs invade the land.

This morning, I found ladybugs all over my car, crawling vigorously around my garden, and diving by the drove into my rain barrel. They seem to have no natural predators at this time of year, proliferating exponentially. Based on the number in my side yard, I conservatively estimate that there are at least five per square meter, more than 1,000 in my small yard alone. Extrapolating from this admittedly inadequate sample, it is possible that there are somewhere between two and five billion ladybugs here at this time of year.

However, this may be too small an estimate. A neighbor back from a vacation in the wilds of Jutland reported seeing clouds of ladybugs at dusk, turning the sunset a darker red. Strangely, they often swarmed on the beaches, attacking German tourists, nipping their sunburned skin. Apparently they cannot resist the smell of certain suntan lotions.

Scientific studies are not yet complete, but it appears that the ladybug plagues are intensifying as a result of global warming, which prolongs their mating season, making it possible to produce at least one additional generation each summer. In wet years, their food supply is also greater. Longer and wetter summers apparently account for the sudden multiplication of ladybugs in late July. Since ladybugs consume aphids and mites, gardeners the world over are glad to have them around, and one can only speculate over whether there is some unintentional connection between the policies of the current Danish government and what must be an enormous production of garden pests sufficient to feed these beneficent predators. (Polling is incomplete, but the vast majority of ladybugs appear to be social democrats.)

New species of ladybugs have also invaded Denmark, however. There are about 5,000 kinds of ladybugs worldwide, and I make no pretense to being able to identify them. As one might expect, some are from Southern Europe, brought home by Danish tourists in their cars or in their suitcases, usually as unnoticed eggs that hatch after arrival. However, there are also more exotic ladybugs, including one large, individualistic North American variety. There is also a Chinese one that is a bit flatter and rounder, with stubby wings for steering, which appears to spin like a miniature flying saucer.

In my back garden is a multicultural ladybug nation, a globalized phenomenon, a trillion footed buzzing society that has chosen Denmark as its preferred destination. Within a few days, I expect my garden to be striped clean of aphids, mites, and insect eggs. I expect they will also drive away any lurking conservative politicians. And as the sun sets over Denmark, look for the telltale reddish-black cloud of ladybugs heading for another summer evening at the beach.

Will Danes Adopt Preventive Health Care?

After the American Century

My vacation is drawing to a close and you can expect more postings here at After the American Century. In Denmark at this time of year there is little news, as most of the country has gone on vacation, including most of the politicians. Life seems a bit more pleasant without them showing up on the evening news.

However, there was one worthy idea, hardly new, in the news today, namely that all citizens ought to receive twice a year health check-ups. This was standard in the United States by the 1970s, and when I arrived in Denmark in 1982 and was assigned to a doctor, I immediately went by his office to get acquainted. I assumed there would be a physical examination, to establish a baseline for my future care. The nurse and receptionist were cordial but bemused. Regular physical exams were not part of the procedure, and amazingly, they still are not. In other words, while Danes have a free (tax supported) health system, it does not focus on prevention, only cure.

By now the health system has a pretty full record on me, or anyone else who has been treated for various ailments. Yet this record is a bit haphazard. Measurements of weight, blood pressure, and the like are not taken in a systematic manner, and there is no baseline to measure progress or deterioration.

Unfortunately, this "new idea" has been launched at a time when no one is paying attention, because the country is vacationing. But regular examinations is essential to a preventive health program, the goal being to keep citizens healthy rather than wait for them to fall ill. And while it might look expensive, studies show that preventive health programs save money, because problems or worrying developments are caught sooner.

Readers outside Denmark will probably be amazed that the health system has not yet grasped this basic idea. But for those who know a bit about it, this is not surprising, as Danes generally are not quick to learn from outsiders. I know many foreign-born permanent residents who have said for years that preventive medicine ought to be the national policy. But it is hard for outsiders to get a hearing. This, however, is a story for another day.

Climate Changes Faster Than Lawmakers

After the American Century

The climate is changing more quickly than lawmakers are. We know that species of fish along the coastlines are moving out from tropical zones into new areas. For example, fish not seen before in the North Sea have arrived because its waters have become milder. We know that summers are getting longer, that hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent, that the glaciers covering Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster each year.

Researchers at MIT plug statistics from such developments into a computerized model of the world's weather system. They include projected economic growth rates, and run hundreds of simulations, to see what might happen given different combinations of factors. Their latest findings are dire. Global warming is occurring twice as fast as previously thought, and they project a global temperature rise of 5.4 C by 2100. Their worst case scenario is a change of more than 9 Celsius. Most of southern Europe would likely become desert. The only good and fair thing is that in the US the predominantly Southern politicians would see their constituencies dry up or sink under rising seas.

