Living with Vikings

And Denmark is one of the few countries where democracy was introduced before a working class was formed.40 Danish farmers attended Grundtvig’s high schools during the winter and learned about fellowship, equality and the necessity of agreement. But they were also masters of their own homesteads, and unlike Sweden, Denmark did not amass a blue-collar working class of any dimension until relatively late. The

old saying “standards are good but double standards are twice as good” has found the perfect home. In Sweden

war in 1864, when Denmark surrendered one-third of its territory, lost 40% of its inhabitants and after five months of war, gained a serious national trauma.
Once a medium-sized state, after just two battles against the Prussians, it became small and insignificant, and therefore retreated back to what was national, safe, homogeneous, and cosy. Denmark chose to invest in what it knew: agriculture, more land reclamation, and making the cooperative movement and farmers into the new folk heroes