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Putting Nordic trust in the spotlight

27.08.18 | Nyhet
Travelling around in Denmark at summer time is amazing; the farmers put their products for sale by the road, but no persons can be seen. You just pay by putting the money in a box, or send it over mobile phone. That is trust on a deep level!

Travelling around in Denmark at summer time is amazing; the farmers put their products for sale by the road, but no persons can be seen. You just pay by putting the money in a box, or send it over mobile phone. That is trust on a deep level!

Photographer
Jens Nytoft Rasmussen
The level of social trust in the Nordic Region is globally unique. Simply put, people trust each other more in the Nordic Region than elsewhere in the world. A report by the Nordic Council of Ministers, Trust – The Nordic Gold, surmises that trust is a resource that has generated much of the value in our Nordic society.

The report outlines the importance of social trust not only for good economics, but also for low levels of crime, happiness and people taking responsibility for the development of the societies in which they live.

There are small amounts of gold dotted around much of the Nordic Region. Most of the gold contained in the bedrock is so finely distributed that it’s invisible to the naked eye. The same is true of trust in the region. Although it imbues society and the way in which we live, it has seldom been visible in the public debate. Up until now, that is.

Trust is not only a valuable asset for a society. One can make the argument that social trust is essential for the long-term endurance of the Nordic societies The Nordic society model is, for example, is built on mutual trust between authorities and citizens. Therefore it is essential that we talk about how to maintain, and hopefully even increase, trust levels in the Nordic countries in the future.

 “Trust is a goldmine for the Nordic societies. If we didn’t have this level of social trust, we would have far greater levels of control and bureaucracy in the Nordic Region than is currently the case,” says the Secretary General to the Nordic Council of Ministers, Dagfinn Høybråten.