The husmann got a small house to live in, a small garden to tend for his own, and a vague promise of care and help in old age and in case of medical emergency. In return, the lord was free to call upon his services at any time. He would typically have to work the land of the lord during the busy months of spring and fall, with little time to tend his garden. However, since he was free to leave, the husmann was never pushed too far. He was taxed to his limit, but rarely so much that he would revolt.
This system was very successful and popular with the gentry and the laborers alike. It was the dominant system of inland Norway, away from the coast where a completely different system existed.
Coastal towns employed a system of paid labor, with every man taking care of his own. The advantage of this system was that it allowed for more opportunity. A clever young man could work his way up from store clerk to store owner, from deck hand to captain, from rags to riches. The down side was the risk. Failure to succeed could result in abject poverty,. Such people would be completely reliant on charity for their survival.
The two systems existed in parallel for hundreds of years. The result of this was that there emerged two distinct cultures; an inland culture and a coastal culture. The inland culture was conservative and rigid. The coastal culture was liberal and dynamic.
When democracy was introduced to Norway, the inland culture won over the coastal culture. When free to choose, laborers chose guarantees over freedom. Politicians acted like benevolent lords, making promises way beyond what manor lords would dare to make. The politicians were super-heroes, constantly adding to the list of goodies they would guarantee.
At first, the manor lords were appalled. However, they quickly realized that they had in fact won the cultural battle between coast and inland. They became politicians themselves. The husmann system that had been threatened by the success and dynamism of coastal towns had been rescued.
The dynamic culture of coastal Norway started to deteriorate, and there is little left of it today. Just about everybody is a husmann, and those who aren't husmann are lords of the manor, i.e. politicians.
However, there is a problem. While the old lords refused to promise more than they could offer, politicians have gone way beyond what can reasonably be expected. This has been naively accepted by the husmann inclined majority in the population, and any discussion concerning the sustainability of the current system is quickly silenced.
The result is that we have today in Norway a system that is widely popular, yet completely unsustainable. Reality is starting to rear its ugly head. Conditions in old people care homes are becoming increasingly desperate. Health care is rationed. The honest lord of the manor has been replaced by the dishonest politician. The dynamic coastal culture has been greatly reduced. Where there used to be a natural balance between conservative reverence for the lord and liberal risk taking, there is today a wasteland of young adults with no higher ambition than to be taken care of by the good lord, the politician and his unsustainable system.
Norwegian social democracy is a dead man walking. Unsustainable to the extreme, it is bound to crash in the not too distant future. Those who naively and blindly cling to their belief in the benevolent and all seeing lord of the manor, the politician, will discover the truth the hard way.
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| A cottage for the husmann |
By Valtov at fi:wikipedia - Originally from fi:wikipedia, Public Domain, Link
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