the social welfare system are to redistribute income more evenly over each individual’s life cycle, narrow the gaps between social classes, and provide everyone with a broad selection of public services.” An American reads that sentence and hears, “We’re putting half your allowance in the bank because you’ll no doubt want to buy some Rage Against the Machine CDs and a skateboard when you’re eighty.” Then the American starts thinking about social status. True, Yanni, Marv Albert, and Jenny McCarthy†† are part of the underclass, but is it because they’re poorer than John Updike? And is this a gap we want to close? And “broad selection of public services” seems to be another way of saying: “To get downtown, you can take the bus. Or the next bus. Or the bus after that.” But one understands the impulse behind the Swedish ideas. Nobody can contemplate America’s notorious wealth and renowned poverty without thinking, at least once, “Why can’t we fix this?” Give your cell phone to the lady talking to herself in the park—let her talk to someone else for a change. Many underprivileged youths never get the benefits of a college education. The next time you see a deprived adolescent, why not present him with your old bong, fuzzy snapshot taken on San Pedro Island, and tattered copy of Monarch Notes for Bleak House ? Impoverished Americans exist in very depressing circumstances, so share your Prozac. The Swedes can almost make you believe in this. In the first place, they are nice—nicer even than the people in Anaheim who spend all day in Donald Duck masks. At shops, in restaurants, on the streets, everyone is so helpful and pleasant that it frightens an American, since nobody in the U.S. behaves this way unless he’s trying to sell you mutual fund shares. Cabdrivers get out and open the door for you. One night my taxi was cut off in traffic, and my driver rolled down his window, leaned toward the offending vehicle, and said—I quote verbatim—“ Tsk-tsk. ” Even the hotel manager who told me that the crane falling over wasn’t really funny caught herself and a moment later said, “Maybe it is funny, a little.” Every businessperson, academic, or politician I called made time to see me (always for precisely one hour, by the way). The American ambassador Thomas Siebert and his wife, Deborah, are as nice as everyone else in the country. They came by the hotel for drinks, invited me for tea, and were full of information and suggestions. I actually found, to my horror, this niceness infecting me. Ambassador Siebert was Bill Clinton’s
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