<
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/22/the-denmark-secret-how-it-became-the-worlds-most-trusting-country-and-why-that-matters>
"Over the years, Denmark has emerged as the good faith capital of the world.
Nearly 74% of Danes believe “most people can be trusted” – more than any other
nationality. On wider metrics, such as social trust (trusting a stranger) and
civic trust (trusting authority), Denmark also scores highest in the world,
with the other Nordic countries close behind.
The political scientist Gert Tinggaard Svendsen argues that trust accounts for
25% of Denmark’s otherwise inexplicable wealth. By his reckoning, a quarter of
that wealth comes from physical capital (means of production and
infrastructure), half comes from human capital (the population’s level of
education and innovation), and the unexplained final quarter is trust: they
don’t sue one another, they don’t waste money on burglar alarms, businesses
often make binding verbal agreements without sweating the contract. People who
hold power in Danish institutions – the government, police, judiciary, health
services – are trusted to be acting in society’s best interests, and there is
very little corruption.
Even the Danish official website calls it “the land of trust”, using unattended
cloakrooms at the opera as an example. A better one I saw is the Red Cross
charity shop in Copenhagen, which has a QR code on the door. If the shop’s
closed, you can download the app, let yourself in, choose what you want and
leave the money on the counter.
The cliche that’s gone global, of course, is that Danes are so trusting, they
routinely leave their babies sleeping in prams outside cafes and restaurants.
“Are you guys for real?” I ask Alma, 21, who’s working in a cafe in Copenhagen.
“There are seriously babies out there, asleep?” She nods, smiling. She gets
asked this by foreigners a lot. “Sure, why not? If a baby’s crying outside,
people will pop their heads in and say: ‘Is this anyone’s baby?’”"
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-replumbing-fish-passage-projects-and-more/>
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
