We departed for Sweden153 days ago. We arrived in a remote airport, cycled 5km and camped by a road. The adventure had begun.

You saw the results . We met interesting people, had fascinating conversations about life, politics, society, the future. We saw beautiful landscapes, and far too many pine plantations blocking our views. We were exhausted, yet motivated by the task: to chronicle, to ask questions, to seek answers, to explore equality in all its dimensions.

We returned from Sweden 108 days ago.

As we returned, we disseminated our findings: wrote articles and blogs, presented to the Exploring Equality Supporters Conference and set about ordering and classifying our 15 hours of footage; planning a 4 month timetable for film-making. Sweden had many good things, but the UK needed to go its own way: to combine the best of our entrepreneurial Anglo-American spirit with a much stronger recognition of how we all rely on everyone else, and a realisation that the social system we live in is not fixed and permanent, but can and must be changed.

As we did so, the debate raged in the UK over budget cuts, recession economics, and most of all fairness. Was this government progressive or regressive, who would be hit the hardest, was any of it FAIR? This word appeared in newsprint everyday for weeks.

The effects of the cuts in the UK are being realised by ordinary people. The student protests, a mix of genuine anger and unnecessary violence, demonstrate what is at stake: a massive shift in the cost burden from state to the individual. Yet we hear little of the progress on strong, effective bonus and bank reform. The government goes after a minority of benefit fraudsters using accusatory language, yet we hear no such attack on the motivations and character of those people who take billions from our economy through tax avoidance and tax havens. Fairness, again, is in question.

Yet, just as things have been developing, just as people have been getting charged up, Hacon and I have had to part slightly from our desired path. Hacon is trying to progress his law career by getting work as a paralegal. I temped for many weeks to re-capitalise my personal debt-ridden economy, and am now in Germany, working for an international environmental charity for 6 months. Until June, at least, our amateur short documentary making project is on hold, and I fear and expect, beyond June too.

Yet I am proud of what we did, and pleased so many of you were interested and commented on our blog or sent us emails and messages: both about the trip, but better, about the issues we raised.We wanted to get a debate going. I think we did that.

But some people have commented that my blogs were so fair, so balanced like a well-crafted university essay, that I never actually gave an opinion in them.

So here is opinion. The cogs of action must be the focus now. Many people, all over the country, are taking action in their communities, in their work places, to try to counter what they rightly see as the prospect of a decade of increased inequality, poverty, unfairness, and the social ills that come along for the ride at the same time: the trappings of low social mobility, of increased desperation and therefore crime, of less social cohesion and more jealousy and anger.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Especially for young people, now is an exciting and charged time to be entering the job market and leaving the safety of the pre-£9,000 fee university experience. Politics and social issues are not some boring abstract thing, as I hope our blog showed. They are about people’s experiences in the day-to-day. As we enter a critical time in both UK history and global environmental changes, never has there been more of a need for bright young people to use their dynamism and ideas to solve the linked social and environmental problems we face. You don’t have to be a ‘lefty’ or an environmentalist to realise that.

What can you contribute?

Steven.

From Bonn, Germany

The dust has settled on our trip to Sweden.  We got our first media coverage across the pond here: http://www.healthypolicies.com/2010/10/exploring-equality/

We’ve also given our first presentations. In September, Steven gave a lecture at Watford Boys Grammar School (my old haunt) to lecture 400 sixth formers. The topic was Sustainability, and why it will be vital in their future careers.  But it was the first opportunity to show some of our videos and encourage young people to think that society is not a ready-made cake, but something they have to influence and change.

Then last week Steven presented to the Equality Trust Supporters Conference. In half an hour we tried to get across the fun we had, and our three key areas of interesting discoveries: on the relationship between individuals and state, on the effect of equality on social individuality and the herd mentality, trust and culture.