We have now had quite a few such studies, but they have not led to major efforts to change human behavior. Every year the world has more CO2, more coal-fired power plants, more cars, and more electricity use. And this is true for almost every country. The United States House of Representatives, with only a small majority, has passed a law (that still must be approved in the Senate) which recognizes the problem and begins to take some mild measures toward change. It is not enough, although it is good to see the United States begin to take responsibility for its pollution. Meanwhile, the nations that signed the Kyoto Accords, promising to lower their CO2 levels have little reason to be smug. Most of them have failed to live up to their promises.

It may be that human beings are just not capable of long term planning. Is it possible that the time horizon of the brain remains somewhere between one to five years? However, it will take decades to replace existing housing and transportation systems with energy saving alternatives. The problem of global warming must be confronted immediately, because it will take decades of concerted action just to slow it down. Permanent changes in energy use are needed, but most governments have done far less than they might.

A small case in point. The Danish government put together a stimulus package for the economy, focused on home repairs and improvements. I applied for money to insulate the last remaining part of our house that is not insulated. The application was turned down, emphasizing explicitly that insulation was not covered. Now my little job will get done anyway. But does it make any sense for the Danish state to pay for such things are painting and wallpapering, but not insulation? Such policy mistakes tell Danish citizens that climate change is not really on the government's agenda. (Not that this surprises me. The government created a little independent agency, as a special platform for a prominent denier of global warming who is a statistician, not a scientist.)

Many national economies are shrinking, yet global warming is speeding up. Politicians do not yet realize that the goal can no longer be just to keep economies expanding. The old, high-energy form of expansion is at the core of the global warming problem.

Global warming is not merely a technical matter awaiting some technological fix that will make it go away. It is a problem of changing human behavior, including prohibitions and incentives built into the laws of each nation.

Danish Ministry of Education Fails Again

After the American Century

An independent study that cost 312,000 kroner, has found out what any experienced teacher could have told us for nothing in less than a minute. News flash: Students will cut more classes if they can get away with it. What a revelation!

The 2005 "education reform," brought in against the advice of many teachers, has markedly increased the number of gymnasium students who skip classes. The Danish Ministry of Education should have been able to figure out what would happen if they weakened attendance requirements. It used to be that no student was allowed to miss more than 10% of the classes - which was already a liberal requirement compared to many nations. Now, thanks to the 2005 "reform" there are entire schools where all students on average skip classes more than 10% of the time. Another triumph of the bureaucrats over the teachers!

During the last quarter century the Ministry of Education has repeatedly demonstrated little understanding of students, teachers, teaching, or the academic calendar, much less morale building. Had a foreign foe set out to undermine the educational system, it might have pursued the same policies as the Danish Ministry of Education. If other nations want to know how to sabotage an educational system, here are the main points.

- Drown the teachers in bureaucratic paperwork, so they have less time in the classroom.

- Cut back on the money for short courses and seminars, so that teachers no longer will have as much chance to develop their competence.

- Reward schools not for quality but for quantity, and pay schools only for students who pass. This will encourage teachers to let more students slide through without learning much.

- Should a student be caught for plagiarism, pay the school nothing, but insist on elaborate procedures so that teachers will learn that catching students who cheat is unrewarding, unpaid work. Also, make the punishment for plagiarism mild.

- Eliminate the already relaxed attendance requirements, and let students graduate even if they have missed as much as 35% of all their classes.

- Redesign the grading system, making it less nuanced, and pressure teachers to give higher grades. (At the same time, make the new grading system unlike that in any other nation, so no one outside the country can understand it.)

- As much as possible, let students dictate what subjects the teachers will teach, and at the same time underfund school libraries so there is less likelihood that materials will be available. Cut back on funds to buy new textbooks.

- Let school facilities deteriorate, especially bathrooms, but also more generally, so that the school is not an attractive place to be.

- During years of national budget surpluses make sure teacher salaries increase more slowly than in the private sector, so that the profession becomes less and less attractive. (Indeed, tacitly support national PR campaigns launched to attack the humanities, urging all students to study "practical" subjects.)

- Demand that teachers use the latest computer technologies, but do not put money in the school budgets to buy, install, and maintain the equipment. Also, do not set aside time or sufficient funds to train teachers in how to use the equipment.

Historians will one day wonder why a wealthy nation like Denmark misused its resources and undermined its educational system and demoralized its teachers. They may wonder how the Minister, Bertel Haarder, could have made so many mistakes for so many years without being fired. But they will realize that the Ministry of Education as a whole was a vast, growing, incompetent parasite that ate up resources and may have been beyond the control of anyone. Furthermore, bad as he was, Haarder was by no means the worst minister in the government between 2001 and 2010. Indeed, it is hard to pick a "winner" among so many self-assured incompetents.

Who Should Be Paid for Danish Research?

After the American Century

The Danish universities are moving to what labor historians would call a "piece rate system." That is, money for research will be paid not on the basis of weeks or months devoted to research, but rather on the basis of how many items are produced.

