Nordic nations have cultivated the single most valuable resource a society can have in the twenty-first century: human capital … At some point, the Americans forgot that it’s not enough to talk about equal opportunity, democracy, and freedom–these things need to be protected and supported by concrete actions.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.
Thomas Kuhn showed how paradigms – collections of beliefs, assumptions, and “truths” – shape how communities understand their world. Just as scientists clung to an Earth-centered universe until evidence forced a paradigm shift, a society operates within an economic paradigm that persists until its flaws become undeniable.
The underlying paradigm of American capitalism, with its emphasis on radical individualism and dogmatic belief in self-regulating markets, faces mounting challenges it cannot explain away: rising inequality, declining social mobility, accelerating climate change, and biodiversity loss that undermine the conditions for human survival and limit the possibilities for human flourishing. Meanwhile, Nordic societies reflect a different paradigm – one that strikes a practical balance between individual initiative and collective well-being, while embracing the essential role of the state in shaping markets to serve the public interest.
While Kuhn described paradigm shifts without advocacy, I adopt an explicitly normative position: this chapter advocates for a deliberate shift in how Americans conceptualize their economic and social systems. What Kuhn called a paradigm is often described as a societal mindset – as Donella Meadows explains in Thinking in Systems, they represent the same concept of collective beliefs and assumptions that shape how we organize ourselves. Specifically, I argue for transitioning from a hyper-individualistic “Me-Me-Me” paradigm to what I call the “Me-We-Me” paradigm, as Nordic capitalism exemplifies.
The Me-We-Me societal mindset maintains strong individual responsibility while fostering a practical commitment to broader societal well-being, recognizing both the moral imperative of taking responsibility for societal well-being (caring for a stranger’s child) and the practical benefits that flow back to individuals (that child may become the healthcare worker who tends to us in our elder years). Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology, particularly Multilevel Selection (MLS) theory, we’ll examine why Nordic societies consistently lead global measures of societal well-being and how the underlying Me-We-Me paradigm represents a promising direction forward for reshaping American capitalism – one that honors American values of individualism and freedom while pragmatically addressing challenges that individuals cannot efficiently solve alone.
Flight of the Nordic Bumblebee
The Nordic model is often likened to a bumblebee – which, according to conventional wisdom, shouldn’t be able to fly given its body mass relative to wing size. Similarly, critics insist the Nordic model’s comprehensive social programs should be too heavy a tax burden for any economy to sustain.Footnote 1 Rather than examine the evidence of how the Nordic model succeeds, critics swat it away with ideological charges of socialism – a reflexive denial that exemplifies how thoroughly ideology can trump empirical evidence in American discourse.
However, those who examine the evidence find that efficiency is the “secret” to both the Nordic model and the bumblebee’s flight. The bumblebee does not simply flap its wings up and down. Instead, it traces an elongated motion that creates low-pressure zones above its wings, efficiently generating lift through Bernoulli’s Principle – the same principle that enables modern jets to fly.
Similarly, the Nordic model doesn’t simply tax and inefficiently spend; it carefully orchestrates how resources are collected and deployed. Through functioning democratic institutions, transparency, and systematic data collection, Nordic citizens receive demonstrable value in return for their tax contributions. Tax revenues are invested in essential services like healthcare and education, with effectiveness monitored through continuous assessment and refinement to do more of what works and less of what does not. The Nordic health registries exemplify this systematic approach to efficiency. Tracking population health data since the 1950s, these registries have been described as an “epidemiologist’s dream,” enabling Nordic societies to deliver healthcare with remarkable effectiveness.Footnote 2
Through these efficient societal systems, Nordic societies achieve what critics deemed impossible: collecting taxes to fund efficient universal services that expand individual freedoms.
Nordic capitalism represents the most comprehensive natural experiment disproving neoliberal assumptions. Its sustained success empirically refutes claims about the inherent inefficiency of tax-funded universal programs. Yet because this success contradicts neoliberal theory, many American economists dismiss it with charges of “socialism.”
Evolution and Society: MLS Theory
The concept of society as an organism, while dating back to Aristotle’s Politics and Hobbes’s Leviathan, was largely overshadowed in the twentieth century by reductionist perspectives emphasizing individual components over collective systems. Margaret Thatcher’s assertion, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families,” exemplifies the view that dominated neoliberal thought with its emphasis on individualism.Footnote 3
MLS theory demonstrates how natural selection operates at multiple levels – both within groups and between groups. A society is a group, and MLS theory shows that societies balancing internal competition with cooperation tend to outperform those that do not. This dual-level selection process explains why cooperative behaviors evolve even when they might initially appear costly to individuals, challenging earlier models that focused solely on individual selection.
David Sloan Wilson and Dag O. Hessen’s application of MLS theory to Nordic societies reveals how institutional structures and cultural norms can promote effective cooperation while maintaining healthy competition. Through universal healthcare, robust social safety nets, and inclusive educational policies, Nordic societies have created environments where cooperative behaviors are incentivized and destructive competition is minimized. These systems reduce the stress and uncertainty that often drive selfish behaviors, fostering collective responsibility while still allowing for individual achievement. The resulting social resilience and consistently high measures of societal well-being provide compelling evidence for MLS theory’s practical application in modern governance.