It was good fun and gave us the chance to edit together a few more video shorts like this one, which we put together to illustrate the concept of Jantelagen in a fun way:

Equality in the News…

The  dust has also settled on the budget announced in September by George Osborne. There have been many claims and counter-claims on the effects of some of the budget cuts. Not least this one from Boris on the effects of housing benefit cuts, which no doubt caused a storm in Conservative Party HQ:

http://tinyurl.com/33twd5w. His claim about Kosovo-style social cleansing in London prompted criticism over his use of language: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11640219

Today the housing benefit changes get discussed in Parliament http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11714889, and Ian Duncan Smith has written in the Mail apparently infuriated at what he sees as unfair representations of the cuts: http://tinyurl.com/2g6zyax

And very relavent for us, Danny Dorling, a prominent academic on geography inequalities, has travelled around the UK lecturing students on inequality. Since our film’s audience is designed to inspire and challenge University students and recent graduates, his findings are interesting to read: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/26/young-people-educational-inequality

According to Danny at the Equalit Trust Supporters Conference, we could be seeing the biggest rise in inequality for generations. Is that inevitable? I don’t, personally, think so.

That’s all for now.

Steve

In the news this week…

Reaction to that report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has been widespread…  Trevor Phillips, the reports chair, discusses the report on Radio 4 here.

The Guardian reported it here,  and had a comment piece suggesting that fairness is nothing without equality here.

The Telegraph focusses on the reports’ conclusions on how we’re going to look after the elderly….

Radio 4 have been running a ‘fairness’ week all week. Some highlights include:

• A discussion on the history of the concept of fairness.

• Also on how the old and young view fairness

• And a philosophical take on the meaning of fairness

• Lastly, how to hold the government to account on its fairness claims.

Gender equality in the news

Women have been in the news too. A new report on gender equality puts Iceland at the top for a second year in a row, with Sweden 4th and the UK unchanged at 14th…

A Swedish correspondent then discusses the changing performance of Sweden as it slips to 4th…

The young

We realised on our trip the importance of the environment in which our very young children grew up, in determining their future. Nick Clegg announced a little-covered scheme to extend free pre-school to children aged 2-3 years living in poverty: an investment of £7 billion. The Daily Mail covered it here.

And BBC News here.

But I think it’s fair to say that inequality itself isn’t being mentioned very  explicitly, instead it’s about fairly distributing the negative affects of the cuts. So we’ll end with a provocative piece from the Equality Trust on whether the coalition government really understands the Spirit Level’s arguments, here.

Steve

And boy has it been a week of interesting news. On the agenda this week has most definitely been fairness. What is fairness? Cameron set forth his vision of a fairer society in his party conference speech: something covered all over the papers. Here’s the Daily Mail’s take.  And the Guardian’s.

It caused a lot of debate: cutting child benefits for higher earners was particularly controversial. But what is the average middle-income family in the UK like? This illuminating Mark Easton blog tried to answer that question.

For me, it was good to hear a Conservative government talking the language of making higher earners pay their fair share, but what about tax avoidance? I want to see the figures: how much of a financial burden are ‘the undeserving poor’ and the scroungers? How does it compare to how much we lose in tax avoidance? Let’s see the figures please.

There’s much debate out there at the moment on what constitutes a fair society. This article on the BBC news website tried to sum it up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11492207 

and this comparison between the UK and USA is illuminating:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10869722

Will Hutton has just release a book called ‘Them and Us’ on this topic. Is it about providing equality of opportunity? Of promoting equality? On Radio 4 this morning, the thought of the day tried to answer the question: What is fairness? Listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v6hnz 

You can also listen there to the head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission talking about his triennial report into the state of fairness in the UK, launched this morning. It provides a sobering read: and demonstrates how important it is that we keep these issues at the forefront of public debate in the lead up to the 20th October Public Spending Review. This article, for example, reveals some hidden truths about poverty in Britain we would be mistaken for thinking just doesn’t exist anymore: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11427207

Here’s the EHRC’s report page: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/news/2010/october/commission-launches-landmark-report-how-fair-is-britain/

And the Daily Mail’s coverage: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319423/Plight-middle-aged-women-act-carers.html

So there we are.  A bumber crop of material this week to get your teeth into. This week has brough Hacon and I sharply back to the UK political debate with a bump- it seems, in Britain, to talk about equality, you must be talking about fairness, or equality of opportunity. This is where the debate is being held, and it’s directly relevant to us all. How the government, and people around the country, define fairness, will determine a lot about the shape of our society in the next few years as budget cuts take hold.