A new form of exploitation may emerge in this system. Exploitation is a strong word, so let me be clear what I mean by it. Workers are exploited if another person or institution is paid for their work. If I build a wall, and someone else, not me, gets paid for my work, that is exploitation.

Is something akin to this happening in Danish universities? Quite possibly. Every university has a number of recent PhDs who have completed their studies and who teach part time. (In many cases they are paid only as teaching assistants, which I think should not be allowed. Once you have a PhD, the proper title and pay scale should be that of external lecturer.) My concern is that these recent PhDs do not have research appointments. They only are paid, and rather badly, for their teaching. Nevertheless, they do their best to publish articles and books, for that is the surest path to full-time employment.

Who gets financial credit for a recent PhD's publications? I have asked around, and it seems that these new PhDs are encouraged to register their work, i.e. put it into each university's database. The system's acronym is, ironically enough, PURE. But there is nothing "pure" about hiring people only for their teaching and then including their research in the university's productivity. Why should the university be paid for publications by people whom it does not employ to do research? How would you feel if, outside your regular job, you painted a picture or renovated a car, and then suddenly your employer was able to send a bill to the government for that work, while you got nothing?

Is this happening? I fear it is. I know for certain that when university departments undergo accreditation reviews, the publications of recent PhDs at times are included in the statistics. Admittedly, this is a gray area, because typically these publications are portions of a PhD thesis, rewritten into articles. And the PhD thesis was written while on a research appointment. Nevertheless, it does not feel entirely right or fair. And for how many years can a university claim the publications of its recent PhDs?

Note too that retired faculty also may continue to publish. Can or should the Danish universities be paid for this work, which again they do not support financially?

There is a simple solution to this problem. Pay the writer for a publication directly unless he or she has a university research contract. This would mean that if a person does not have university employment, they could still be rewarded. Why should the government pay the university for the completion of research it did not support? Why should a scholarly publication by a private individual be worth nothing, if a publication produced by a university employee automatically releases funding?

To see the absurdity, translate this into agricultural terms. Imagine that there are university farmers who are paid for the crops they grow. Imagine that there are private farmers who are paid nothing for their crops. And imagine that university farmers find ways to claim the production of the private farmers, in order to get a completely unearned additional subsidy. Who would think that a fair policy?

The Danish universities do not seem to have quite reached this form of exploitation, but they appear to be headed that way. No one consciously planned this situation, which rather seems to be an unintended outcome. But it has dire consequences. If such a system is allowed to flourish, then universities will profit if they can produce many PhDs, keep them around as poorly paid part-time teachers, and claim credit for the research they do on their own. This is presumably not what the government wanted to do by introducing a piece-rate system.

[For critique of the new bibliometric system itself, see March 21, 2009
The Bureaucratic Dream of Quantifying Research Results

The Bureaucratic Dream of Quantifying Research Results

After the American Century

I can see the attraction for bureaucrats and politicians of giving a numerical score to every book and article that every academic produces. If one could find a way to do this accurately, then individuals, departments, universities, and whole nations could be ranked, and money handed out to the most productive. It seems so logical and easy. Of course, university researchers will resist, but the effort surely would be worth it.

This fantasy has been pursued in different nations, and for the last year has been a key project of the Danish Ministry of Research. As it happens, I was dragooned (not asked) to serve as one of 300 experts charged with drawing up the lists of all scholarly journals and academic publishers, and then dividing them into groups based on quality. More points would be given to work published in the "best" journals. The Ministry considered this task to be so easy that it provided no release time or extra funding for it, and the work was to be done in just a few months. Each sub-committee would send in its lists and the Ministry would combine them into a complete overview.

This reminds me of a story I heard about the Spanish king (centuries ago) deciding to produce a map of his empire by asking each region to prepare a map of itself, the idea being to combine them all into a map of the realm. Each governor had a map drawn, but of course the scale employed and the methods of representation were by no means the same. The King tried to put the pieces together, but instead of a map he had a misshapen patch-work quilt of no value.

Yet making a map of Spain is easy compared to making a map of academic knowledge production. Land, surveyed according to a single system, can be mapped pretty accurately - even if it is not as easy as it might appear, for one one must take account of the curvature of the earth and of slight deviations in measurement due to equipment that reacts to changing temperatures, etc.

But a numerical system to measure knowledge production? Here are some of the problems. First, some fields are intensive, others extensive. In philosophy, for example, the closely reasoned article is the central form of publication, and even a very fine philosopher may not produce so very many in a decade. In my field of history, articles are more frequent, which makes a certain sense, since its subject matter is extremely extensive, with every nation, organization, and institution providing ample areas for study.

