Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 1/19/2014
DEAR FRIEND.....
The image displays a map of Finland with some territories highlighted in red, indicating areas that were historically significant or subject to territorial changes. Adjacent to the map is the flag of Finland. The highlighted areas on the map are:
- Petsamo: Located in the northernmost part of Finland, bordering the Barents Sea.
- Salla: Situated in northeastern Finland, near the border with the Soviet Union.
- Karelia: A large region in southeastern Finland, bordering Lake Ladoga and the Soviet Union.
- Porkkala: A peninsula on the southern coast, west of Helsinki, on the Gulf of Finland.
These highlighted regions, particularly Karelia and Petsamo, were ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union following the Winter War (1939-1940) and the Continuation War (1941-1944).
Between Christmas and New Year's I flew to Europe from Los Angeles for two days of business meetings and on my outbound flight I sat next to a wonderful American women who returning home to Finland, and since no one really lives in Finland by choice, I had to ask why? Her initial answer was
that she married a Finn, who she met while working at Nokia. But what took me aback was how she has since become a huge fan of Finland and would live nowhere else other than in Australia when she and her husband retires in twenty years or so. My belief is that Finland was the extremely poor step-child in Scandinavia, sort of backwards with little opportunity, poor weather bland food and nothing to do. As a result, I couldn't imagine even visiting Finland and I definitely didn't believe that there was any way that Finland could serve as a role model to America or even the rest of Europe. Boy did she change that.
First of all, Finnish students consistently place in the Top10, if not in the Top 5 and some years in the Top 3 in the world. How could this be possible? Remember Finland is a dull backward socialist country with bad weather. My friend explained that one of the reasons why Finland works is that they have democratic socialism whereby the number one priority of almost every politician in the country is to do what is best for the maximum amount of people even if it doesn't benefit the market. In Finland, their social democracy doesn't encourage or prioritize capitalist competition but instead encourages and prioritizes democracy in its best sense. In America, on the other hand, capitalism has had a long history of undermining democracy and hence public good. It's not even that Finland is an absolute perfect example of socialism any more than America is an absolute perfect example of capitalism. Rather, the point is that America strives toward a more capitalist worldview and Finland strives toward a more socialist worldview. Two different strivings leading to two very different results.
Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality. In the Finnish view, schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance. This point is almost always ignored or brushed aside in the U.S. seems especially poignant at the moment, after the financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street movement have brought the problems of inequality in America into such sharp focus. The chasm between those who can afford $35,000 in tuition per child per year — or even just the price of a house in a good public school district — and the other "99 percent" is painfully plain to see.
In Finland every citizen has a right to a free education from k through PhDs and other advanced degrees. So a twenty-five year old engineer or twenty-eight year old doctor receives their complete education without incurring any debt. As a result, the society as a whole is much better educated then here in America with superior skill sets. Healthcare is the same. Totally free.... And for young families, maternity leave is three years (yes 3 yearsfrom the birth of your last child) making it easy for families to stay together as well as providing more family support for the children and the family unit as a whole. From the age of three to six both the state and large corporations offer free pre-school until 6pm and all companies allow employees to leave work at 5:3opm so that they can pick up the children and spend time to their families. And companies don't resist this because it adds to the quality of life for employees, the central tenet of Democratic Socialism.
Obviously all of this comes at a price. The top tax bracket for Finns is 42%. But remember, education and healthcare is free and one can retire at 62 years old with three-quarters retirement income. And remember, in Finland you don't go broke if you have a medical condition that doesn't let you work. Hence the elderly in Finland don't have buy cans of cat food to survive and younger Finns can get retrained when they lose their jobs or need to develop a new skill set. But again the real difference
between Finland and the US is that political decisions are based on the greater good of the mass, instead of the self-interest of a very few.
With this said, I have never been to Finland and I really only have had interactions with a few Finns, so what I am describing is from what I have read. The Finnish model is not going to work in every county as all countries are different, and Finland is a small nation (5.4 million) with a much more homogeneous population than the United States. When Finnish policymakers decided to reform the country's education system in the 197os, they did so because they realized that to be competitive, Finland couldn't rely on manufacturing or its scant natural resources and instead had to invest in a knowledge-based economy.
With America's manufacturing industries now in decline, the goal of educational policy in the U.S. — as articulated by most everyone from President Obama on down — is to preserve American competitiveness by doing the same thing. Finland's experience suggests that to win at that game, a country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well, for the new economy. To possess some of the best schools in the world might still not be good enough if there are children being left behind. Remember that when President Kennedy was making his appeal for advancing American science and technology by putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, many said it couldn't be done. But he had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King a few years later had a dream. Those dreams came true. Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn'couldn't be done.
Clearly, these people were wrong. It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important — as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform — Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity. The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad. Finland has proven that if politicians get together with the goal of working together for the common good of the masses based on policies that support free education and healthcare, and results should be based on more than monetary milestones and ideology purity — not only will more people and the country will prosper but more people will experience a better quality of life. As such, from what I have read, the Finish model of democratic socialism works. Yes capitalism works but not for everything and if the Finish model works for education, healthcare, etc., why not use it
[...Content continues with extensive commentary, news summaries, and attached articles, including references to Elizabeth Warren, Amiri Baraka, Bruce Springsteen, and others.]
Sincerely,
Greg Brown
Gregory Brown
Chairman & CEO
GlobalCast Partners, LLC
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