Empirical Evidence for Group-Level Success
The success of Nordic societies’ evolutionary balance is evident in global performance metrics. As outlined in Chapter 1, they consistently lead virtually every measure of societal well-being – from the SDG Index (where Denmark, Finland, and Sweden rotate the #1 position) to the Democracy Index (claiming five of the top six spots) and the World Happiness Report (with Finland holding the top spot for eight consecutive years). Perhaps most tellingly, Nordic nations claim all five top spots in the Global Social Mobility Index – effectively measuring the American Dream’s promise of opportunity for all – while the US ranks 27th.
This empirical evidence validates MLS theory’s prediction about societal success through balanced competition and cooperation. While biological evolution operates through genetic transmission, socioeconomic systems evolve through institutional and cultural adaptation. In Nordic societies, this evolution manifests through three key mechanisms: institutional selection (effective policies persist and spread), cultural selection (cooperative norms yield better outcomes), and economic selection (efficient resource allocation between individual and collective needs leads to superior performance).
Despite higher taxes and strong labor protections, Nordic companies remain globally competitive precisely because their societies have evolved efficient mechanisms for balancing individual achievement with collective prosperity. Their emphasis on education and continuous skills development ensures individuals can contribute effectively to both personal and societal success, demonstrating how cooperative strategies create more sustainable societies.
American capitalism’s “Me-Me-Me” paradigm dismisses Nordic societies’ success with charges of socialism, assuming their universal services and high taxes must inevitably create inefficiency and reduce freedom. Critics argue these nations “should have long ago collapsed under the weight of public spending.” Yet reality proves otherwise.Footnote 4
Nordic citizens understand that the costs of their model in higher income taxes represent investments in the well-being of every individual – investments in essential areas like healthcare, education, and social safety nets. The return on these investments has proven exceptionally high, benefiting the collective “We” and the individual “Me.”
History offers stark warnings about societies that fail to achieve a shared sense of “We.” Abraham Lincoln’s warning that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” resonates today. Without cultivating a shared identity and sense of “We” through systems and norms of decency that encourage mutual benefit among societal members, American society risks dangerous fragmentation. The stakes could not be higher – without such a shift, American capitalism risks collapse, potentially paving the way for a totalitarian system that appeals to humankind’s worst tendencies – selfishness and fear – to pit citizens against one another, undermining freedoms.
Paradigms
In his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn describes paradigms as the underlying assumptions that dictate how research is conducted and interpreted within a scientific community. Paradigms shape what is considered valid knowledge, the methods used to obtain it, and the questions deemed important. When a paradigm is challenged by accumulating anomalies that it cannot explain, a scientific revolution may occur, leading to a paradigm shift. In the Kuhnian sense, a paradigm represents the collective framework of a community’s beliefs, values, and techniques, guiding their understanding of the world and the conduct of their work.
American capitalism operates within a paradigm constructed by neoliberal ideology, a dominant framework that has significantly shaped its economic policies and societal values since the 1980s. This paradigm emphasizes minimal state intervention, deregulation, privatization, and a belief in the efficiency of free markets. Within this framework, profit maximization and individual self-interest are viewed as the primary drivers of economic prosperity and societal well-being. Within such an environment, tendencies toward selfishness can be displayed as a symbol of freedom. Narratives championing Social Darwinism, emphasizing “survival of the fittest,” and celebrations of individualism (“pull yourself up by the bootstraps”) perpetuate a detachment from communal welfare. This heightened individualistic perspective views collective actions skeptically, often interpreting them as restrictions on individual freedom.
However, this focus on extreme individualism and intense competition has led to rising inequalities and sustainability crises, challenging the very foundations of this paradigm. The neoliberal ideology has prioritized short-term gains and individual success over long-term sustainability and collective well-being, creating systemic vulnerabilities and socio-economic disparities.
The Nordic model is born of a Me-We-Me mindset. In this context, individuals – each representing the “Me” – recognize they are integral components of a larger “We” and that each individual “Me” can benefit by cooperating with the “We.” With such a mindset, each Me recognizes that their individual well-being is directly connected to the well-being of the We. The Danish word samfundssind, or societal mind, reflects the Me-We-Me mindset. Samfundssind became a word of frequent use in Denmark during Covid-19. A global pandemic makes clear how individuals depend upon and affect one another – including the fact that individuals can infect one another. Samfundssind emphasizes the connectivity between individuals and reflects an expectation for individuals to take personal responsibility for themselves (each “Me”) and the group at the societal level (the “We”).Footnote 5
Darwin acknowledged the significance of cooperation within groups for enhancing their competitive advantage over other groups. In 1871, Darwin wrote: “There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who … were always ready to give aid to each other and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over other tribes; and this would be natural selection.”Footnote 6 This aligns with the contemporary evolutionary theory of MLS, which emphasizes the multitiered nature of evolutionary competition. MLS theory describes how a group that can effectively foster cooperation amongst its individuals where such cooperation is beneficial for the group overall, while still allowing for competition between individuals where such competition is healthy, will outcompete groups unable to cooperate effectively.Footnote 7 Wilson emphasizes the importance of understanding and embracing MLS theory within Half-Earth because of the great need for scaled cooperation and coordination at a large scale – the societal and global levels.Footnote 8
Societies adept at discerning when and where to encourage cooperation and when and where to encourage competition achieve a competitive advantage globally. Here, the Nordic Model stands out, melding societal-level cooperation with individual-level competition.Footnote 9 Foundational structures like universal healthcare and education are examples of cooperation executed at the group level, while individual-level aspirations and freedoms remain intact. Such societies and the individuals within them don’t merely subsist – they flourish, which is the evolutionary explanation for why Nordic societies effectively “outcompete” other societies as measured by their top ratings on so many societal-level measurements.