Second, in some fields, books are the most important units, in others, articles. Scientists mostly write articles, often of less than 10 pages. For historians, the most significant unit of production is the book. The typical academic book is 250-400 pages, more than ten times the length of the typical history article. How does one compare the two forms? Some university departments in the United States establish "conversion tables" ranging from five articles equals a book to as many as eight articles equals a book. There is no consensus.

The subcommittee of five persons on which I served developed a list of more than 700 English language journals from Britain, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The same committee was also responsible for the Spanish and French journals, most of which I cannot offer a qualified opinion about. Imagine that we used only ten minutes to consider the ranking of each of the 700 English language journals. That is far too little time, yet that would take 7000 minutes, or 116 hours. The problem is that even a committee of five will not know all 700 journals.

Nor was this all. We also had to compile a list of academic publishers, a formidable task in itself, for many universities in the English speaking have presses, including some of the most prestigious. We were provided a list to start with, but it was rather useless, as it omitted many of the finest publishers and was not drawn up according to any principles that I could discern. We were told it was a Norwegian list, but I think the Norwegians are far more clever.

Well, we did our best, as did the other sub-committees, but our map of academic knowledge production could not possibly become coherent. And to make matters worse, unidentified persons in the Ministry (none of them with even a Ph.D. so far as I can tell) tried to adjust the rankings without consulting the specialists involved. They made the mess worse and called their own intelligence into question. Example. A physics article published in Science is considered by any university a great achievement. Unfortunately, the Danish Ministry of Research did not know this and assigned Science a low ranking. That should have been a no-brainer. Readers in Denmark will know that this fiasco became part of an on-going news story about the attempt to create a what is called (in rough translation) a "bibliometric measurement system."

For the record, let me say that from day one I felt this was a misguided enterprise, whose real purpose was to take decision-making about quality out of the hands of professors and give it to bean-counters in the Ministry. Furthermore, such experiments in other nations, notably the UK, have shown that it does not foster world class research. Rather, it encourages a calculated response to whatever point system is established. For example, suddenly several short articles are better than one long one, several articles accepted by mediocre journals are "worth more" than one really great article that took years to write and place in a top journal. A book that can be researched quickly is worthwhile, but scholars are, in effect, punished for attempting anything that takes more than a few years. Textbooks are not worth any points, so no one wants to write them. Book reviews are also worth little or nothing, so this essential and very public part of the peer review system is weakened.

Worst of all, academics may possibly come to believe that every article published in a "top" journal is automatically better than one appearing in a "lesser" journal. In fact, innovative work often finds a home in new journals or new publication series, created by upstarts or dissenters. Judging and rewarding academic research based on a point system reifies the present hierarchy and punishes innovators. The goal may be stimulating research, but the result can be ossification.

It may seem astonishing to bureaucrats, but the best judges of what is great research are the specialists themselves - the peers in peer review. Why judge the content of an idea by the venue where it appears? Why suppose that quantity can make up for quality? Why imagine that knowledge is quantifiable in the first place?

Weird Home Computer Tax in Danish "Reform"

After the American Century

With the world's highest taxes, Denmark periodically goes through the ritual of pretending to lower and simplify taxes. What always seems to result is a more complex tax code than before. I will not try to explain the new law, because after reading through it, I am not certain I understand it. That is why Denmark is a paradise for tax accountants, because you literally cannot figure out what the rules are yourself.

Rather than write about the whole complex package, I want to single out one remarkable new tax that has been added. (In any tax reduction plan in Denmark new taxes are always added). This one is for 5000 DK a year, almost $1000 for anyone who gets a computer or telephone from their employer. I hope I am misreading it, but it might mean that even if you have paid for your home computer, as I have (because the humanities faculties generally are broke), just using the Internet hookup would unleash the tax office on me. That's right, if I have a home office and check emails from home at night or on the weekend - that is, if I want to work a bit overtime, the punishment will be almost $1000 a year.

Now if the real purpose of the tax law was to get people to work less, this might make sense. But the stated purpose of the law is to encourage people to work more, to increase the work people are willing to do by lowering the tax rate. Denmark's baby boomers are marching into retirement soon, and the country cannot afford it unless people work for more years and more hours during those years.

This tax seems particularly stupid because it is aimed at anyone whose work involves communicating with Asia or North America (two rather large markets). Think about time zone differences. Send an email at noon from Denmark to Los Angeles (where it is midnight), and the reply will probably come after 21:00. Under the new law, if an employer wants someone to read and respond to that email, and gives them a computer to do it with, the cost will suddenly be $1000. As I read the law, just one message a year would do it. Nothing seems to be in the law about modulating the tax to take account of whether you have the home computer 24/7, only sometimes on the weekends, or just during a busy month. Apparently, it is all or nothing.

What will people do? They will not accept a computer or phone from their employer any more. Instead, they will try to get by with an older machine, typically with older software, that they have at home. Instead of using the same institutional network both day and night, they will sign up for a separate system that costs less than 5000 DK a year. Corporate security will no doubt be compromised. Messages needed at work will occasionally be inaccessibly at home.

