Dwain Northey (Gen X)

One of the greatest ironies in modern American politics is that there are countries the American right loves to dismiss as “socialist hellholes” that consistently rank among the happiest places on Earth.

Take Denmark. Take the Netherlands. Year after year, they sit near the top of global happiness rankings. Their citizens enjoy universal healthcare, affordable higher education, generous parental leave, strong labor protections, lower poverty rates, and high levels of trust in both their neighbors and their public institutions. They also pay significantly higher taxes than Americans.

According to much of the MAGA movement, this should be impossible.

For decades we’ve been told that high taxes destroy freedom, that government investment kills innovation, that helping your fellow citizens creates laziness, and that the only path to happiness is unfettered capitalism with as little government involvement as possible. Yet reality keeps refusing to cooperate with the talking points.

The countries most often ridiculed as “socialist” consistently report happier populations than many of the countries that pride themselves on having the freest markets.

That doesn’t mean these nations are perfect. No country is. They face immigration debates, housing shortages, inflation, and political disagreements just like everyone else. But when independent researchers repeatedly ask people around the world how satisfied they are with their lives, these countries continue to score remarkably well.

That documented reality seems to irritate some conservatives far more than it should.

It’s almost as if the existence of successful social democracies undermines the narrative that every public investment is a step toward tyranny. If citizens can have vibrant capitalist economies while also enjoying universal healthcare, affordable education, paid family leave, and strong worker protections—and still report some of the highest life satisfaction in the world—it becomes much harder to argue that every government program is inherently evil.

Instead of asking, “What are they doing right?” the conversation often devolves into insisting that the rankings must be meaningless, that those countries aren’t really free, or that Americans simply value freedom more.

But here’s the uncomfortable question: What is freedom if you’re one medical emergency away from bankruptcy? What is freedom if higher education leaves you buried in debt? What is freedom if missing a paycheck means losing your home? Freedom isn’t simply the absence of taxes. For many people, genuine freedom also means having enough security to build a life without constant fear that one stroke of bad luck will destroy everything.

Perhaps that’s why these countries routinely score so highly. Their citizens know they’ll receive healthcare if they get sick. They know they won’t lose everything because they become parents. They know education won’t saddle them with decades of debt. They know unemployment doesn’t automatically become homelessness.

Ironically, those policies don’t eliminate capitalism. Denmark and the Netherlands remain market economies with thriving private businesses, entrepreneurs, multinational corporations, and innovation. They simply made a different decision about where some of their tax dollars should go.

Americans often frame the discussion as an all-or-nothing choice: either complete capitalism or complete socialism. The countries consistently topping the happiness charts rejected that false choice decades ago. They embraced capitalism while recognizing that markets work best when citizens aren’t constantly living on the edge of catastrophe.

Maybe that’s the lesson many in MAGA find so frustrating. It’s harder to argue that compassion is economically impossible when entire nations have demonstrated that strong markets and strong social safety nets can coexist.

The happiest countries in the world aren’t utopias. They’re simply proof that investing in your people doesn’t automatically destroy prosperity. Sometimes, it helps create it.