For the past three months, I’ve been living in Denmark, and I genuinely loved it. The streets are clean, the bike lanes immaculate, and the sense of public trust is unlike anything I’ve experienced in the US. It’s no wonder people romanticize this place—“free” healthcare, university stipends, and a government that many believe works well.

But the longer I stayed, the more I started noticing cracks. They weren’t always visible at first—more like patterns in conversation, stories from international friends, or the quiet discomfort that settled in certain moments. Coming from the United States, where diversity and individualism are more overtly woven into everyday life, I couldn’t help but notice how the very system that offers so much comfort in Denmark comes with a cost.

The Ghetto Laws: Welfare-Driven Discrimination in Practice

In 2018, Denmark introduced the “Ghettoplanen” (Ghetto Laws), later rebranded as the Parallel Society Laws. These policies target neighborhoods where more than half the residents are of “non-Western” background—a term that includes people from countries outside the EU and North America, even if they were born in Denmark or are second- or third-generation citizens. Children whose grandparents immigrated from places like Turkey, Lebanon, or Somalia are still counted as “non-Western” under the law.

If a neighborhood meets enough criteria—low income, high unemployment, and a “non-Western” majority—it faces state intervention. This can include:

Mandatory preschool from age one for all children of “non-Western” descent to instill Danish values, Harsher criminal penalties for offenses committed within these zones, Demolition of public housing and forced relocation of residents to “de-concentrate” immigrant populations, and Restrictions on who can move in, effectively capping the number of “non-Western” residents.

The government claims these measures promote integration, but they operate more like demographic engineering. The message is clear: too much cultural difference in one place is unacceptable.

To someone from the US, this feels disturbingly familiar. The targeted housing policies, the coded language about “undesirable neighborhoods,” the use of state power to reshape communities—it all echoes redlining. The difference is that in Denmark, it isn’t a buried legacy. It’s law, in force today, designed to preserve cultural homogeneity. And while the justification is social cohesion, the result is a system that penalizes people for their ancestry.

When Difference Becomes a Liability

Welfare states like Denmark’s aren’t built on taxes alone—they rest on a shared cultural foundation. The social contract assumes a common understanding of how to live: shared values, similar behaviors, and a broadly uniform way of life. While that foundation can foster trust and cohesion, it also creates pressure to conform.

Visible difference—whether in language, religion, dress, or worldview—can unsettle that cohesion. And instead of adapting to diversity, Denmark often manages it through policies and social norms that nudge immigrants and their children toward assimilation. In practice, it’s not just an invitation to integrate—it’s a demand. The result is a system where those who don’t—or can’t—fully assimilate face quiet exclusion. A nail artist from Nepal told me she’s struggled to make Danish friends despite living here for years. Friends of mine who are South Asian or Middle Eastern are routinely denied entry to clubs under vague excuses like “it’s full,” while white Danes enter with ease.

These aren’t isolated experiences. According to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, migrants in Denmark report higher levels of discrimination than the EU average. And despite topping global rankings in welfare provision and institutional trust, Denmark scores near the bottom when it comes to multicultural integration.

Much of this exclusion is hard to see. It’s not enforced through loud rhetoric or explicit laws, but through daily interactions, housing policy, and unspoken expectations. The discrimination is systemic, subtle, and often unacknowledged—and that silence makes it harder to confront. At the heart of this pressure to conform is Janteloven, a deeply rooted cultural code that discourages standing out or asserting individuality. While it promotes humility on the surface, it also reinforces social and cultural sameness. For many Danes, it creates cohesion; for outsiders, it can feel like an invisible wall. Combined with state policies that reward uniformity, Janteloven helps preserve a society that appears egalitarian but quietly resists pluralism.

By contrast, American society—despite its flaws—embraces individualism. Cultural differences aren’t always seamless, but they’re often viewed as part of the national fabric rather than a threat to it. Integration happens through voluntary participation in schools, workplaces, and communities—not through a central authority that defines how to belong. This more open model is far messier. But it leaves space for people to forge identity and belonging on their own terms—not through conformity, but through freedom.

