Do you know how to get an American company to grant you excellent wages and amazing benefits, even for an entry-level job?

你知道如何让一家美国公司批准给你极其优厚的薪酬和令人惊叹的福利吗，哪怕是一份入门级的工作？

Move to Norway and take the job there.

搬到挪威并在那里接下这份工作。

Construction workers, hotel maids, gas station attendants and store cashiers will typically earn more than $20 an hour plus evening or weekend bonuses, about five weeks’ paid vacation each year, a pension, maternity and paternity leave that add up to a year and paid leave when a child is sick. You may even get paid time off if you move to a new home.

建筑工人、酒店清洁工、加油站服务员和商店收销员的时薪通常都超过20美元，此外还享有夜间或周末加班津贴、每年约五周的带薪假期、一份养老金、累计可达一年的产假与陪产假，以及孩子生病时的带薪假期。甚至搬个家可能还能获得带薪假期。

Those are broadly the terms for Norwegian and foreign companies alike, including the likes of 7-Eleven shops, Burger King restaurants and ExxonMobil-affiliated gas stations. Which raises the question: If American and other international firms can offer such munificent terms for retail jobs in Norway, could they do so in our country?

这些条款大致上对挪威本土及外国公司都是一样的，包括7-Eleven便利店、汉堡王餐厅以及美孚旗下的加油站。这就提出了一个问题：如果美国和其他国际企业能在挪威为零售业职位提供如此慷慨的条件，他们能否也能在我们国家这样做呢？

We’ll get to that, but what unfolds here is a result of the Nordic social and economic model, which aims to reduce inequality, boost opportunity and optimize the quality of life — providing a lift, in particular, for those at the lower end of the income scale. What we tend to think of as “low wage” jobs aren’t truly low-earning in Norway, and they also come with state-provided health care and child care, plus strong unions that ensure that layoffs or firings are rare.

我们稍后会探讨这个问题，但在挪威所展现的一切实际上是北欧社会与经济模式运作的结果，该模式旨在缩小不平等、扩大机遇并优化生活质量——特别是为那些处于收入底层的人群提供支撑。我们通常认为是“低薪”的工作，在挪威绝非真正意义上的低收入，并且这些工作还伴随着国家提供的医疗和托育保障，以及确保极少发生裁员或解雇的强大工会。

You want security, health care and the American dream? Look to Scandinavia.

想要安全感、医疗保障以及美国梦？不妨把目光投向斯堪的纳维亚。

“We actually live the American dream,” Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway who is now the finance minister, told me. “The American dream, it’s more reality in the Nordic countries than in America.”

“事实上，我们才生活在美国梦之中，”曾任挪威首相、现任财政部长的延斯·斯托尔滕贝格对我说。“美国梦在北欧国家比在美国本土更接近现实。”

Skeptics have argued that generous welfare benefits and the resulting high taxes have held back the Nordic economies. Perhaps a bit. “Farewell, Nordic model,” The Economist wrote in 2006. But Norway is now richer than the United States per capita, and Norwegian workers are more productive than American workers, with higher output per hour. Scandinavians live longer than Americans, and people are happier. The five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — all rank among the six happiest countries in the world in the World Happiness Report, based on Gallup polling.

质疑者曾辩称，慷慨的福利和随之而来的高税收阻碍了北欧经济的发展。或许有那么一点。“再见，北欧模式，”《经济学人》曾在2006年写道。但如今，挪威的人均财富已超越美国，且挪威工人的劳动生产率也高于美国工人，每小时的产出更高。斯堪的纳维亚人比美国人更长寿，也更幸福。根据基于盖洛普民意调查的《世界幸福报告》，北欧五国——丹麦、芬兰、冰岛、挪威和瑞典——全部位列全球最幸福的前六个国家之列。

Yet the Nordic countries are themselves facing significant challenges, including fiscal pressures, immigration, widening inequality and perhaps some breakdown in the social consensus. Some doubt whether the model can survive here, let alone be exported to countries that are larger, less homogeneous and more suspicious of taxation.

