The case for Finland’s 'enlightened capitalism’

Journalist Anu Partenan talks about returning to her Nordic home in Friday online event.|

Speaking this week before an online Sonoma audience will be Anu Partenan, a Finnish journalist who lived in the U.S. for several years, writing for the Atlantic and other publications. She became a U.S. citizen in 2013 but, over time, the humane services and compassionate culture of Finland was the lure that inspired her and her husband to return to Finland — in spite of its long dark days in the cold winters.

In 2016, she wrote “The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life,” published by Harper Collins. Last year she and her husband, Trevor Corson, published an editorial in the New York Times arguing that the very things some find worrisome in a “socialist nanny state,” as Finland has been described, are the very things that make life satisfying: universal health care, high-quality education, paid vacations of a month or more, and high economic mobility.

But it’s not socialism, Partenan and Corson argue in their article, but a kind of enlightened capitalism. “More astonishingly, Finnish capitalists also realized that it would be in their own long-term interests to accept steep progressive tax hikes. The taxes would help pay for new government programs to keep workers healthy and productive — and this would build a more beneficial labor market,” they wrote in December, 2019.

Partenan will make her case for “Learning from the Nordic Countries” for the Praxis Peace Institute audience on Friday, Jan. 22 at 11 a.m. — the early hour is due to the time difference between Sonoma and Helsinki.

Peter Barns
Peter Barns

The following Friday, Jan. 29 (at the more usual 4 p.m. start time), Praxis will offer a Zoom meeting with entrepreneur and environmentalist Peter Barns, live from Marin. He has served on the boards of Greenpeace, Rainbow Workers Cooperative, the California Solar Industry Association, and others.

His most recent book, “Ours: The Case for Universal Property,” will form the basis for his talk. He believes his proposal for a "cap and dividend" program, modeled on the Alaska Permanent Fund, could reduce greenhouse emissions and create a “citizens dividend” for all Americans, much as Alaska provides an annual dividend to its residents of up to $8,000 a year for a family of four.

Tickets are $20, $15 for Praxis members, at praxispeace.org/events.

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