Paradigms and Purpose
In Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows explains that systems consist of elements, interconnections, and purpose. While elements (like organs in a body or individuals in society) are easily identified, the interconnections between them are complex and often hidden. Systems nest within larger systems – individuals within societies, healthcare systems within political systems – creating intricate webs of interaction.Footnote 10
The elements of a system are often easy to identify. The elements are the pieces of a system most readily seen. The human body is a system, and the body’s organs are some of its elements. We can readily see the heart, lungs, brain, and so on. However, understanding the interconnections between the elements of a system is often difficult. The interconnections can be complex and sometimes hidden. We may not easily see how the body’s organs interact. Teams of medical doctors must, at times, come together to discuss a patient’s diagnosis to understand the body as a system with interconnected elements.
Systems can be elements of even larger systems. Society is a system in which every person is an element. A person is, therefore, a system (i.e., the human body is a system), and that person is simultaneously an element of the larger system of people that is society. Furthermore, societies and the people within them build systems that further interact. National healthcare systems interact with the people within societies, and those systems interact with other systems, such as political and ecological systems. The interconnections of systems multiply at a dizzying rate when one considers society as the unit of analysis. Systems thinking helps us more fully consider how a given system works, and how it interacts with other systems and other systems’ many elements.
What about Purpose?
The purpose is the most important thing to consider about a system. Yet, purpose is often the least interrogated. We frequently get stuck in the weeds observing the elements and trying to understand interactions in a system. But asking why that system exists in the first place – the purpose – requires taking a step back to understand the whole and what overarching goals we are attempting to achieve. Considering a system’s purpose takes us to a philosophical place and a domain where there may not be a definitive “right answer” because considerations of purpose are comingled with considerations of values and ethics. Different well-intentioned people may have differing views about a system’s purpose.
What is the purpose of a healthcare system in a nation? Is it to ensure that everyone has access to good quality healthcare, or is it something else, like incentivizing individuals to get a job by tying healthcare benefits to employment? What is the purpose of a transportation system in a city? Is it to ensure that everybody can most efficiently and safely get from point A to point B? Or is it to ensure that every individual with a car has ample parking spots throughout a city? What is the purpose of an educational system? A penitentiary system? A tax system? A corporate governance system? A political system?
Systems, and the purposes for which systems are established, are born of mindsets.
So, What Is a Mindset?
Meadows discusses mindsets and paradigms interchangeably, tethering to Kuhn’s descriptions of paradigms from his 1962 publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Meadows explains that a mindset – or what Kuhn calls a paradigm – represents the collection of unstated assumptions and beliefs shared by a society:
The shared idea in the minds of society, the great big unstated assumptions, constitute that society’s paradigm, or deepest set of beliefs about how the world works… Growth is good. Nature is a stock of resources to be converted to human purposes. One can ‘own’ land. Those are a few of the paradigmatic assumptions of our current [American] culture, all of which have utterly dumbfounded other cultures, who thought them not the least bit obvious.Footnote 11
The words, “deepest set of beliefs about how the world works,” bear repeating. A mindset presents a society’s collection of assumptions and beliefs to explain how the world works – and how the world should work.
A mindset can change, though the process differs dramatically between individuals and societies. As Meadows explains, for an individual, paradigm shifts can happen in a millisecond – requiring nothing more than “a click in the mind, a falling of scales from eyes, a new way of seeing.” This aligns with Gil Scott-Heron’s insight that true revolution occurs in the mind when “all of a sudden, you realize I’m on the wrong page” – a revolution that cannot be televised precisely because it represents this internal paradigm shift in one’s mind. My own experience, described in the , exemplifies this phenomenon. Living in the Nordic societies caused scales to fall from my American eyes, leading me to question deeply held assumptions about capitalism that I had previously accepted as fact. Encountering Nordic capitalism revealed working policies and practices that American conventional wisdom had deemed impossible or dismissed as socialism, fundamentally transforming my understanding of what capitalism could achieve.
However, societal paradigm shifts face fierce resistance. As Meadows notes, “Whole societies resist challenges to their paradigm harder than they resist anything else.” Historical responses to paradigm challenges have included everything from crucifixions to concentration camps. This explains why shifting from a Me-Me-Me to a Me-We-Me mindset at a societal level requires strategic persistence rather than just presenting evidence. The resistance is not rational – it is systemic.Footnote 12
Meadows offers specific guidance for achieving societal paradigm shifts: persistently highlight failures of the old paradigm while confidently advocating for the new one, elevate change agents to positions of influence, and focus energy on the open-minded middle rather than entrenched reactionaries. This aligns with this book’s approach – documenting the human costs of American capitalism’s Me-Me-Me paradigm while demonstrating the proven success of Nordic capitalism’s Me-We-Me alternative.
Purpose of Nordic Systems: Enabling Freedom to Flourish
To illustrate how different mindsets shape freedoms in practice, I will examine two key stakeholder groups in society: parents and corporate employees. These two groups helpfully reveal the practical implications that the Me-Me-Me and Me-We-Me societal mindsets have on individual freedoms.