Denmark’s Quiet Warning

I came to Denmark expecting to see the appeal of a so-called “well-run” welfare state. And in many ways, I did. The country is efficient, safe, and comfortable for those who largely fit the mold.

But I also saw how that same system—designed to provide security—can become rigid and exclusionary when difference is treated as disruption.

The lesson is that when sameness becomes the price of inclusion, something essential is lost. True equality isn’t created through top-down social engineering. It grows from the freedom to live differently—freely exchange ideas, build communities, and be accepted without having to blend in.

America’s most prominent university, Harvard, is now fighting the Trump administration. This conflict marks the latest episode in what appears to be a new focus of the White House on higher education. Most recently, Columbia University gave in to some of the government’s demands to ensure continued funding.

The confrontation started when the Trump administration contacted Harvard to demand that it institute reforms based (at least partly) on Harvard’s perceived failure to deal with “[discrimination] against Jewish or Israeli students.”

Harvard made some changes but rejected other demands, calling them unreasonable, and in response, the Trump administration has threatened to freeze federal funding.

Now Harvard is fighting back with lawsuits. In its public-facing website about the conflict, Harvard features what sounds like an inspiring message by the institution’s president, Alan Garber:

No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.

This sounds nice, but when you scroll down the site a bit further, you see what’s really at stake:

Without federal funding, this work [research] will come to a halt midstream, and researchers will lack necessary resources to finish ongoing projects or to finance new ones in the numerous fields Harvard supports…

Do you see the tension here? Harvard is upset that the government is trying to tell them what to say, while simultaneously demanding that it continue sending them money.

Of the $9 billion being threatened, not all goes immediately to Harvard. Some funding goes in grant form to students who then transmit it to the university in fees. Other grants go to researchers who share a portion (often more than half) with the university. But, regardless of the transmission mechanism, this funding is critical to Harvard’s current operations; otherwise, Trump’s threat would be inconsequential.

Is Harvard entitled to receive millions of taxpayer dollars, directly or indirectly? Are the wealthy administrators and faculty the proper owners of taxes paid by Americans of all economic classes?

In my view, no. Harvard has no right to tax dollars; therefore, it’s hardly an injustice for them to lose that funding.

Why is our government funding one of the most powerful institutions in America when it is sitting on a $53 billion endowment and while it receives donations from foreign governments?

It’s hard to feel bad for Harvard here. One of the oldest lessons in human history is that you have to be careful accepting generous gifts, whether directly or through employees or customers. Money comes with strings attached. Federal money is no different. When you tie your institution’s structure to the gifts of politicians, it’s strange to act surprised when the government leaders expect something (even if it’s unreasonable) in return.

Perhaps the court will rule in Harvard’s favor in this case, but if the voters who elected Trump also elect a Congress that votes to defund Harvard, what will the institution do then?

If institutions like Harvard want to live without fear of being defunded, it’s time for them to let go of the federal government’s hand and walk on their own. Other institutions already do this. Hillsdale College in Michigan and Grove City College in Pennsylvania both eschew federal funding explicitly because they dislike the control the funding gives the government over free inquiry.

These organizations are immune to pressure precisely because they turn down the kind of money Trump is now threatening to take from Harvard. They have the freedom to decide their institutions’ path.

Whoever lives by funding will die by funding. There’s no such thing as a free grant.

The only interesting question for me about insurance, health, or otherwise is whether the insurance companies or their clients are the more dishonest. No doubt there is a dialectical relationship between them; I have always rather casually supposed that insurance companies don’t really mind fraudulent claims because they can pass on the costs (plus a […]

The thing I admire most about liberals is their balls-to-the-wall bravery. This past weekend, for example, CBS’s Scott Pelley called Trump a “felon,” making him, quite simply, the finest investigative reporter working in journalism today. Innumerable news outlets hailed Pelley’s reckless courage in headlines the next day, (here, Mediaite): “’60 Minutes’ Airs Scathing Segment on […]

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… is from page 335 of the “Random Thoughts” section of Thomas Sowell’s 2010 book, Dismantling America:

Despite people who talk glibly about “earlier and simpler times,” all that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities.

