The northern European dream looks something like this: get home from work in time for dinner with the kids; no stress about paying for their education or healthcare; safe streets in a safe region; an affordable home near your extended family; frequent holidays and a long life. You won’t get rich, but you won’t need to either. This vision of the good life has rarely been articulated (except in Jeremy Rifkin’s 2004 book The European Dream) but it animates the region bounded by Iceland in the west, Germany in the east, and France in the south. Now the northern European dream is displacing the much better-known American dream — even, remarkably, inside the US itself.
“北欧梦”差不多是这样的：每天能按时下班，回家和孩子们一起吃晚饭；支付子女的教育或医疗费用毫无压力；所在地区很安全，街道上治安良好；住在一所负担得起的房子里，亲人们也住在附近；经常休假；长寿。你不会变得富有，但你也不需要。这幅美好生活构想很少有人说起（除了杰里米•里夫金(Jeremy Rifkin)在2004年出版的《欧洲梦》(The European Dream)中谈论过），但它给西到冰岛、东至德国、南到法国的这个地区带来勃勃生机。如今，“北欧梦”正在取代家喻户晓的“美国梦”，甚至在美国国内也有此趋势，这非同寻常。