Enabling Freedom for Parents
In her book Making Motherhood Work, Caitlyn Collins vividly contrasts the experiences of working mothers in the Nordics with those in the US, highlighting the profound differences in freedom and support. In Nordic countries, where universal systems like paid parental leave, subsidized childcare, and comprehensive healthcare are the norm, mothers express a remarkable ease in balancing work and family life. A Swedish interviewee encapsulates this sentiment by stating, “It is easy in Sweden to work and have kids.” This stands in stark contrast to the sentiment expressed by a mother in the US, who remarked, “We can’t figure out how to do it all at the same time.” The disparity underscores how the “Me-We-Me” paradigm in Nordic capitalism ensures that the burdens of parenthood are not shouldered by individuals alone but are shared collectively by society. A conversation my wife had with a Copenhagen hairstylist further illustrates this mindset. Despite not having children, he enthusiastically supported policies like childcare subsidies, recognizing that investing in the next generation benefits everyone. This collective responsibility is the bedrock of the “Me-We-Me” paradigm.
The harsh realities of hyper-individualism in American capitalism are starkly revealed through the everyday struggles faced by parents caring for a sick child. Consider the story of seven-year-old Liza Scott from Alabama. Diagnosed with brain cancer in 2021, Liza set up a lemonade stand to help pay for her surgery – an alarming illustration of a system where even a child feels the burden of financial responsibility due to the absence of collective support.Footnote 13 Medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US, underscoring the systemic failures that leave individuals vulnerable.Footnote 14 As Elizabeth Bradley and Lauren Taylor point out in The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More Is Getting Us Less, “The Scandinavian approach has consistently achieved the best health outcomes in the world at a reasonable cost.”Footnote 15
Stories like Liza’s, which likely seem cruel to most Nordic citizens, have become all too common in American a society shaped by the “Me-Me-Me” paradigm. Some may argue that Liza Scott’s story, which garnered national attention and nearly half a million dollars in donations, positively exemplifies the American spirit of coming together as a “We.” However, this narrative highlights deep inequities and inefficiencies inherent in the “Me-Me-Me” mindset. For every Liza who successfully captures public attention, countless other children with equally urgent needs go unfunded, their stories untold, their struggles unaddressed. The reliance on the marketplace of philanthropy raises serious ethical concerns about fairness and efficiency, particularly when access to essential healthcare is dependent on visibility, effective marketing, and sheer luck. This inequitable distribution of resources perpetuates societal anxiety and exposes the shortcomings of a hyper-individualistic approach.
Enabling Freedoms for Corporate Employees
In the US, the dramatic rise in CEO-to-worker pay ratios – from 15:1 in 1965 to an astonishing 350:1 in 2020 – highlights the growing power imbalance between corporate leaders and rank-and-file employees. This stark disparity is a direct consequence of the “Me-Me-Me” paradigm, where the concentration of power and wealth at the top comes at the expense of the broader workforce. In contrast, Nordic countries maintain a more equitable distribution of resources, with CEO-to-worker pay ratios closer to 50:1, thanks in large part to institutional structures like collective bargaining and strong labor unions. These mechanisms ensure that employees have a voice in their workplaces, fostering a more balanced relationship between the “Me” and the “We.” The lower CEO pay ratios in the Nordics are not merely a cultural difference; they reflect a deeply embedded societal commitment to fairness and shared prosperity, principles that are systematically undermined by the hyper-individualism of American capitalism.
The purpose of Copenhagen’s transportation system is to ensure efficient and safe transportation for everyone. The purpose of Denmark’s healthcare system is to deliver healthcare to everyone in Denmark efficiently. These systems, and the many systems associated with the Nordic model, are born of that Me-We-Me mindset with the overarching purpose of ensuring everyone has the freedom to flourish. The Me-We-Me mindset recognizes that many of the common problems we face will be more efficiently addressed by coming together as a We to build efficient universal systems rather than pushing all problems down to each individual Me.
I previously introduced the “efficient hand pump” metaphor (Chapter 7) to counter the “leaky bucket” metaphor and the closely related “trickle-down economics” metaphor advanced by the neoliberal agenda. Expressions and metaphors have incredible staying power and shape our perceptions of reality and subsequent actions, as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain in their seminal book, Metaphors We Live By. If a metaphor paints a misleading or false picture, we must work to supplant that metaphor, or we are collectively prone to be misled.Footnote 16
The leaky bucket metaphor suggests that significant inefficiencies are unavoidable when establishing tax-funded universal programs. The hand pump metaphor symbolizes the efficient tax-funded systems proven possible through the Nordic model. The efficient hand pump reflects the Me-We-Me mindset. Greater efficiency is achieved by coming together in a cooperative spirit, as a We, to access water. Taxes are collected across the We to fund the project, and once that efficient hand pump is in operation, everyone realizes a greater degree of individual freedom.
With a Me-Me-Me mindset, individuals in the US may fixate on the taxes paid to fund such a hand pump, noting that the taxes reduce individual freedom. But a Nordic citizen informed by a Me-We-Me mindset sees the resultant expansion of freedom for everyone while paying a higher tax rate. As former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme emphasized with a US audience when he discussed freedom and taxes (Chapter 7), “Again, you face the question of whose freedom? In order to answer that question, you have to investigate for what purposes the [tax] revenue is used.”Footnote 17
When tax-funded systems are designed to increase freedom for all and operate efficiently, higher taxes and expanded freedoms can coexist. Neoliberal ideologues routinely deny this duality.