DBx: Yes. A similar error is made by people who talk glibly about “America’s golden age of manufacturing.” All that makes that earlier age seem “golden” – with its lower-paying, less-pleasant, and more-dangerous jobs – is people’s ignorance of the realities of yesterday’s economy compared to the realities of today’s economy.

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The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal reports on “a tariff lesson at the Nucor steel mill.” Here’s the Board’s conclusion:

This is how it goes with tariffs: Many industries want protection. Nobody wants to be hurt by the other guy’s protection. And then everyone hopes consumers won’t notice.

Russ Roberts talks about tariffs and protectionism with the great Dartmouth trade economist (and economic historian), Douglas Irwin.

GMU Econ alum Ryan Young and co-author Iain Murray answer the naive protectionist question: “If tariffs are so bad, then why does nearly every country have them?” A slice:

The answers have more to say about politics and human nature than about tariffs’ economic benefits.

One of the political answers is an old story, found time and time again in politics. Government gives out blatant favors to a favored few and ignores costs dispersed among the many. Economists call this concentrated benefits and diffused costs.

David Henderson understandably rejects “Michael Pettis’s unpersuasive case for industry subsidies.” A slice:

Pettis claims that letting “other countries take the lead in manufacturing harms the American economy.” How so? He writes:

The U.S. accommodates other countries’ successful industrial policies by absorbing their negative consequences—namely, by absorbing global savings imbalances, running trade deficits and offshoring manufacturing.

He’s way off. Let’s look at each of the three. “Absorbing global savings imbalances” means simply that people in other countries invest more here (not just savings in the form of buying U.S. government bonds but also actual investments in land, plant and equipment, and stocks) than we invest there. He doesn’t say why that’s bad. Second, he thinks that running trade deficits is bad. But trade deficits are the mirror image of capital surpluses, which is the more-neutral term for “global savings imbalances.” So he’s simply restating his first point. Third, if a government doesn’t subsidize manufacturing, it will have less manufacturing, meaning that some (not all and not close to all) manufacturing will be offshore. The question is why that’s bad. You can’t just assume it, especially in an op/ed where you’re trying to make the case for subsidies.

Pettis states that the U.S. government’s failure to play tit for tat with its own subsidies to manufacturing has bad consequences:

America’s decision not to encourage manufacturing has hollowed out industrial ecosystems and left key supply chains vulnerable. It has slowed productivity growth and weakened wage gains, especially for the bottom half of wage earners. And it has hindered America’s ability to respond flexibly to global shocks, from pandemics to geopolitical crises.

There’s so much to unpack in those three sentences.

The first sentence is incredibly vague. Which “ecosystems” have been hollowed out? Which key supply chains are vulnerable? He doesn’t say.

Pettis’s second sentence is almost certainly wrong. If we avoid subsidizing particular sectors, then we have a more efficient economy, which means that overall productivity is higher than otherwise.

His third sentence is too vague also. How has not subsidizing industries hindered America’s ability to respond flexibly to global shocks? A few years ago, I gave a talk to an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) audience in which I made the case for free trade. A member of the audience argued for having government favor domestic manufacturing. He said that if we had had more domestic production of masks during the Covid pandemic, we would not have been as vulnerable as we were because, at the time, we depended on imports from China. I agreed with him. I then asked him whether he had advocated more domestic production of masks before Covid came along. He admitted that he hadn’t. He saw my point. How does a government decide which industries to favor if it’s worried about global shocks. It can’t know what the shocks will be. It’s so easy to look back and say that you wish you had done X, when in fact, you would have had to choose between X and all the other letters of the alphabet, not knowing which one will be relevant.

Moreover, Pettis doesn’t the address the combined donkey and elephant in the room: the fact that politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties will try to push for their favored industries to be subsidized, independent of the merits of the issue.

National Review‘s Dan McLaughlin isn’t impressed with the ‘thinking’ behind Trump’s 100 percent tariffs on foreign films.

Wall Street Journal columnist Matthew Hennessey is correct: “the president is pushing austerity while some liberals talk about abundance.” Two slices:

Outrageous claims are the gasoline that makes Donald Trump’s political career go. Without a steady flow of shocking statements the motor would stall. But engines also require air. If you get the mixture wrong, the engine floods and the car won’t start.

