The first thing that came into my mind when I heard about today’s topic was the concept of trust. Of course, trust is not inherently a Nordic idea, or a foreign concept in China. Nor is trust a concept with a single meaning. We can talk about several types of trust.

One type is individual trust, a trust in someone you already know. An evolutionary trait that most likely dates back to the primitive hunter-gatherer societies. If you were injured during a mammoth hunt, you could trust your small clan to care for you. This makes sense, and we all have family members that we trust dearly. Those who are close to you, you trust. Another type is institutional trust, your confidence in public bodies such as courts, police and the administration. I will get back to that in a bit.

But let me start by telling you about our take on trust in the Nordic countries. Although there may be variations, we trust each other – almost by default. This is a third kind – societal trust. This is trust in strangers you’ve never met before. And I believe that this is quite fundamental to the Nordic Model and Nordic way of life.

Let me give you an example. Many Danes will remember a story from 1997, when a Danish woman left her 14-month old daughter asleep in a baby carriage outside a coffee shop in New York City. The mother was sitting inside, and could see the baby through the window, so everything to her was in perfect order. But soon a concerned citizen called the police, who took the baby into custody and arrested the woman.

Luckily, she got off with a warning, and mother and child were soon reunited. Yet, if you’ve ever been to Denmark, you have without a doubt noticed there are many baby carriages outside local coffee shops. In Denmark, we routinely leave sleeping babies outside, without any direct supervision other than a sound recorder, so we can hear when they wake up. This is a very concrete example of societal trust. We simply trust others – people we’ve never met – enough to leave our children sleeping alone.

And this leads me back to institutional trust. We also have great trust in our government, legal system, police and administration. Don’t get me wrong, one of our favorite pastimes is complaining about politicians or the bureaucracy. But in the end, we generally trust them to do the right thing. And we trust that our public institutions and authorities act in a fair and impartial manner. Both societal trust and institutional trust is crucial to our welfare model. Denmark and the other Nordic countries are strong welfare states. This model relies on redistribution of tax revenues between strangers, not among people with mutual individual trust relations. Such a system doesn’t work if you don’t trust institutions to divide the cake fairly. And it doesn’t work if you don’t trust your neighbor enough to expect her to do her share.

In other words, this model means that everyone is expected to contribute and to have a sense of duty. But it also means that everyone is sure to receive care and help if anything happens to you. If you get sick or when you get old, you don’t have to worry about sick bills or whether your kids live close enough. You can trust the system to take care of you.

An added benefit of trust is that it lowers transaction costs in the economy. With trust, it’s easier to get things done. You don’t need to provide excessive legal hedging to foster joint action or to promote exchanges between economic agents. Some would argue that this is a significant part of the explanation of why Nordic welfare states are also fairly wealthy states. But why do we have such a high level of trust in Nordic countries? It’s not because we’re inherently different from everyone else.

I believe one reason is our political system. Through transparency, oversight and separations of powers, people trust that policy outcomes and the public administration is run in a fair way. Laws and rules are clearly defined and fairly and impartially implemented, no matter who you are or how much money you have in your bank account.

Another reason is the process by which we make laws. For instance, we have a very strong consultation mechanism for hearing public demands. This leads to a sense that rules are there to promote and protect the interests of every individual. We have a sense that following the rules is both in your own interest as well as the overall interest of society and the nation.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t, from time to time, experience irregularities among public authorities or politicians. But when cases like this happen, we deal with them through due process in a transparent manner. And the almost certain debate about the issue contributes to a sense that such problems are not allowed to take root. From the outside, our political system or debates in the public sphere about politics may seem disorderly, or even chaotic. Maybe you get the sense that our society is brimming with discontent and antagonism. But to us, debate – sometimes fierce debate – is seen as strength and a sign of a well-functioning, healthy system. As such, debate and diverse opinions don’t undermine the system. Rather, it actually contributes to trust in the system, and between all of us. Thank you.