Neoliberalism is rooted in the Me-Me-Me mindset, where virtually any collective, coordinated effort funded by taxes is assumed to be freedom-killing. Former US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee cofounded a neoliberal organization that produces The Kids Guide to Fighting Socialism. This manual instructs children how to identify incidences of “high taxes” and trains them to call it socialism and fight against it. While the Nordic model is a proven success of taxes used to pay for efficient services, in the US, we are trained from the youngest of ages to see such a universal service as one that kills the freedoms of every individual and “rewards laziness,” as the Kids Guide instructs.Footnote 18
Neoliberal ideology presents a binary choice between a hyper-individualist Me-Me-Me mindset and a hyper-collectivist We-We-We mindset, where individual freedoms are entirely subjugated. Such a dichotomy conveniently suits the capitalism versus socialism narrative. Huckabee’s Kids Guide to Fighting Socialism exemplifies this constructed dichotomy:
Capitalists believe in individualism, which is the idea that everyone should have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities. Socialists believe in collectivism, which is the idea that what’s good for a group of people is more important than what’s good for one person. This is why socialists think it’s ok to take something that one person has made and give it to other people; they feel that the happiness and freedom of one person isn’t very important.
However, the Nordics exemplify a variety of capitalism that simultaneously respects the Me and the We. In this regard, we could amend the bumblebee statement: The Nordic bumblebee can fly. But the neoliberals, unaware or willingly ignorant of that fact, deny that reality.
The benefits of the “Me-We-Me” paradigm in Nordic capitalism are often less conspicuous at the individual level than the apparent costs imposed on individuals by the “Me-Me-Me” paradigm in American capitalism. In Nordic societies, access to systems like universal healthcare and worker representation is routine, almost mundane – yet these systems form the bedrock of societal stability and a foundational reason Nordic societies consistently top global indices like the Sustainable Development Goals Index and the World Happiness Report. In contrast, the absence of such systems in the US often results in severe and visible consequences for individuals, exposing the systemic vulnerabilities of a hyper-individualistic approach.
An employee killed or severely injured on the job due to a lack of proper health and safety protections represents the most egregious violation of an individual’s freedom. Most workers in the US are far safer on the job today than in the early twentieth century when Upton Sinclair published his 1906 novel, The Jungle. However, health and safety on the job remain a severe concern over a hundred years later.
US workers are more likely to be killed on the job than their Nordic counterparts.Footnote 19 Employees in the manufacturing sector, for example, are about three to four times more likely killed on-the-job in the US than in Sweden, Norway, or Finland. The US has improved significantly since The Jungle was published, and US workers are safer than in many nations. Still, compared to the health and safety assurances for employees in the Nordic nations, the US has significant room for improvement.
The systems and structures established to ensure health and safety for employees are conspicuously more robust in the Nordics than in the US. Nordic corporations routinely draw upon democratic principles as a means to structure and operate their organizations – known as industrial democracy – which results in the interests of rank and file employees being taken better into account than in a top-down command and control approach.Footnote 20
By law, Nordic corporations must have employee representation on boards of directors. Labor having a seat on a board better ensures that employee health and safety interests – and all other interests, for that matter – are continuously considered at the highest level of the corporation.
Employees’ well-being is further assured in Nordic organizations thanks to the ombudsman, an advocate for employees. The ombudsman originated in Sweden in 1809 to protect an individual’s rights against the abuse of royal power of the State and it was extended to protect against abuse of power in other domains. The ombudsman is an ever-present point of contact for corporate employees to raise concerns and ensure an expedient response.Footnote 21 Furthermore, Nordic corporations must have dedicated individuals to employee health and safety matters. For example, any enterprise with thirty or more employees in Norway must establish a working environment committee. Workplaces with ten or more employees must have a health and safety representative, an individual whose fellow employees democratically elect.Footnote 22 Furthermore, high rates of labor union participation across the Nordics further ensure health and safety protections for corporate employees.
Two personal experiences – a friend’s child battling cancer and the workplace death of a childhood friend – illuminate how American capitalism creates systemic harm while revealing the alternative possibilities demonstrated by Nordic capitalism.
Constraining Freedom for Parents
In 2013, I received a phone call in Denmark from my close friend Mike in the US. Mike and I met at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where we studied industrial engineering. He often joked that he had two degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison – his and mine – which was not far from the truth. But Mike was not calling to chat. He had the worst conceivable news: His three-year-old son Oliver had been diagnosed with cancer and had only about a year to live.
Oliver’s diagnosis revealed the cruel inefficiencies of American capitalism. Like most Americans, Mike’s family gained access to healthcare through his employer. While individual compassion emerged – Mike’s bosses protected his position during layoffs, showing genuine empathy – the case exposes the precarious nature of depending on individual benevolence rather than systematic support. Oliver’s access to care depended on his parents maintaining employment, contrasting sharply with Nordic systems, where the state guarantees universal access.
As Mike fought to maintain work performance while caring for Oliver, my wife and I were battling to secure US healthcare coverage due to her “pre-existing condition” of pregnancy (Chapter 1). These experiences exposed how American capitalism constrains individual freedom through dependencies. Insurance companies could deny my pregnant wife coverage for being unprofitable; Mike faced pressure to prove his workplace value while his child fought cancer. Nordic capitalism takes an alternative approach, ensuring universal healthcare access as a foundation for individual freedom by placing healthcare in the domain of democratic rights rather than market forces.Footnote 23
When I asked Mike what I could do to help, he mentioned the possibility of needing a fundraiser. Even with healthcare, surprise expenses could be around the corner, or what if Mike lost his job? His response crystallized yet another contrast between systems – one that reveals the American dependence upon charity and philanthropy for addressing systemic issues.
