Norway – No Way!

I had a trip to Norway, which was nice but also quite shocking! The nice part was the nature, the people were also very nice, and the food was great! As weird as it felt, I found a lot of similarities with Bulgaria, and other countries, most probably because of the same trees and nature over all, it felt quite familiar. I’d say it a great place to go for hiking and sleeping in generally relaxing in the nature around you. Food was also good, lots of great sea stuff, shrimps, fish, you name it. Last but not least, people were very friendly, always ready to help you, to show you, to explain, in two words very welcoming.

But it was the social system which was shocking for me, and made me sit and write those lines. Norway is basically cash-less society. I’d say 90% is credit/debit cards and 10% is cash. They all go around with their plastic cards and pay everywhere with them. You might see this as perfectly normal, but I do not. If they wish they can easily stop the rest of the cash in circulation even tomorrow. What is worrying here is: what is a person to do, if there was no cash, and for whatever reasons the government or the bank stops, blocks your plastic card? What is one to do? Just the thought that all your “money” and basically ability to live in society will be dependent on a bank or a government is scary enough!

The Norwegians do not seem to worry about such possibilities. They truly believe in their government and their system. This system in a very simple but totally effective way to control their lives fully! If the government does not wish its citizens to spend their money for particular things, they simply put enormous tax on those things (usually with some shallow but good intended motive) and there it is, people simply do not get the thing/s in question, because it becomes too expensive for them. If the government decides that its citizens should do this or the other, it starts throwing money at the citizens, and they go for it. In fact I was told that the government had officially announced to the people to spend their money for travel and culture, as this helps keep inflation in reasonable boundaries! So, the Norwegians started traveling.

The system leads and shapes the way people should live. It taxes single men of up to 82%, and single women with a kid of 23% only, while giving them apartment, extra money and kindergarten for the kid. As nice as this might look at first glance, this system is directly aimed against the traditional family as a unit in society. I still think that family is a result of natural need of the human beings, rather than thought necessity, and therefore do not agree with the idea that family should be abolished, as the infamous Marx and Engels did. However this modern system in effect does exactly that.

As someone born under communism, I will never ever trust any government. I do believe that people have brains to make decisions for themselves, and that the government should play as minimal role as possible in people’s lives. Norway’s way is some modern replica of our old totalitarian system, with which I want nothing to do. Norway, No way!