This "reform" will make Denmark less efficient. It may well retard the spread and use of the Internet. It will encourage people not to work at night or on weekends. It will hurt the efficiency of international contacts and likely hurt exports. It can easily compromise corporate IT security, as employees use home systems to avoid the extra tax. It could easily make the university a bit less efficient. This is another example of an inane Danish "reform" that was worked out in a private room between a couple of political parties without the benefit of public discussion.

I get hundreds of emails from students in the off hours, and I guess this means I should not answer any of them until I get to the office, no matter how important, such as the one I got an hour ago asking urgently for a letter of recommendation. Thank goodness in the future I will not read such messages until it is too late. Less work for me to do, and no job at all for the student!

The marvel is that Denmark on the whole is such a great place, despite its tax system.

Hiding University Reform inside Tax Reform

After the American Century

The traditional tax problem for Danes is how to reduce the world's highest taxes while keeping the welfare state. A Tax Commission has just proposed 35 billion kroner (a bit less than 7 billion dollars) in income tax reductions, to be financed by changes in the tax structure. I want to focus on just one area, reductions in student grants, because this is far more than it appears to be, amounting to a major reversal of government policy on higher education.

The proposal is that student study grants be reduced so that they cover four years. To people outside Denmark, this still sounds wonderful. Not only do no university students pay tuition, but all students qualify for a scholarship worth about 55,000 kroner ($10,500) each year, after taxes. These grants have made it possible for children of working class parents to make their way into the professions. More than just about any other nation, Denmark has made its education system egalitarian. I have had many students who were the first in their families to attend university, and some of them have gone on to quite distinguished careers.

By comparison, in the United States taxes are considerably lower, but parents start saving early to send their children to college. It can easily cost $150,000 (c. 800,000 kroner) to send just one child to university, when tuition, room, board, transport, health insurance, computers, and books are all taken into account. The hardest economic years for American parents are those when children are in college. In contrast, Danish parents may pay huge taxes, but the year a child begins at university creates no hardship, because of the generous "SU," or student grant. In effect, Danish parents have been forced to save for their child's education, and reap the benefits if a child goes to university. But the Tax Commission in effect wants to steal the money middle-aged couples have saved through taxation for the last twenty years. They have paid in with the expectation that their children will receive student aid. But the Tax Commission will divert that money to income tax reductions, and these parents will have to pay a second time if they want their children to get an advanced education.

In theory, it takes a Dane a minimum of five years to complete a BA and MA. In practice, the average student needs six years or more. Reducing the student grant to 4 years means that it will be impossible to get an MA without taking sizable loans, which supposedly will be made available to all who apply, though one wonders if this will really be so. A great many students will likely stop after the BA degree, because they do not want to saddle themselves with large loans.

The Tax Commission surely understands that Denmark will produce fewer MA students as a result. Indeed, I assume that this is their goal, in this way forcing more people to start working full time at a younger age. When the same political coalition was in power during the 1980s and early 1990s it forced changes in Danish education with the professed goal of making the BA a terminal degree for most students. They also cheapened the BA+MA education by cutting it one full year, from six to five. The notion then was that too many people were getting advanced degrees. The then Minister of Education was Bertel Haarder, and people joked that BA stood for Bertel's Academics.

Students see the BA as a second-rate degree and most of them still want to go on for the MA. Yet that earlier reform did save money by reducing the BA+MA combination to five years. This meant that there was a full year less time to really learn a foreign language such as Russian, and it meant that students were less ready to write an MA thesis. For faculty, students losing a year of education meant a reduction of almost 20% in how many people there were to teach. For the gymnasiums, it meant that new teachers were less educated.

The Tax Commission's proposed reduction in student aid extends this earlier downsizing. Once again, the goal is to get more students to stop after their BA, and to reduce the numbers at the graduate level. Once again, the universities will have fewer to teach and suffer cutbacks in staff. The loss of entire departments may follow in some cases.

It is disingenuous to claim that the government's goal is to reform taxes. The amount spent on the extra year of SU is 750 million kroner a year, or a little more than 2% of the proposed savings on personal income taxes. The real goal is to further reduce graduate programs and eliminate some MA programs. One very real result will be a decline in the number of faculty positions, saving half a million kroner or more per eliminated position.

The Tax Commission ignores these larger consequences because they would be unacceptable to many Danes. Indeed, cutting down graduate studies is the exact opposite of the government's own professed desire to invest more in research, raise the education level, and prepare for a future where a highly-educated workforce is the key to success. But this new tax proposal will shrink the pool of highly qualified graduates, eliminate faculty positions, close some MA programs, and undermine the efforts of Danish universities to remain competitive with other nations. It will further demoralize faculties (especially in the humanities) that have been suffering cutbacks for years already. One likely result could be a brain drain, as many of the very best graduates go to work in better financed universities abroad.

