Can we just scale up Denmark?

Asks Tyler Cowen.

• My short answer: no.
• My longer answer: no, the success of the DK extensive welfare policies is to a large extent possible given the character of the Danes and therefore they'd most likely not work anywhere else. For instance, I would not be very surprised to see a lot of Danes, or Scandinavians in general (my personal experience concerns several Swedes whom I happen to know quite well), disagreeing- to various degrees- with Becker and Posner's critique to paternalism). See also how the Danes manage to keep the happiest in the world: it is in their character (and in their homogeneity as nation, so far, due to which they preserved that character). There is also an interesting comment to the post of Cowen above, by somebody called Peter Schaeffer, whose answer is along the same lines, but more detailed. I quote this comment below:

  The question “Can we just scale up Denmark?” has already been discussed at considerable length right here at Marginal Revolution. See the How good is the Nordic Model?. One poster suggested comparing several states of the upper Midwest (WI, MN, ND, SD) with the Scandinavian countries. Several folks, including myself, replied with a wide range of facts and figures. The bottom line is that these states perform very well measured by education, life expectancy, health care coverage, per-capita income (MN is number 1 for the country), etc. Some of the comparisons were versus other states, others versus the nations of Scandinavia. Of course, these states have the American social system, not an expansive welfare state like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, etc. This comparison shows that the successes of the Scandinavian welfare state are more likely to be attributable to the character of the people, rather than the actual social and economic systems. Conversely, it is not reasonable to expect that the Danish/Nordic model can be extended to other groups with comparable results. Indeed, the model is already failing in Scandinavia for some immigrant groups. For example, parts of Malmo are so dangerous that ambulance drivers require a police escort. Indeed, police cars require a police escort. See Swedes Reach Muslim Breaking Point for an article about Muslim immigration and crime in Malmo. See Crime in Sweden for some Malmo crime stats. The Danes have recognized the truth of this and have imposed the toughest immigration restrictions in Europe (The Netherlands is number two). A commonly heard expression in Denmark is that the welfare state and mass immigration can not be combined and therefore immigration must end.