The average Norwegian monthly salary across every working person is USD 5902 per month - before tax. That works out to USD 70824 per year including 4-5 weeks paid holiday. These are public numbers https://www.ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkos...

Taxes are progressive which means if you earn below average you’re taxed a lot less than if you’re over average. If you have an average salary you’ll get taxed around 25%. If you have a salary twice the average you’ll close in on twice the tax, before any deductions.

Paid holiday, free kindergarten, free medical support and pensions savings are included in the tax you and your employers pay. The employer pays 14% tax on your salary.

This approach has its benefits: excellent infrastructure, clean cities, well maintained countryside, low crime rate and less pressure to "do, do, do it now!" Not everything is about money.

That said, the global economy is about the money, so I have a strong suspicion that this fact will hit Europe hard in the next few decades.

If you see life as some game to optimize only for yourself not the people around you then for sure as very high earners, easy to move somewhere else, and some do. But from my point of view that’s a sad outlook on life and it’s not all one sided, that professor payed nothing for top of the line education, or child care, or 9 months parental leave, or medical etc etc. The high earners put away some money instead and enjoy lower taxes than us on that part.

But mostly it’s the idea of people deserving a decent life and high base life quality anyway. Most of my colleagues instead come here from other countries.

Keep in mind Norway has a population of ~5 million with ~$350k savings per person. The country is in a way a giant trust fund commune.

Although not tenured yet, as a professor I know that not many could do the job I do, and I count myself lucky I don’t have to spend my time cleaning (or teaching in primary school for that matter). That I also get more paid than them feels like double dipping.

Some do. Most don't.

Remember, the deal includes universal health care, tuition-free university, government-backed sick pay, five or six weeks of paid vacation, and more.

I'm from Sweden, which has a similar system. I could not have afforded to attend university in the US system. Here, I could -- with my (government low-interest) student loans being spent only on my living expenses, not tuition. As a result, Sweden has an extra engineer we otherwise wouldn't have, with a good salary contributing to the tax base.

That seems like the opposite of dystopian to me.

There is more to life than money, and even when speaking of money a lot of things are already paid this way.

Isn't it more dystopian that people doing jobs as essential as cleaning have to live in poverty? Just because everyone can clean doesn't mean the people doing it don't deserve a good life. Without people doing those "easy" jobs those talented people wouldn't have time to build and use their talents. The cleaners enable the talented people and so deserve a fair share of what they produce.

As a Nordic person, that kind of income difference looks realistic (without having checked). But I could never had imagined the difference to be considered as dystopian. If we would dig deeper into this, I would expect our different views to have something to do with differences on what expectations we have, values in life and how we relate to inter-personal statuses.

Yep - for people who believe they are better than other and entitled to more, it is dystopian.

But then again, it also ensures that pricing and governance in the broader system is in check.

So it is either this or an oligarchy where people feed their egos

Norway is an oil rich country that is run well.

Can't afford it.