Hacon and I have written a summary each for you to read at your leisure, it’s what we’re thinking now that we’ve returned: what we learnt, the big issues…what we’d take from Sweden back to the UK…

If you’re more of a listener than a reader, check out this: http://www.thsradio.se/thinkglobally/

where Hacon and I discussed our trip on a Swedish radio station yesterday. A podcast of the interview will be up on the website in the next few days.

Our journey is over, but really, it has only just begun. Keep journeying with us by signing up to our blog to receive weekly bulletins: of interesting and relevant new stories about inequality, and first news on our film-making progress.  The documentary is now in production and we are thinking about how to tell our story and challenge people to change our society for the better.

Finally- a big thankyou has to go to those who contributed to our trip financially. The group below collectively donated £170, and so as promised, a third of that (£50) will go to our charity: www.accesssport.co.uk.

It’s not too late to donate though, as we will also have costs associated with making our documentary. if you want to donate, drop us an email.

Thanks to:

Jane Wilkinson, Dave Jenkins, Rosie crackling porkchop (Bacon), G Carter, Neil Fant, Amy Chardon, Derek Hill, and  Bill Kerry.

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Hacon reflects on exploring Equality

Lies, Damned lies, and Statistics

After 42 days on Scandinavian soil, we have returned to the United Kingdom and what we call home 20 miles north of the smoke.  On average we drank 6 litres of water, pedaled over 15,000 revolutions and took 0.35 showers per day.

The Norm

We have taken away some thoughts about Sweden.  The first and most obvious is that of the norm there.  Everybody thinks they know what the norm is.  It is what is normal to us – the views of everybody mixed together and averaged out (or at least an impression of that).  So from the people we came into contact with, a picture of the average Swedish attitude emerged: Swedish people trust more than us, feel a responsibility to other Swedes, and have an assumption towards equality in almost all senses of the word.  Furthermore, the standard of living is good and we struggled to find signs of poverty.

Law of Jante

So what is the reason for this? Is relative income equality merely a side effect of equality across the board in Swedish society?  It is clear that the Swede’s idea of the norm is quite different to ours in the UK.  An explanation for this could come from the Law of Jante.  Jantelagen is a cultural set of rules about the way the group treats the individual in Scandinavian countries, observed by the author Aksel Sandemose.  The general idea is: “Don’t think you’re anyone special or that you’re better than us.”

Sandemose’s idea is worrying: that a society would look down, be suspicious of, or even hostile towards those that did not conform to the norm, just to preserve social stability and uniformity.  Whilst this is an extreme view of Swedish culture, there are definitely aspects of Jantelagen that we observed.  It seemed like a negative thing to make the successful feel unworthy, but a positive thing to feel solidarity towards your community.  Consequently, we should be finding a way to achieve the results we want (such as low crime, low poverty and high trust) but from a path that will be in harmony with our culture.

Lagom

Scandinavian countries have this idea of things being “just right”, “not too much and not too little” or “in moderation”.  We have no direct translation of lagom and I think this is a problem (not the translation itself, but the lack of the existence of lagom in our culture).  Lagom could be likened to the Taoist idea of ying and yang (that of balance) or to Aristotle’s golden mean (the desirable middle between two extremes).  If all Swede’s have a predisposition towards Lagom, equality must be far easier to achieve.  I think that Lagom is a positive thing, in that it is a more sustainable way of living and can pull us away from the order of consumerism.

Selfish

So are we in the UK so selfish? I invite you to view our last interview with Lars Tragardh, author of “Is the Swede Human”.  He argues that Swedes are individualists to an even greater extent than Americans, despite their socialist reputation!

Hacon

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Steven Reflects on Exploring Equality

I’m sitting in bed, reflecting two weeks after our return to the UK. I’ve adjusted back to not cycling every day, though I’m still eating as much food.  I’ve been thrust back into the day-to-day with a dull temping job.