然而，北欧国家自身也正面临着重大挑战，包括财政压力、移民问题、日益加剧的不平等，以及社会共识的某种破裂。一些人怀疑这种模式能否在本国维持下去，更不用说将其推广到那些规模更大、人口同质化程度较低且对税收更为排斥的国家了。

On the other hand, it’s not an alien model but, for Americans, a path we once blazed. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist, told me that the United States and Scandinavian nations pursued similar policies from the 1940s through the 1960s. That was the period when the United States rapidly expanded educational opportunities, had strong unions and, in the 1940s, experimented with universal child care. The post-World War II period is sometimes thought of as a golden age, for the economic pie both grew and was sliced more equally.

另一方面，对于美国人来说，这并非一种完全陌生的模式，而是我们曾经开辟过的道路。哈佛大学经济学家劳伦斯·卡茨告诉我，美国和斯堪的纳维亚国家在20世纪40年代至60年代期间奉行高度相似的政策。那段时期，美国迅速扩大教育机会、工会力量强大，并在40年代试行普惠性儿童托育。第二次世界大战后的这段时期有时被视为黄金时代，因为经济蛋糕不仅在变大，而且切得更加公平。

“The U.S. in the mid-20th century was sort of like Scandinavia today,” Katz said. But America changed course in the 1970s and eventually embraced the Reagan revolution.

“20世纪中叶的美国在某种程度上就像今天的斯堪的纳维亚，”卡茨说。但美国在70年代改变了航向，并最终迎来了里根革命。

One reason for the retreat, I’ve argued, was racialized political rhetoric that characterized some safety-net programs and investments in opportunity — used by Americans from all walks of life — as handouts primarily benefiting Black people, with a particular emphasis on caricatures of the “welfare queen.”

我认为这种倒退的原因之一是政治上带有种族色彩的煽动性言论，这些言论将那些各行各业美国人都在使用的社会安全网计划和机会投资描述为主要惠及黑人的施舍，并特别渲染了“福利女王”这一刻板丑化形象。

It’s also true that the American economy in the 1970s was underperforming and markets did need a kick in the pants in the form of deregulation. Meanwhile, the Nordic countries largely continued their investments in human capital and reducing inequality.

诚然，20世纪70年代的美国经济表现不佳，市场确实需要通过放松管制来注入一剂强心针。但反观北欧国家，它们很大程度上是在选择继续对人力资本进行投资，并致力于减少不平等。

Although I’ve been visiting the Nordic countries for decades, I became more interested in their model over the past 15 years because of the struggles of my hometown in rural Oregon. Mills and factories closed, meth arrived, and three school friends died while homeless on the streets.

虽然几十年来一直频繁造访北欧各国，但过去15年里，我对他们的模式产生了更浓厚的兴趣，这是因为我看到了故乡所经历的挣扎。在俄勒冈乡村地区，工厂和作坊倒闭、冰毒泛滥，我的三个学生时代的朋友最终无家可归，横尸街头。

I can’t help thinking that they might be alive today if they had been born in Scandinavia with its strong social safety net.

我不禁在想，如果他们当年出生在拥有强大社会安全网的斯堪的纳维亚，如今他们也许还活着。

How does this system work in practice?

这个体系在现实中是如何运作的？

Consider Hauk Kjaeran, 24, a waiter at Nektar restaurant in Oslo. He has been at his job for only a few months but is paid more than $25 an hour, not including tips.

让我们来看看24岁的豪克·凯兰，他是奥斯陆Nektar餐厅的一名服务员。他在这份岗位上仅仅干了几个月，但他的时薪已超过25美元，这还不包括小费。

He also gets five weeks’ vacation, earns a pension, is entitled to hefty parental and sick leave and is studying to be a sommelier, all paid for.

他还享有五周的假期、累积养老金、丰厚的育儿假和病假，并且正在进修侍酒师课程，所有费用都由公司承担。

A full workweek in Norway is 37.5 hours, but Kjaeran asked for a 60 percent contract. “I have some other stuff to do, and I like my freedom as well,” he explained.

