Per Wikipedia: “82.0% of the inhabitants of Denmark and 90.3% of the ethnic Danes are members of the Lutheran state church. About 9% of the population has foreign citizenship—a large portion of those are from other Scandinavian countries.” Later, “According to figures from Statistics Denmark, in 2009, 90.5% of Denmark’s population of over 5.4 million was of Danish descent.” And it is worth noting that Denmark has ” some of the toughest immigration laws in the European Union.”

I’m not discounting their policies, many of which are worthy of consideration, but I feel it is disingenuous to give those policies credit for creating an egalitarian society. In fact, I would feel more comfortable saying that Denmark’s homogeneous culture and egalitarian society caused their government policies, not the other way around.

In fairness, I think those people exist, I just challenge the notion that it’s a significant portion of the population. I also think sometimes our focus on economic inequality in America masks the relative uniqueness of our political egalitarianism. After all Denmark not only has institutionalized class in their monarchy but like all of Europe (and most of Asia) has yet to elect or elevate minorities to positions of political power like America has.

Amusingly I was a getting a hair cut years ago and the barber was going on and on about the evils of welfare and how people sat around on welfare and did nothing. As he was snipping around my left ear he said he wished the word welfare could be taken out of the language. I couldn’t help myself and told him the word welfare is in the constitution. He stopped cutting and I pondered whether I was going to leave the barber with a bit less ear. he didn’t cut me, but finished my hair cut with a few huffs and puffs. I didn’t go back to him again.

Sounds like more stereotype than reality, buddy.