Finland || The Guardian || Letters

The Guardian

   Finland is a highly egalitarian country in terms of income distribution, but to assume it was never hierarchical is problematic (Free and fair: How Finland came up with the answers, 13 February).
   The 19th-century aristocracy, many of Swedish origin, held extensive estates; the profitability of timber exports enabled ship owners to accumulate very considerable fortunes; and by the 1850s Finlayson’s cotton factory in Tampere was the largest in the   Nordic area. Even within the peasantry there was a huge disparity between the owners of reasonably sized holdings and “houseless” day labourers.
   Much is made, quite rightly, of Finland’s high-quality education, but to claim this can be traced back to the introduction in 1866 of a free education system is debatable, as attendance was only made compulsory in 1921.
   Moreover, recent trends cast a shadow over Finland’s success. The ruling coalition is pursuing a policy of deregulation, including dismantling parts of the welfare state, and education budgets have been cut. Racism and neo-fascism are on the rise. The Finns party is overtly nationalistic, while the Nordic Resistance Movement aims to create a national-socialist state. The integration of immigrants has not been a success and the policy towards refugees is reprehensible, with over 80% of Iraqis deported.

Emeritus Professor Robert Lee
Birkenhead, Merseyside

   There may be things to like about modern Finland. But your uncritical account ignores uncomfortable facts about the country’s history – in particular, that an alliance of industrial capitalists and aristocrats launched a genocidal civil war against Finnish workers in 1918, and that the same reactionary elite allied the country with the Nazis during the second world war.
   It might reasonably be claimed that the current Finnish social settlement is an attempt to escape this history, but that argument depends on first recognising the country’s dark past.

Julian Wells
London

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