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Comment by digitalmaster | Hacker News Reader

The more democratic you are as a nation, the more time elected officials spend thinking about ways to improve the lives of ordinary people (not just those in power).

Been considering moving to one of the countries high on the democracy index to work/code and pay taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

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I've got to say, political debates in Scandinavia have nothing to do with what you see in the US. People are debating the real problems (education, housing, healthcare, etc.) instead of focusing on inter-party rivalries.

I watched the debate between the party leaders recently and the level of conversation really struck me. That's not to say that there aren't problems - the Sweden Democrats have basically succeeded in wedging immigration into every single conversation. But there seems to still be an appreciation for serious policy and statesmanship.

You see the same thing in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, etc. In the US, on average if you want to see a better form of political discourse, you have to move toward more local politics (whether state, county, city, town).

Sweden = local politics. It's a small nation. 25% of their population lives in just four cities.

Directly comparing the whole of the US to Sweden is absurdity. One would expect a dramatic increase in messy national politics if you took 33 Swedens and put them under a Federal authority.

> You see the same thing in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, etc.

For comparison, Sweden is about the size of California, with roughly one forth of its population.

> In the US, on average if you want to see a better form of political discourse, you have to move toward more local politics (whether state, county, city, town).

In my experience, local politics tends to be... More entertaining. Maybe because it's a lower barrier for entry.

> Sweden = local politics. It's a small nation. 25% of their population lives in just four cities.

The majority of its population lives outside of the largest four cities. There's a lot of difference between those four cities as well.

I could see that, maybe the U.S. should just separate into smaller city states. Let each fend for themselves... It'd be much easier for people to get what they want out of a national government - they could just move to the state that actually represents their interests better... Want universal Healthcare / Legalized Marijuana / try california. Want to make sure nobody gets handouts at all including SSI, Medicaid, and Medicare move to Louisiana or Texas.

I've often wondered if the U.S. would work better if there were some sort of multi-layered federalism wherein each cultural region (Northeast, Deep South, Cascadia, etc) got their own executive and legislative office above the state level, but not at the federal level. Doing this would probably eliminate a lot of the gridlock in DC since people could work on cultural and social issues at that level rather than across all 50 states (although it would also probably make things a lot worse for minorities in the South...).

Unfortunately I can't agree. Sure, Sweden is still one of the better countries, but things have changed in recent years. In 2006 the right wing parties created a coalition, forcing the left wing parties to do the same. So now we have essentially two parties and a right wing fringe group, which is quite similar to the US.

Many issues therefor remains unresolved. The housing market would be exhibit A. Fortunately Sweden can "coast" on past achievements for a while, but sooner or later the dysfunction will have lasting consequences.

See also the Corruption Perceptions Index:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

For example, Ireland is currently number 6 on the Democracy Index, but way down at number 19 on the Corruption Perceptions Index. Correspondingly, Singapore is high at number 7 on the Corruption Perceptions Index, but down at 69 on the Democracy Index. I would suggest that you should look at both lists before deciding where to move.

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