It seems strange to think that in the past 6 weeks, we’ve interviewed 22 people, spoken to many more, played boule with 77 year olds, sat down for dinner at the table with Swedish families, and generally had an amazing if not exhausting experience of cultural exchange.

The highlight

An email out of the blue, from Erik and Katherina in Karlstad, offering us a place to stay after they read a short Q&A with me in a national Swedish paper. What followed was two days of conversation and exploration. When we left, Katherina thanked us: for ‘waking her up’- to discussing these issues of society and politics once again. Her email of thanks in many ways made the trip all worthwhile: we were learning from Swedes, but it clearly wasn’t just a one way process.

That and allemansrätten of course: the freedom to camp anywhere is incredible, especially in a country where people love private property. They fight for private autonomy, and fiercely defend their right to go wherever they please. Go figure. It seems to work.

What did we learn?

That Sweden is a contradictory place:

It has high taxes, yet is the 2^nd most competitive economy in the world, ahead of the land of the rich and free: the USA.

It has a strong, large state, and yet an active civil society: turnout in the September election was over 80%, autonomy and personal freedom are valued and respected traditions.

That Sweden is not a utopia:

The Swedish Democrat Party, a far-right essentially racist group, has been elected into Parliament. Human rights abuses of migrants are happening- in big cities racial segregation is huge and ethnic minorities are effectively becoming in some places a kind of under-class.

Inequality is on the rise, like in other Western countries (although at a slower rate than in many).

People can seem a bit cold, a little passionless.

But it is also inspiring

I was amazed by how many people stated so matter of fact that it is people’s responsibility to give something personally in order to ensure everyone in society has equality of opportunity, and that no-one has to suffer the humiliation of being poor in a developed country.

We stayed in a house in a medium-sized town where people left their doors open and had low fences around their gardens. Two out of three Swedes trust each other. In the UK, the figure stands at just one out of three.

Women have much more power here. We saw women builders. Paternity and maternity rights make so much more sense: they emancipate both women and men in a way our laws in the UK fail to do.

The Big Issues

We set out to answer the questions: what is it like to live in a more equal society? And can we learn lessons to take back to the UK? For me, these three big issues stand out as the crucial sticking points in answering those questions:

1. The individual and the state

Swedes are not oppressed, that much is clear. Lars Tragardh’s interview was illuminating: they love personal freedom and autonomy. But we still came across the idea that the state ‘looks after you’, that society is a “ready-made cake” that  people have to just ‘slot into’, rather than feeling they can change anything. Hacon discusses the concept of Jantelagen that seems to underpin Swedish attitudes to equality. The downside of Jantelagen is that it might prevent people from being different and seeking to change things. The good side of Jantelagen is it avoids bragging, individualism, and selfishness. If the UK is to reduce inequality, and promote a greater sense of responsibility towards others and equality of opportunity, does it need to have a cultural underpinning like Jantelagen? Is that what we want, is that possible?  How do we reward those with talent, encouraging them to stand out, while maintaining a culture which finds it unacceptable for people to be left behind while others get stinking rich?

2. What is freedom?

I was inspired by a different version of freedom. In the UK, we must be free to maximise our income. This is considered true freedom, a-la our American friends’ dream (plus of course democracy, a valued freedom in both countries). In Sweden, freedom is more complex. It’s about autonomy: not just from the state, but from the church, from family. In many ways, the Swedes are freer than us: women are freer, children are freer. In the UK, we continue to promote un-freedom everywhere: through our divided schools, our shockingly low social mobility trapping people depending on the wealth of their parents, through our outdated views of the role of women in society. What does it mean to be free? We need to have this debate in the UK.