The individuals within the Me-Me-Me paradigm of American capitalism are not wholly unconcerned with the well-being of others – it just approaches care from the point of view of individual discretion, which can manifest in beautiful expressions of kindness at the local level. My grandmother Gladys is the kindest person I have ever known. Like so many other grandmothers I knew growing up, my grandmother spent hours in the basement of Central Lutheran Church in Winona, Minnesota, making handmade quilts for community members facing hardship. When a child fell ill, these grandmothers would lovingly craft a quilt – a touching gesture of community support that undoubtedly brought comfort. However, while such sincere acts of kindness represent a genuine caring for the “We,” they do not address systemic challenges like ensuring access to healthcare. A handmade quilt, no matter how lovingly crafted, does not ensure access to chemotherapy and other necessary cancer treatments, and does not reduce the anxiety of a parent who fears losing their job for the risk of losing their child’s access to healthcare.
In the Nordics, requiring charitable fundraising for a child’s cancer treatment would be unthinkable. Yet this systematic approach comes with its own trade-offs. Critics argue that the Nordic model’s efficiency in addressing basic needs through the state has potentially dampened expressions of individual charity and community care. There may be fewer grandmothers gathering in church basements to make quilts, as citizens might feel their tax contributions fulfill their social obligations. While more efficient and equitable, this “colder” institutional approach might lack some of the warming human touch that characterizes American local community responses to hardship.
The warmth of individual charitable responses cannot overcome the profound inequities of the American approach, where the Me-Me-Me mindset has normalized crowdfunding for medical care. Healthcare costs are now among the leading causes of personal bankruptcy in the US, demonstrating how unequal such a dependence on charity is – some secure support while others do not. Charitable responses to systemic problems, while touching at the personal level, reveal the limitations of local community generosity in addressing challenges that require systematic solutions.
Constraining Freedom for Corporate Employees
My childhood friend Jesse was killed in a Menards Corporation factory in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He was just twenty-two years old, a university student working to pay his tuition. We grew up together in Fountain City, a small town in western Wisconsin. Jesse introduced me to music and ideas that continue to shape my world today.
Near Thanksgiving 1997, a 500-pound truss slipped from a hook and struck him in the head, killing him. His death revealed the human cost of American capitalism. Years later, studying Nordic systems showed me that an alternative was possible.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors found thirty-seven safety violations at the factory, including failure to provide basic protective equipment like hard hats. The $42,000 fine initially assessed – later reduced to $22,750 – reflected the limited power of regulatory oversight in a system where corporate interests dominate.Footnote 24
The OSHA report, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), revealed how American capitalism’s focus on shareholder value undermines worker safety.Footnote 25 “Corporate-wide, the employer does not employ anyone with a primary duty involving the safety and health of the employees,” the report noted. “Each manager is responsible for safety and health in his respective department or areas.” This fragmentation of responsibility effectively meant no one was ultimately accountable for worker safety.
The report states: “Management officials insist that they knew the hook was not to be used for large trusses and said that a chain was supposed to be wrapped around the chain hoist. Interviews with several other employees indicate this policy was routinely not enforced or it was ignored by management in an effort to focus on production.” The gap between stated policy and actual practice reflects a fundamental feature of oligarchic capitalism – the concentration of power that maximizes profit at the expense of worker safety.
The most jarring example came just after Jesse’s death, when coworkers were ordered to clean up his blood and restart production. Such an action would be unthinkable in Nordic capitalism, where strong labor unions and worker representation ensure that basic considerations for human dignity would take precedence over immediate considerations of profit and production.
Jesse’s death illuminates the stark contrast between American capitalism, with its oligarchic underpinnings, and Nordic capitalism, with its democratic underpinnings. In the US, where Menards Corporation generates over $10 billion in annual revenue and its founder holds $20 billion in personal wealth, a mere $22,750 fine for a worker’s death reveals how profits trump considerations for human life. This reflects what Swedish Prime Minister Hansson warned against in his 1928 Folkhemmet speech – treating workers as mere “rented creatures” from whom to extract maximum value with minimum regard for their humanity.
Nordic capitalism takes a fundamentally different approach through power-dispersing mechanisms. Workers sit on corporate boards, dedicated safety representatives conduct regular inspections, and ombudsmen provide independent oversight. These aren’t just bureaucratic requirements – they reflect the Me–We–Me mindset, embedding safety into corporate governance.
A tragedy like Jesse’s would have been more likely prevented in a Nordic context, and certainly had it occurred, the response would have been massively different. In Nordic workplaces, a worker’s death triggers the immediate suspension of operations, a full investigation, and often severe consequences – a stark contrast to Menards, where production resumed shortly thereafter and the value of a human life was assessed at $22,750.
The systemic failures that led to Jesse’s death illustrate what MLS theory reveals about societal design: When competition and profit are elevated above cooperation and the well-being of society’s members, a society’s overall fitness erodes – and the individuals within it are more likely to suffer.
Jesse’s death was not isolated. In 2021, another Menards worker, aged nineteen, died in a similar incident, killed while operating a forklift in Minnesota. The store remained open even as protesters gathered outside. “As a human being, when another human being dies, the respectful thing to do is mourn that loss and to close the store down,” one protester noted. “There’s no reason they should’ve forced his coworkers to continue working knowing that he was dead in the back.”Footnote 26
OSHA would later administer a modest $25,000 fine.Footnote 27
This systematic resistance to worker protection extends beyond individual workplace policies into coordinated political action. Menards exemplifies this through explicit anti-union policies – including a 60 percent pay reduction for managers if their units unionize – and coercing employees to participate in broader anti-labor networks like Americans for Prosperity.”Footnote 28 This fusion of corporate and political power reveals how thoroughly American oligarchic capitalism opposes the power-dispersing mechanisms that define Nordic democratic capitalism.