As far as education is concerned, this is not a tax reform but a reversal of the government's supposed program.

A World's Fair in Copenhagen?

After the American Century

To the uninitiated, it sounds like such a good idea. There has never been a world's fair in Copenhagen, so why not really put the city on the map? For that is what such fairs do. There was a time when the largest and most powerful cities held fairs, notably London(the first one in 1851, 1862), Paris (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, 1900, 1937) Vienna (1873), and New York (1853, 1939, 1964). But beginning a century ago the more famous cities were less likely to host expositions, and the impulse to hold fairs became the hallmark of "wannabe" world cities. Typically, these were places that had grown rapidly and wanted attention, which in retrospect was appropriate for Sydney (1879) Chicago (1894) or San Francisco (1915). However, the aspirations for recognition now seem a bit laughable for such largely forgotten fairs as those held in Nizhny Novgorod (1896), Omaha (1898), Buffalo (1901), Liege (1905), or Knoxville (1982).

So as Danes begin to think about this proposal, they should ask themselves the following questions. What recent world's fairs are they aware of? Did they attend or take any interest in those held in Daejeon (1993), Lisbon (1998), Hanover (2000), or Aichi (2005)? Prior to this proposal, had they even heard that there is a world exposition taking place this summer in Zaragoza? I suspect that few Danes know much about these events, for the very good reason that such fairs simply do not attract as much attention, or financial investment, as the fabulous fairs of the nineteenth century.

As a historian, I love world's fairs, for they are rich cultural texts. But I would not recommend staging a fair just so future historians will have great material to work with. The economics of world expositions is daunting. They almost always lose money, and they always cost more than the original projections. Today's newspapers casually throw out the price tag of 20 billion kroner for a Copenhagen Exposition in 2020, which is the next open date. But just like the Olympics, in order to get the chance to hold a world's fair, cities and nations must spend large sums in competition for the honor. Denmark would need to spend several hundred million kroner to outshine potential rivals such as Brisbane, Houston, New York, and Manila, all of whom apparently may apply. The chances of success might be 25%, assuming the that a detailed plan, a theme, and lots of financial guarantees are in place by 2011, when the competition begins.

Fortunately for Denmark, the nation is so rich and has so few social problems left to solve that it can easily afford to dedicate 20 billion kroner (well, probably a lot more) to this project. Nor is there any reason to worry that growing fuel shortages may make it far more expensive to reach such a fair than today, reducing attendance. Nor should anyone worry about the practical abilities of the Mayor of Copenhagen to carry out the project, even though she has conspicuously failed to build the 5000 inexpensive housing units she promised the city, when running for office. It is obviously far more difficult to build practical apartment units than it is to organize and build a world's fair that can later be transformed into a new urban region.

This project is also a great idea because Danish life, politics, and culture are so decentralized, that the nation needs to make further major investments in Copenhagen. An exposition would also put some automobiles and trucks on the half-empty highways. By comparison, it would be a waste of money to develop anything on Fyn or Jutland, much less those little islands.sprinkled around the edges of the country. Finally, this project would almost certainly drive up real estate prices in Copenhagen again, which is just what the nurses, police, teachers, social workers, and other ordinary people are clamoring for.

Yes, it is a marvelous idea to burden the next generation with a white elephant project like this, and it would be an appropriate crowning achievement for the Mayor. It is just possible, of course, that she might not still be in office in 2021, when the final bill comes due.

Danish Embassy Bombed

After the American Century

Last week, I heard a seminar lecture given by Harvard Professor and foreign policy expert Mark Kramer on the Cold War. During the question and discussion period, he also discussed the current world situation. He said that the greatest danger to world security was to be found not in North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or Palestine, but most definitely in Pakistan. The nation has whole provinces dominated by terrorists. It also has an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Yesterday, the Danish Embassy in Pakistan was car-bombed by an as yet unknown group. The attack killed at least six persons and wounded 23. None of the victims were Danish citizens working at the Embassy. As is so often the case, people who just are in the wrong place at the time of an explosion, and who have nothing whatsoever to do with the matter, are the victims.

Press speculation, probably correct, is that the bombings are related at least in part to cartoons published by one of the Danish newspapers, a right-of-center rag that takes an intemperate view of most things Muslim called Jyllands Posten. For those who have not seen these cartoons, one can say that they depict Moslems and their prophet in an unflattering light. They were not published as commentary on current events, but rather were intended as a provocation and as a declaration of freedom of the press. I should say that I have no respect for that newspaper, because it attacked me inaccurately by name on a quite another matter. I refuse to give interviews to its journalists, and I must hold my nose as I declare that of course they have the right to free speech. I also have the right to say that I no longer respect and certainly will never purchase that newspaper, which deserves to go out of business because other readers also stop buying it. Yet while I have been insulted, I have no desire for bloody revenge, and I think it madness to declare a fatwa on its cartoonists, some of whom now must hide in "safe houses."