3. Is it all just culture?

Critics of the Spirit Level say Scandinavia’s success in health, education, life expectancy etc, is not due to equality, but cultural and historical coincidence. They ignore the fact that that ‘coincidence’ has been a political system that has systematically promoted equality at every opportunity! But it is true that the culture issue is complex: yes, Sweden is a very different place. It’s developed differently, made different decisions, which over time have influenced its underlying values, principles, and culture. But as Lars points out, we can’t become essentialist. For one, culture changes. Women were emancipated in Sweden as recently as the 1970’s- where changes to tax laws massively improved their lot. Father’s got additional paternity rights in the 1990’s- and already, cultural values around the role of men in the family are changing. Culture is the national conversation, our everyday actions, as well as some abstract solid thing that is passed down through generations. The culture argument holds true in saying one country cannot become exactly like another. But it is also a smoke screen- to mask real lessons countries can learn from each other’s experiences. That Sweden developed differently is not to mean that the UK can never change.

The next steps

For this is now about the UK. Our journey began with a book: the Spirit Level. It was a launching point into the politics of equality: into asking questions about what kind of society we wanted to live in. The launch took us to Sweden: a country with a fascinating story to tell. But Sweden itself was another launching point. Now it launches us into the world of inequality in the UK. Because now, this is about asking why, and what. Why do some areas of Glasgow have living conditions akin to some third world countries? Why can someone born in Tottenham expect to live 18 years less than someone born in Chelsea & Kensington? Why is the UK’s social mobility (you’re ability to get out of poverty) the lowest in Europe? And what- what are we going to do about it?

Our film will explore these issues- by taking some specific lessons from the Swedish experience. It will be a while before it premieres, it will be a tough and long journey again for us film novices. But don’t stop tuning into the debates that will endlessly follow in the media over the next few months. We stand at a crossroads in the UK, in a political consensus that says we must cut cut cut from public budgets. Right or wrong, ask yourself this question as much as you can: What kind of society do I want to live in? And then go out, and make your actions reflect the answer to that question.

29^th September 2010. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—BEGINS—

Two graduates have returned from an 1100 mile cycling adventure around Sweden, having found out what life is like in a more equal country. Their interviews touched on many important issues for UK society as we head into a period of budget cuts and a proposed “Big Society”, the role of individuals, trust and community, and gender equality.

Fourteen interviews and video diaries can still be found at www.exploringequality.tk. In a few months time a short documentary film, exploring the lessons the UK can learn from Sweden, will be released and shown at University campuses and film festivals across the country.

Steven Bland, a recent graduate of Forum for the Future’s master’s programme in Leadership for Sustainable Development, and Shi Hacon Bickerton, a law school graduate, interviewed academics, politicians and ‘ordinary people’ to get under the skin of social equality.

Steven comments: “I was really impressed by the Swedes underlying belief in a responsibility to ensure everyone has equality of opportunity. Two out of three Swedes trust each other, where as only 1 out of 3 Brits do: seeing this trust in action in the form of low fences, unlocked doors, and a more relaxed attitude to the state, was incredible.”

The interviews revealed, however, a culturally-embedded attitude towards equality that would be difficult to copy in the UK. And the UK may also need to use different methods to tackle inequality:

“Sweden has maintained relatively high levels of income equality through a large tax base and a redistributive welfare state. The big question is: is it feasible for the UK to do the same? Or will another route need to be found to create popular enthusiasm for reducing inequality?”  Shi Hacon added.

Those interested in keeping informed of the film’s release are encouraged to sign up to receive infrequent updates at www.exploringequality.tk

—ENDS—

-NOTE TO EDITORS-

• Steven Bland and Shi Hacon Bickerton are available for interview, please use contact details below.
• The trip was inspired by a new book called the Spirit Level. The book suggests a statistically proven relationship between a whole range of social ills (for example crime, ill health, teenage pregnancies, and lack of trust) and levels of inequality within developed countries.
• Steven and Hacon are not politically affiliated.

—CONTACT—

Steven Bland

3 Courtlands Drive

Home Telephone: 01923 247280

Mobile: 07706533418

Stevenbland21[at]gmail.com

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What makes Sweden Sweden?