在挪威，标准的法定全职工作时间是每周37.5小时，但凯兰要求签订一份60%工作量的合同。“我还有其他事情要忙，而且我也喜欢拥有自由，”他解释道。

One waitress at the restaurant is on leave, sailing around the world with friends. I asked the restaurant owner, Veslemoey Hvidsten, what she thought of her missing employee.

这家餐厅的一位女服务员目前正在休假，和朋友一起驾船环游世界。我询问餐厅老板维斯勒莫伊·维德斯滕如何看待这位缺勤的员工。

“She wanted to do this,” Hvidsten said. “So we said, ‘Yeah, why not?’”

“她想去实现这个梦想，”维德斯滕说。“所以我们说，‘好啊，为什么不呢？’”

Hvidsten emphasized that her aim isn’t to squeeze every last penny she can out of her restaurant, and that happy employees are better for customers and for her business.

维德斯滕强调，她的经营目标并不是从餐厅里压榨出最后一分钱，快乐的员工对顾客和她自己的生意都更有利。

“That’s how we build the whole country,” she added. “Taking care of each other.”

“这就是我们建设整个国家的方式，”她补充道。“互相照顾。”

When Americans discuss the Nordic system, they sometimes suffer from three misunderstandings.

当美国人讨论北欧体系时，他们有时会陷入三个误解之中。

The first is that these are socialist countries. While they are often run by social democrats, they have market economies. Sweden did experiment in the 1970s and ’80s with quasi-socialist policies, but the upshot was an economic crisis. As Johan Norberg, a Swedish writer, put it: “We have been socialists and we’ve been successful — but never at the same time.”

第一个误解是这些国家是社会主义国家。尽管经常由社会民主党人执政，它们的背后是市场配置的经济体制。瑞典在20世纪70和80年代确实尝试过准社会主义政策，但这最终导致了经济危机。正如瑞典作家约翰·诺伯格所说：“我们曾走过社会主义道路，我们也曾取得过成功——但这两者从未同时发生过。”

The second misunderstanding is that because of their strong welfare systems, citizens of Nordic countries lie around while collecting benefits. Sure, some people do manipulate the system, but the labor force participation rate is higher in Nordic countries than in the United States.

第二个误解是，由于国家有强大的福利保障，公民只会躺平吃福利。诚然，确实有人在钻体制的空子，但北欧国家的劳动力参与率实际上高于美国。

The third is that in the case of Norway, its success is mostly a reflection of its oil wealth. Oil has given Norway a nice cushion, but the country has also managed the cushion unusually well — putting it in what is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. Moreover, according to Geir Axelsen, the director-general of Statistics Norway, the increase in female labor force participation in Norway since the early 1970s appears to have added roughly as much to the country’s gross domestic product as oil has.

第三个误解是，挪威的成功主要建立在石油财富之上。石油确实给挪威提供了雄厚的经济底气，但该国对这笔财富的管理异乎寻常地好——将其存入了全球最大的主权财富基金之一。此外，根据挪威国家统计局局长盖尔·阿克塞尔森的说法，自20世纪70年代初以来，挪威女性劳动力参与率的提高对该国国内生产总值的贡献与石油基本不相上下。

Indeed, women are an underappreciated component of the Nordic economic engine. Historically, American women had higher rates of labor force participation than did women in most other countries, but Scandinavia now easily surpasses the United States by this metric. In 2025, some 56 percent of American working-age women were in the labor force; in Sweden and Norway, the figure was around 62 percent; in Iceland, 70 percent. Having the flexibility to work part time or adjust hours is one factor that almost certainly increases the share of women in the labor force in Nordic countries. Another factor is the availability of high-quality day care. Norway’s system, which is typical, takes children from the age of 1, and the cost is about $120 per month. For low-income families, it’s nearly free.

