Reflections: Welfare 1st edition

Danes love sharing, caring and communal singing, Auld Lang Syne, 99 bottles of Carlsberg, and public welfare for all. This sounds too good to be true – and it is. Like every great fairy tale, the model welfare state has a dark side. Carsten Jensen, tax-funded welfare authority at Aarhus University, reveals its soft underbelly, warts and all. Danes love public welfare services, and many would pay even higher taxes to get more – but only more of the services they use. And those who don’t subscribe to the good life, middle-class style? The answer is blowing in the wind.