For many Danes, Jyllands-Posten and its cartoons are all about freedom of speech and not giving in to intimidation. For many Moslems, they are about being gratuitously insulted, about respect for their religion and about defending the prophet Mohammed. It is one of those confrontations that may last a long time, because neither side has any intention of backing down. And so, a small country of 5.2 million people, the size of Massachusetts, has become the focus of international terror. A country that has only a small military and that has instead used its money to contribute a great deal to foreign aid programs, a country that has defined itself as a mediator, a listener and a champion of human rights, finds itself an object of hatred. A Danish expert on the Middle East whom I have spoken with worries that a terrorist attack on a target inside Denmark is only a matter of time. I hope he is wrong, though fear he is right.

Has the Danish government understood the dangers and the consequences? Perhaps not. The embassy in Pakistan was not particularly well-located. Yesterday, the Danish radio news repeatedly emphasized how secure the building was, with video cameras and only one entrance. Located on a dead-end street, it was reportedly hard to approach. But the BBC stated that "the Danish embassy was an easy target because it is located in a residential area outside of the high-security diplomatic enclave." Danes were mislead by their own news media into thinking their embassy was particularly safe. Perhaps it is, when compared to other Dansh embassies around the world. [Update: the Danish newspaper Politiken reports today (4.6.08) that many Danish embassies in the Moslem world are potentially easy targets, notably that in Egypt. The right-wing Danish government simply has not understood that having such a high profile in the war on terror entails far more security and has real economic costs.]

The security problem, and the perception of high-security, is inseparable from the major shift in Danish foreign policy that occurred when the current right-wing government came into power in late 2001. During the last century, although a member of NATO, Denmark had generally not been a belligerent. Rather, it often was part of UN peacekeeping forces. The nation was known for its willingness to take on the difficult job of patrolling boundaries and dampening regional tensions. It did such a good job of it that the Danish national flag at times was confused with the Red Cross flag. Until 2001.

Once the foreign policy changed, however, the government clearly should have moved its embassy in Pakistan to a highly secured area inside the diplomatic enclave. Now that a car bomb has exploded, it is time to move into the safest area. The time when Denmark could put its embassy in any nice residential area is over.

Denmark is no longer seen as a peacekeeper, but as part of the American-led effort to drive the Talliban out of Afghanistan. Danish troops are fighting every day there. They were also part of the occupation of Iraq until last year. The happy days when a Danish passport was one of the best ones to have if taken hostage also are well and truly over.

What Can Denmark Learn from the United States?

In my last blog I pointed to some areas where the United States might learn from Denmark. Now it is only fair to do the reverse: what can Denmark learn from the US? Quite a lot, actually. I want to point to four areas.

First, Danes have only a generation of recent experience in living with minorities from other cultures, and they have not done a good job of integrating them into their society. Refugees and immigrants have come to Denmark from more than 100 nations, but Danes speak of them as if they were a singe group, with few nuances. They speak of them collectively as "new Danes," which is code phrase that signals that these are people that are not really accepted as full members of society, even if they were born in the country and speak Danish as their first language. Politicians on the Danish right angrily demand that foreigners give up their own cultures and assimilate. They talk much like the anti-immigration leaders in the United States c. 1910. I personally know a lovely young women whose parents came to Denmark from Sri Lanka. She got an engineering education and speaks the language like a native - and Denmark is screaming for engineers - but nevertheless she never got a decent job offer inside the country. Instead, she has a terrific position in London. That is crazy, of course, but there are all too many examples of such discrimination and failed integration. The unemployment rate for "new Danes" is much higher than for the rest of the population. So, Danes should go to school to Canada and the US to see better models of how to welcome and integrate new citizens. The need is great, because Denmark has an unemployment rate that is now under 3%. Not only do they need to retain their own minorities, but they desperately want to recruit and then retain skilled people from abroad.

Second, Danes are losing some of their cultural heritage every year, particularly books and paintings, but also other important cultural objects. This is because of tax laws that do not encourage donations. In the United States, of course, donations are a tax write-off, so someone with a valuable painting can both be benevolent and also get full value for philanthropy. Another example is close to my heart. When a university professor retires in the US, he or she might well donate valuable books and collections to the library, again in exchange for a tax write-off. But in Denmark, no such rules apply. I know of one case of a man who had a valuable personal library, which almost was broken up and sold. Finally, the family did agree to sell it to the university for a fraction of its total worth. But in most cases, nothing of the sort happens. This would not matter so much if Danish libraries were well stocked. However, there is little tradition of building up good research libraries in Denmark, because this sort of thing is left to the State. But national governments, in my observation, are irregular in supporting libraries and museums. So, the Danish nation could benefit from changing the tax laws, because for a pittance they could preserve far more of their cultural heritage. The United States has some amazing libraries and museum collections built up by knowledgeable collectors. There is little monetary incentive for Danes to do the same.