This fusion of private wealth with political power shapes public discourse in ways that resist democratic reforms. Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, the ranking member on the Small and Medium-Sized Business Committee (the committee to which I testified, Chapter 4), dismissed stronger OSHA rules as “anti-American” and “socialist.” In response to a proposal that OSHA fines for employee deaths should be increased, he contended, “job creators know that their employees are their most valuable asset and do everything in their power to provide a safe and healthful working environment.”Footnote 29 Such rhetoric exemplifies how thoroughly the Me-Me-Me mindset has captured American political discourse – any attempt to disperse power through democratic institutions is dismissed as “socialism.”
Jesse’s death and the inadequate response reveal a fundamental flaw: even a 512 percent increase in OSHA fines would have meant only $116,480 – less than 0.001% of Menard Corporation’s annual revenue – for a worker’s life. That represents little profit incentive to change one’s ways. And the issue runs deeper than fine amounts.
The core problem lies in the concentration of power that, accelerated by the neoliberal policies of the 1980s, has driven American capitalism to slide ever deeper into oligarchic capitalism. In this increasingly oligarchic system, workers’ basic rights – including their safety – are subordinated to profit maximization. Nordic capitalism shows us a different path forward that demonstrates democratic capitalism in practice. Through power-dispersing mechanisms like strong labor unions, worker representation on corporate boards, and robust regulatory oversight, it creates systems where worker safety is prioritized in policy and practice.
That Jesse’s death can be examined through FOIA requests represents one of the remaining democratic checks on American oligarchic capitalism. Transparency mechanisms – like FOIA and OSHA – emerged from an era when democratic accountability was seen as essential to American capitalism’s legitimacy and functioning. Yet as economic and political power grows increasingly concentrated, these oversight tools face mounting threats. Recent legislative attempts to abolish OSHA, severe budget reductions, and broader challenges to its authority reveal how aggressively oligarchic interests seek to dismantle democratic oversight. The same forces that have eroded worker protections now target both OSHA and FOIA, risking a future where workplace tragedies remain hidden behind corporate secrecy. The ongoing erosion of democratic capitalism thus threatens not only worker safety but also our fundamental capacity to witness, document, and understand the human costs of unchecked corporate power.
Personal Case Studies, in Sum
These stories – of a father forced to prioritize employment while his son battles cancer, and a young man killed by inadequate workplace safety measures – represent just two examples from one person’s life of how American oligarchic capitalism creates unnecessary suffering. Having experienced Nordic democratic capitalism, I know with certainty that these situations are not inevitable consequences of a market economy. They directly result from policy choices prioritizing concentrated private profit over human well-being.
Every American likely carries their own stories of how the Me-Me-Me mindset has caused preventable harm – whether through denied healthcare access, unsafe working conditions, crushing student debt, unaffordable childcare that forces parents out of the workforce, or countless other systemic failures. These are not inevitable features of market economies, but rather the consequences of conscious choices: choosing oligarchic capitalism over democratic capitalism and the Me-Me-Me mindset over the Me-We-Me alternative.
How to Shift a Mindset?
How can we shift away from the Me-Me-Me mindset? The personal cases above illustrate the human cost of maintaining this paradigm, while history offers compelling examples of successful shifts that required overcoming entrenched resistance to change.
The Progressive Era’s transformation of American capitalism (1890s–1920s) shows how persistent exposure to systemic failures – through muckraking journalism, labor activism, and academic research – gradually shifted public consciousness about the role of government in regulating business. Even more dramatic was Europe’s post-World War II transformation from a continent ravaged by nationalist competition to one defined by unprecedented cooperation. Beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community in the early 1950s, former adversaries chose to bind their economic interests together, leading to the European Union’s creation in 1993. This shift from national competition to regional cooperation produced the longest period of peace in European history (Pax Europaea), demonstrating how the evolution from destructive competition to strategic cooperation can create remarkable stability and shared prosperity. These historical examples suggest that paradigm shifts, while challenging, become possible when societies confront clear evidence of systemic failure while being presented with viable alternatives.
In Thinking in Systems, Meadows offered specific guidance for achieving such transformations: persistently expose the failures of the existing mindset while presenting evidence of successful alternatives – precisely what Nordic capitalism provides. This point aligns with our conclusion in Chapter 1: The US is stuck in a Me-Me-Me-fueled prisoner’s dilemma, and the path forward requires demonstrating how individual interests (Me) are better served through collective action (We). Nordic capitalism provides compelling evidence for this argument.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn described the mindset shift – or paradigm shift in Kuhn’s words – as essential to understanding how widespread societal-level change takes place. Kuhn posited that science does not gradually evolve towards truth as commonly assumed. Instead, science and our collective understanding of the world reside within a paradigm that includes our assumptions about how the world works. A scientific revolution occurs when the shortcomings of the existing paradigm become so evident – the flaws of the relied-upon theories and assumptions are so apparent – and a new paradigm can better explain the world. The shift to an alternative paradigm is inherently revolutionary, as those benefiting from the existing paradigm typically resist change that might diminish their power.