Hacon (and a bit of Steve) reflects on those quirky traits we discovered…

o   Really rubbish mini golf almost everywhere

o   Swedes love their lawns. Perfectly mowed, trimmed, and raked of any clippings.

o   Golf courses are loved (possibly linked to the immaculate lawns) so much they’re in nature reserves (eg Nacka nature reserve – which permits trucks to drive in nearly every day to deliver food and packages and often fills the reserve with the sound of lawn mowing)

o   Herring!  In a household one person will love it and the other hate it

o   Conflict avoidance: a Swede will still be nice to you if they don’t like you

§  Passive aggressive? Maybe this is why they are neutral for almost 300 years

§  "Tiga ut nagon" This roughly translates as "giving the silent treatment."

o   If a Swede really doesn’t want to speak to you, they will say:

 “My sincerest apologies, but I do not speak a word of English”

o   Flies crawling on your food is usually fine, but wasps are the devil incarnate and must be feared to the most extreme extent capable of expressing

o   Swedes love a special form of queuing called nummerlap (take a ticket with a number on and wait)

o   Drinking on a weekday makes you an alcoholic

o   Swedes love “the nature”

o   Sweden is no longer the homogenous society I thought they were

o   Some women don’t like me to hold doors for them

o   Swedes usually carry alcohol in little purple bags

o   Swedes either don’t know how good they’ve got it (why are you studying us?!) or are secretly devilishly proud of what they’ve got and don’t want to share it.

Kaj works at The Natural Step for social sustainability.  His expertise is in the area of social trust.  The trust between individuals and the trust between the individual and the state are common themes when talking about societies which value equality.  We were fascinated by Kaj and his ideas on what is required in trusting societies.  He suggests some specific measures that unequal societies without the culture of “Jantelagen” can take to gain trust.  Kaj also makes it clear that trust is not something that we can demand, it is something that you have to be worthy of: in order to create trust, you must behave in a way that allows others to trust you.

We’ve had people admitting to us some of the downsides of living in Sweden recently, and about time too. Young people have told us that it’s a bit boring here, a bit safe, that the stereotype is true: people don’t really talk to each other in the street. What’s more, they say, did we know that 46% of households are single-person, living alone? [And of course, there’s that curiously high suicide rate... ] Ed: See comments below for clarification.

We’ve been introduced to the concept of “Jantelagen”. Created by the author Aksel Sandemose in his novel “A fugitive crosses his tracks” (1933) it describes a Scandinavian collective behaviour which discourages people from standing out, from boasting about being different. For a basic explanation, see here.

Young people don’t like it, and people from across the political spectrum have told us they don’t think it is a positive thing. The key question really is if it’s possible to have a society in which the people support policies to promote equality, without having a culture similar to Jantelagen. I don’t think Jantelagen is something we want in the UK! We need to find our own cultural way of rewarding talent without aggressively promoting individualism where it harms people themselves or others around them.

We’ve also had some interesting insights into ‘freedom’. I’ve realised that the UK’s definition of freedom is quite narrow. Essentially we are free if we can, as Professor Tragardh told us, “maximise our disposable income”, and enjoy the freedoms of living in a democracy and all that entails. And yet, we constrain women through the traditional gender roles we’ve inherited from the church and the institution of marriage, we owe a lot to our families and many see this as a restriction on their freedom, we have more CCTV cameras watching us than China (and Sweden)!

Swedes concept of freedom is potentially a bit different. Back in the 1950’s, Sweden was the country of the housewife, just like in the UK. But changes to the tax system in the 1960’s/1970’s taxed people individually, not by household. This combined with other measures to promote gender equality, emancipated women significantly from traditional gender inequalities often cemented in marriage. Co-habiting couples in Sweden enjoy pretty much the same rights as married ones, as do gay couples- again more freedom for people. And of course, university is free, which frees choices at a young age.

Most importantly: in the UK we have some of the lowest social mobility in Europe: i.e. if you’re born poor you are more likely to stay poor. Surely, the shackles of unfreedom ring out here more than in any other walk of life. And yet the stereotype is of free Britain, and unfree Sweden.

So one person’s freedom is not necessarily the same as another’s: Swedes are not free to get rich quick, or to brag about success. But they are freed from many of the unequal structures and traditions that hold back many people in the UK. And at a macro level, this doesn’t appear to harm economic performance: they’ve just overtaken the USA to become the 2nd most competitive economy in the World.

Steve