Third, while I praised the Danish socialized medical system in my last Blog because it is free and works pretty well, it could be improved if it adopted a more proactive approach. In the US doctors give their patients an annual medical exam, and so can track their weight, blood pressure, and other vital indicators. Danish doctors only see a patient when something goes wrong. In other words, they wait, often until it is a bit late in the game. Preventive medicine would raise life expectancy, which currently is a bit lower than the US, and quite a bit lower than next door Sweden. I mention Sweden to indicate that this is not a problem with socialized medicine per se, but rather a specifically Danish problem.

Fourth, and finally for today, the Danes could learn from Americans how to meet new people. They are a rather shy lot, hanging back in the corner of the room if they find themselves in a group of strangers. In the US people are quite ready to mix it up at a cocktail party, the more the merrier. Danes feel most comfortable at a smaller gathering, preferably where they know everyone else in advance, and ideally where there is a seating plan. Spontaneity is not the Danish strong point, in other words. Most of my Danish students who take a term in the US are able to make this adjustment, so there is a chance that the country can and will open up a little.

If both nations have something to learn from the other, however, I am not advocating cultural homogeneity. Fortunately, in my view, the Danes are not becoming Americanized, but that is a subject for another blog.

Is Denmark a Model for the United States?

Can Americans Learn from Others?

For most of the time during the last 225 years Americans have been convinced that they live in the best country on earth. They have even seen it as exceptional, a nation like no other. But not too many Americans have looked carefully at the alternatives. They are told repeatedly that the American way is the best, and that the rest of the world is just trying to catch up.

So how about a reality check? I have been living in Denmark for long enough to make a knowledgeable comparison. I have written a short book to introduce outsiders to Denmark, but because it is addressed to people from anywhere who might be planning to visit or live there, I avoid making direct comparisons.

But in the next century I hope that Americans will look carefully at what they are not getting from their government. 

Imagine living in a country with universal health care paid for entirely out of taxes. I will not lie to you and say that Denmark has a perfect system, but it is one which supports both basic and applied research and that provides a high level of care. Quite possibly the Swedes have an even better system.

Imagine a country where handguns are illegal, and where the one or two murders that do occur in a week are almost all solved by the police. 

Imagine a country where the unemployment rate is less than 3%, and where those who are unable to get work receive free retraining and can get unemployment benefits for much longer than the six month limit in the United States.

Imagine a country which provides university education free to all citizens, and then, to make absolutely certain no one is left out, gives ALL students a scholarship big enough to cover housing and meals.

Imagine a country where automobiles are not absolutely essential to getting around, and where most families have only one, and middle-class people get along without one. this is possible because the state has made certain that there is a tightly integrated bus and train system. Certain parts of the US have begun to learn this again - they had it in c. 1905.

Imagine a country where the minimum wage is more than $12 an hour! This does make a restaurant meal more expensive, for example, but it is worth paying that, if it means almost no one lives in poverty. There is something deeply absurd about the US system where someone can work full time for the minimum wage and still be at the poverty line. 

How is the Danish system this possible? Taxes are higher, and much less is spent on the military. It is not unusual to pay 50% of your salary in taxes. I used to complain about the high taxes a lot when I first came to Denmark, but gradually I began to see that the quality of life in such a system is worth paying for. Danish parents all know that their children will have the chance to go to university if they graduate from gymnasium (high school). A Dane knows that full medical care will be available, even if one is unemployed. A Dane who does get laid off, can feel pretty confidant that they will get another job, and that in the meantime domestic life will go on without too many disruptions. In short, the Danish system reduces anxiety about the future and provides a basic safety net. 

There is no perfect society, but some are better organized, have better food, protect their citizens better, and so forth. We have all heard that joke about heaven being the place where different nationalities have specific roles. In my ideal world, the French run the restaurants, the Spanish operate the cafes, the Danes make the furniture, build windmills and run the social services, the English make TV detective programs, fill the theaters and organize pomp and circumstance, the Italians build the town squares and provide the opera, the Germans construct and maintain the cars, the Americans innovate, build the bathrooms, provide popular music, and make the pizza, while every country provides its own novels, classical music, and fine art.

Of course, nations do not remain static. They get better or worse. The English have learned to cook somewhat better in the last two decades, for example, even if they still build some quite awful houses decorated in what Danes are certain is terrible taste. But many of the English seem to know this, and to recognize that for them IKEA is a step up. So perhaps my fellow Americans can improve, too. My Christmas wish is that they will look seriously at other societies and see what they might learn from each.

If you want to read more about Denmark, have a look at 

David E. Nye, Denmark and the Danes: A Two Hour briefing

SDU Forlag, 2006 (available through Amazon.com)