Mr. Trump got the mixture wrong last week. “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” he said Wednesday in response to a question about the effects of his tariffs. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.” The Chinese ships that deliver cheap goods to American ports are “loaded up with stuff, much of which—not all of it—but much of which we don’t need.” On Sunday he made the point again in an interview with NBC News: “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

Two dolls? Five pencils? Stuff we don’t need? It’s time to get out and start pushing the car.

Mr. Trump delivered this message in that hushed, casual style he uses when he’s being serious about something for a minute. No big-mouth bombast. Perhaps you are inclined to take it seriously, not literally. But this is huge, something new under the American sun. Past presidents have urged voters to tighten their belts because of war, pestilence, natural calamity, economic contagion or their predecessors’ mistakes. Mr. Trump is the first to do so because of his own policy decisions and his stubborn insistence on sticking with them. In Mr. Trump’s America you get two dolls only, you pay more, and you be sure to thank the man in the handmade silk tie on the way out.

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MAGA world will no doubt find a way to spin Mr. Trump’s austerity agenda as the antidote to American carnage. There isn’t a city, town or burg in this great nation that wouldn’t scrimp and save in the event of a real emergency. But this isn’t a real emergency. It’s a manufactured one. Mr. Trump flooded the engine. Let him get out and push.

The Ford Motor Co. warns Trump of the destructiveness of his tariffs punitive taxes on Americans’ purchases of imports and import-competing products. A slice:

Ford Motor Co. became the latest big name to warn that President Donald Trump’s trade war is about to do significant damage at home. Ford Motor Co. became the latest big name to warn that President Donald Trump’s trade war is about to do significant damage at home.The iconic US company said it suspended its full-year financial guidance, pinning the blame in part on auto tariffs. Ford said it expects Trump’s levies to reduce 2025 adjusted earnings before interest and taxes by about $1.5 billion on a net basis this year.

Several automakers have warned of the steep costs they expect to pay due to Trump’s chaotic tariff campaign and subsequent retaliation by other nations. Trump has argued that the 25% tariffs he’s imposed on imported vehicles and parts are needed to bring more production and jobs to the US. But most economists predict the opposite will be achieved, while a growing number of lawsuits contend Trump’s entire tariff initiative is illegal under US law.

Tad DeHaven tells of how protectionism breeds cronyism as it often bites the very people who clamor for it. Two slices:

The Trump administration’s ham-fisted trade wars mean higher input prices and reduced American farmers’ access to export markets. Agricultural interests and their lobbyists have been petitioning the White House for relief, including exemptions on imported fertilizers, expanded regulatory privileges, and good old-fashioned cash handouts.

…..

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently reiterated that the White House is preparing for another bailout. This time, the price tag stands to be considerably larger. As one sorghum and cotton farmer told the Wall Street Journal, “We hope there will be a bailout .… If we don’t get something, it will be quite a disaster.”

Amir Iraji makes clear that “tariffs kill knowledge and leave us in the dark.”

GMU Econ alum Erik Matson shows why – contrary to many assertions by people who are poorly informed – the principle of comparative advantage is inescapable. Two slices:

In a recent article in The Financial Times Nat Dyer argues that economists misunderstand tariffs. He points out that tariffs have political and moral dimensions not captured by standard economic reasoning. We therefore take economists’ widespread advocacy of free trade at our peril: “too few economic theorists have interrogated the actual, messy history of trade.” He concludes that we need “a new, genuinely progressive economics with its eyes focused on the real world and its history, rather than abstract models built on unreality.”

Economists have long been accused of paying too little attention to reality and too much to models. The accusation is sometimes just. But critics are often guilty of an equally harmful sin: neglecting the truths of economic thought.

…..

One might conclude that there are good reasons for protectionism (I don’t). But arguments for protectionism or a “genuinely progressive economics,” to be serious, have to take the principle of comparative advantage seriously, just as they have to take arithmetic seriously. That means admitting that there will absolutely be clear costs—material benefits forgone—by restricting trade. Historical and political complexities change that fact no more than they change the fact that water runs downhill.

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