事实上，女性是北欧经济引擎中一个常被低估的要素。在历史上，美国女性的劳动力参与率曾高于大多数其他国家，但目前斯堪的纳维亚在这一指标上已轻松超越美国。在2025年，约56%的美国适龄工作女性进入了劳动力市场；而在瑞典和挪威，这一比例约为62%；在冰岛则高达70%。能够灵活选择兼职工作或调整工作时间无疑是提高北欧女性劳动力参与率的一个关键因素。另一个因素是高质量日托服务的普及。挪威的制度具有代表性：接收一岁以上的儿童，每月费用约为120美元。对于低收入家庭，这项服务几乎是全免的。

“If it wasn’t for this kindergarten, we wouldn’t have three kids,” Mats Brekke, a solar engineer, told me as he dropped by the day care center in Oslo where his middle child spends the day. He had his 10-month-old daughter on his arm; she’ll start in August.

“如果没有这个幼儿园，我们绝不可能生三个孩子，”太阳能工程师马茨·布雷克在顺道前往奥斯陆的一家日托中心时告诉我，他的二女儿每天都在这里度过。他怀里还抱着10个月大的女儿，她也将在今年8月入托。

The day care center where I met Brekke was in a working-class Oslo neighborhood, with bright rooms and a diverse group of children playing with one another — all rattling away in Norwegian. That’s one aim of the system: encouraging children in immigrant communities to embrace being Norwegian from an early age.

我与布雷克相遇的这家日托中心位于奥斯陆的一个工人阶级社区，房间明亮，一群来自不同背景的孩子们在一起玩耍，都用挪威语叽叽喳喳地说着话。这正是该体制的目的之一：鼓励移民社区的孩子们从小就融入并接纳自己作为挪威人的身份。

“Especially for children who come from other countries, like immigrants or refugees, it will help them to integrate,” said a teacher, Worod Alkazemi, herself an Iraqi Norwegian who says she was molded into a Norwegian a generation ago as a little girl in day care.

“特别是对于那些来自其他国家的孩子，比如移民或难民，这能极大地帮助他们融入社会，”教师沃罗德·阿尔卡泽米说。她本身就是伊拉克裔，她说她以前就是这样在日托中心里被塑造成为一名挪威人的。

One-fifth of Norwegians are either immigrants or their children, often from countries like Syria or Somalia with conservative social cultures. Day care centers try to nurture Nordic social attitudes, which tend to be more liberal.

五分之一的挪威人是移民或移民的后代，他们大多来自叙利亚或索马里等社会文化相对保守的国家。日托中心则致力于培育往往更为包容、自由的北欧社会观念。

“It’s June, and we’re talking about Pride Month,” said Cathrine Pedersen, the chief of the day care center, which had a rainbow flag fluttering outside. “To have a symbol of diversity. Showing that there are different ways of living lives.”

“现在是6月，我们正在谈论骄傲月，”该日托中心负责人凯瑟琳·佩德森说，中心外面正飘扬着一面彩虹旗。“这是多元化的象征。它旨在向孩子们展示，生活可以有不同的方式。”

To understand how the Nordic socioeconomic system evolved, I dropped by the office of Kalle Moene, an economist at the University of Oslo. The system began in the 1930s, he said, when workers in thriving sectors of the economy agreed to hold down their wage demands to support sectors that were struggling.

为了理解北欧社会经济制度是如何演变而来的，我造访了奥斯陆大学经济学家卡勒·莫尼的办公室。他介绍称，这一体系始于20世纪30年代，当时那些身处繁荣行业的工人同意压低自己的薪资要求，以支持陷入困境的行业。

That principle — sacrificing to help those not doing so well — still underpins the region’s business model. Norwegians who are better off are willing to give up some income to ensure that people in blue-collar jobs get by.

这种为了照顾弱者而自我牺牲的原则时至今日依然支撑着该地区的商业模式。富裕的挪威人愿意让渡一部分收入，以确保蓝领阶层能够维持生计。

Moene argues that this wage compression promotes innovation and dynamism by boosting the profitability of growth industries and by lowering profits in lagging industries.

莫尼认为，由于提高了增长型行业的盈利能力并压低了落后行业的利润，这种工资压缩政策反而促进了创新和经济活力。

“The lowest wages become higher, destroying bad jobs,” Moene said. “The highest wages become lower, creating more good jobs.”