Meadows draws upon Kuhn’s description of how a paradigm shift comes about to advise how to bring about a mindset shift when needed:
You keep pointing at anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you keep speaking louder and with assurance from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste time with reactionaries, rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.
Therein lies a prescription for bringing about a mindset shift from Me-Me-Me to Me-We-Me. The Me-Me-Me mindset is failing so many people in the US. The problems of the Me-Me-Me mindset have become too conspicuous to ignore. Far too many do not feel freedom in the so-called Land of the Free. The American Dream is more myth than reality for many. The Me-We-Me mindset commonplace across the Nordics demonstrates that a different mindset can bring about positive change.
Achieving this mindset shift requires transforming the very language through which society understands itself. As Lakoff and Johnson demonstrate, commonly invoked expressions and metaphors both reflect and shape a society’s collective mindset.Footnote 30 US citizens must actively work to replace expressions and metaphors associated with the Me-Me-Me mindset with those illuminating how collective action can enhance individual freedom.
The leaky bucket metaphor, rooted in the Me-Me-Me mindset, suggests that taxes collected to fund universal programs inevitably result in significant inefficiencies. Nordic capitalism demonstrates the opposite: efficient universal systems that ensure all children have access to quality childcare, healthcare, and education while providing parents with paid leave. Far from leaking, these systems efficiently convert tax revenue into expanded individual freedoms.
While many in the US embrace narratives of the “self-made man” and prescribe “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” to others, these expressions reflect and reinforce the Me-Me-Me mindset by obscuring the support systems – from family wealth to public infrastructure – that enable individual success. Donald Trump’s characterization of substantial family financial assistance as merely a “small loan” exemplifies how the Me-Me-Me mindset leads individuals to downplay collective support.Footnote 31 American society’s celebration of supposedly self-made billionaires further entrenches this mindset by presenting individual achievement as disconnected from societal infrastructure and collective investment.
Me-Me-Me on the Global Stage: America First
The Me-Me-Me mindset operates beyond the societal level and can manifest dangerously in international policy. This scaling becomes particularly concerning when it shapes isolationist foreign policy, as demonstrated by the US’s formal rejection of the UN SDGs in March 2025.
By characterizing globally agreed-upon objectives like gender equality (SDG #5 “Gender Equality”) and climate action (SDG #13 “Climate Action”) as threats to US interests and declaring, “We must care first and foremost for our own,” American leadership demonstrated the Me-Me-Me mindset applied to international relations.Footnote 32 This isolationist approach proves particularly dangerous as global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss fundamentally require international cooperation – problems that cannot be solved through individual or national-level action alone.
The Me-Me-Me mindset applied to foreign policy ultimately weakens the US by isolating the nation from crucial allies and partnerships. Programs like Fulbright, born of the smoldering embers of World War II with the mission “to increase mutual understanding and support friendly and peaceful relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries,” demonstrate a more effective approach.Footnote 33 Through decades of academic exchanges and person-to-person diplomacy, such programs have built enduring alliances by fostering mutual respect and understanding that make nations less likely to wage war against one another. As a Fulbright scholar who first experienced Nordic societies through this program and who has since led thousands of American MBA students to the Nordic nations, I’ve witnessed how expanding the sense of “We” beyond national borders – engaging with allies in a spirit of mutual respect and shared purpose – creates stronger partnerships that enhance US security and prosperity.
The “America First” ideology has historical roots in 1940s isolationism, which ended abruptly when the attack on Pearl Harbor demonstrated the US’s inextricable connection to global affairs. As JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned in his 2025 letter to shareholders, “America First” cannot mean “America alone.” He notes that if Europe’s economic weakness leads to fragmentation, individual nations will be forced to seek their own relationships for security, potentially drawing them closer to Russia for energy and China for trade, ultimately undermining American interests.Footnote 34
The Nordic approach offers a striking counter-example to this self-defeating isolation, demonstrating how the Me-We-Me paradigm can successfully scale to international relations. Nordic countries understand that participating in the collective “We” of international cooperation – whether through climate agreements, security partnerships, or trade pacts – ultimately enhances national prosperity. For instance, their leadership in international climate agreements has simultaneously advanced global environmental goals while securing their position as pioneers in green technology markets.
The danger of scaling Me-Me-Me thinking to international relations becomes clear: It leaves nations isolated and vulnerable precisely when global challenges demand coordination.
Parting Reflections
Evolutionary science demonstrates that societies balancing cooperation with competition outperform those fixated solely on self-interest. Nordic capitalism exemplifies this through the Me-We-Me mindset, creating systems that expand individual freedoms through collective investment – including universal healthcare and education.
The US needs not abandon its cultural narratives to embrace this paradigm shift. These narratives should be central to the transformation. By deeply re-examining ideals like the “American Dream” and the “Land of the Free” and insisting these aspirations become reality for all Americans, these concepts can be reimagined through a Me-We-Me lens. Just as Grundtvig revitalized Danish narratives of a glorious past to inspire a sense of “We” that built Denmark’s modern prosperity, Americans can draw on their shared stories to foster collective action and renewed unity. Although political gridlock hinders national cooperation in the US, plentiful opportunities exist for cooperative efforts at a more local level, including states and cities, which align with the scale of Nordic systems to serve populations of several million.
As global challenges like climate change reveal the limitations of hyper-individualism, the Me-We-Me paradigm offers a practical path forward – one that honors individual freedom while enabling the cooperation required to address systemic threats.
Open access