“最低工资上涨消灭了糟糕的工作，”莫尼说。“最高工资被压低则创造了更多优质的工作。”

In addition, the social safety net in Nordic countries means that workers are less fearful of trade and technology costing their jobs. This makes it easier to embrace policies that boost growth overall but threaten some positions, Stoltenberg said.

此外，北欧国家的社会安全网意味着工人不必过于担心贸易和技术会让他们的岗位消失。斯托尔滕贝格表示，这使得人们更容易去拥抱那些能促进整体增长、即使会威胁到某些具体岗位的政策。

I wonder if wage compression may also have resulted in political compression. There seems to be less political toxicity in Nordic countries than in the United States and many other countries. By international standards, civility reigns. Right-wing nationalists exist here, but haven’t made as many inroads as in Germany, France or Britain.

我在想，工资的压缩是否也带来了政治上的收敛。与美国和许多其他国家相比，北欧国家的政治毒性似乎明显较弱。以国际标准来看，这里依然礼貌理智。右翼民族主义者虽然存在，但他们未能像在德国、法国或英国那样势如破竹。

Eirik Lae Solberg, the governing mayor of Oslo, is an important figure in the country’s conservative party. He opposes the country’s wealth tax and generally thinks Norwegian taxes are too high. But by American standards, he would count as liberal.

奥斯陆执政市长埃里克·莱·索尔伯格是该国保守党的重要人物。他反对财富税，并认为挪威的税率总体过高。但如果按照美国的标准来看，他绝对会被划归为自由派。

“I strongly believe that what we do in the Nordics to provide opportunity for all is growth-promoting,” Solberg told me. “In the U.S., I would probably be on the left.”

“我坚信我们北欧为所有人提供机会的举措是能够促进经济增长的，”索尔伯格告诉我。“如果在美国，我大概会属于左翼。”

For all the success of the Nordic model to date, it is under great pressure. Many social benefits are expensive, and paying for them is a growing challenge as the population ages and requires more elder care.

尽管北欧模式迄今取得了巨大的成功，它目前也承受着极大的压力。许多社会福利开支巨大，随着人口老龄化以及对老年人照护需求的激增，如何维持这些开支正成为一个日益严峻的挑战。

“Every institution in the society is under strain,” said Shazia Majid, a columnist at VG, a Norwegian newspaper. She noted that because so many women are working, they aren’t able to care for aging parents — at-home labor that would probably fall to women more often than to men — and the system is financially pressed even as it needs tens of thousands more health workers.

挪威报纸《世界之路》的专栏作家沙齐亚·马吉德表示：“社会中的每一个机构都在承受着重压。” 她指出，由于极高比例的女性在参与工作，她们无法在家里照顾年迈的父母——而在过去，这种家庭内部的劳动往往更多由女性承担——这导致整个系统急需数万名医疗工作者，财政也面临着压力。

Immigration adds to the challenges, particularly in Sweden, where a quarter of the population is now made up of immigrants or their children. Violent crime, often linked by commentators to immigration, is a serious problem in Sweden (although the country is far from being the world’s “rape capital,” as some lurid right-wing accounts claim).

移民问题同样加剧了这一挑战，尤其是在瑞典，该国四分之一的人口由移民或其子女构成。时常被评论人士归咎于移民的暴力犯罪在瑞典已成为一个严重的社会问题（尽管该国远非某些右翼夸大其词所声称的全球“强奸之都”）。

Serious observers, most notably Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president and a former prime minister of Italy, suggest that Europe has lost some of its competitiveness, and that sentiment resonates in the Nordics as well. I think there’s something to that, but the hand-wringing can be overdone in the case of the Nordic countries. Sweden ranks No. 2 in the Global Innovation Index, produced by the World Intellectual Property Organization, ahead of the United States at No. 3. Finland and Denmark are also in the top ten.

许多严肃的观察家——以前欧洲中央银行行长、前意大利总理马里奥·德拉吉为代表——指出，欧洲已经丧失了部分竞争力，这种情绪在北欧同样引发了共鸣。我认为这种担忧不无道理，但在北欧国家的案例中，这种焦虑或许有些过头。在世界知识产权组织发布的《全球创新指数》中，瑞典高居全球第二，领先于排名第三的美国。芬兰和丹麦同样位列全球前十。

I’ve been talking about Nordic policies, but what if the big driver of success isn’t policy so much as norms? These are traditionally homogeneous societies that maintain village values of mutual support. When researchers “lost” wallets in 40 countries around the world, the two countries with the highest rates of the wallets being returned (when they contained money) were Denmark and Sweden.

我一直在谈论北欧的政策，但如果成功的关键驱动力并非政策而是社会规范呢？这些社会在传统上属于同质化社会，至今保留着邻里互助的村落价值观。当研究人员在全球40个国家故意“丢失”装有现金的钱包时，归还率最高的两个国家正是丹麦和瑞典。

My sense is that norms and policies reinforce each other. Iyad el-Baghdadi, a prominent Palestinian in Norway who was accepted as a refugee, said that Norwegians had been extraordinarily welcoming and kind. But it’s not just that, he added: “It’s that this is the system.”

在我看来，社会规范和国家政策实际上在相互强化。在挪威获得难民庇护的知名巴勒斯坦活动家伊亚德·巴格达迪表示，挪威人表现出了超乎寻常的包容与善良。但他补充道，这不仅仅是因为善良：“更因为这就是他们的整个系统。”

Stoltenberg offered an example of policy molding norms. In the 1980s, he and others pushed for paid paternity leaves in part to ensure that dads would spend time with their newborn children. This social engineering worked: Fathers now are deeply involved in caring for children, taking some of the load off mothers. “That’s perhaps one of those reforms that have really changed Norway,” Stoltenberg told me.

斯托尔滕贝格提供了一个通过政策塑造社会规范的绝佳例子。在20世纪80年代，他和同行者极力推动带薪陪产假，部分原因就是为了确保父亲们能够花时间陪伴新生儿。这种社会工程学成功了：如今的挪威父亲们深度参与到照顾孩子的事务中，极大地分担了母亲们的负担。“这或许是真正改变了挪威的那些核心改革之一，”斯托尔滕贝格告诉我。

Is the Nordic model replicable? Could convenience stores and gas stations in America pay their cashiers and attendants $20 or more an hour plus a pension and five weeks’ vacation?

北欧模式是可以复制的吗？ 美国的便利店和加油站真的能给收银员和服务员提供20美元以上的时薪、养老金和五周年假吗？

One challenge, economists told me, is that relative to many American workers, Norwegian laborers often have higher literacy rates, appear more able to pass a drug test, can handle technology better and can be relied upon to stay in their jobs longer, meaning that employers benefit from a more experienced, more productive work force. In effect, Nordic employers can pay more in part because workers generate more income.

经济学家告诉我，这里面临的一个巨大挑战在于，相较于许多美国工人，北欧的劳动者通常拥有更高的读写水平、滥用药物问题较少、技术操作能力更强，且在岗位上的流动率更低，这意味着雇主能够从一支经验更丰富、生产率更高的劳动力队伍中获益。实际上，北欧雇主之所以能够支付更高的薪水，部分原因在于工人们自身创造了更高的价值。

In that sense, learning from the Nordics is not as simple as raising minimum wages and seeing happiness soar. Rather, it’s the challenge of investing in human capital from early childhood through university-level education, pushing relentlessly to broaden opportunity at every level.

从这个意义上说，向北欧国家学习绝非盲目地提高最低工资然后坐等幸福感飙升那么简单。相反，它真正的挑战在于如何持续对人力资本进行长线投资——从幼儿时期一直延续到大学教育，在每一个层面上不遗余力地去拓宽人们的发展空间。

All this raises taxes. But it also raises skills and makes workers more productive. From a distance, we see how much Nordic workers get; up close, you see also how much they contribute.

所有这一切确实会推高税收。但它同样提升了国民的技能，并让劳动者变得更加高效。远距离审视时，我们看到的只是北欧工人拿到了多少；但唯有近距离观察，你才会发现他们到底做出了多少贡献。