My late Harvard colleague Sidney Verba was both a distinguished scholar and a noted wit, and one of his tongue-in-cheek aphorisms was that “you should never write about a country you haven’t flown over.” By that modest standard, I’m now well-qualified to write about Austria, as I have spent the last few months as a guest of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
The institute has been wonderfully supportive environment, and I’ve enjoyed my time here immensely, but the observations below are not based on extensive research or a deep familiarity with Austrian politics and culture. On the other hand, I now have more expertise about Austria than some of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees appear to have concerning their new jobs.
My late Harvard colleague Sidney Verba was both a distinguished scholar and a noted wit, and one of his tongue-in-cheek aphorisms was that “you should never write about a country you haven’t flown over.” By that modest standard, I’m now well-qualified to write about Austria, as I have spent the last few months as a guest of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
The institute has been wonderfully supportive environment, and I’ve enjoyed my time here immensely, but the observations below are not based on extensive research or a deep familiarity with Austrian politics and culture. On the other hand, I now have more expertise about Austria than some of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees appear to have concerning their new jobs.
There are some striking similarities between Austria and the United States as well as some important differences, and recent elections in both countries have highlighted both. How are they alike, how do they differ, and what lessons might Americans draw from Austria’s experience?
First, the similarities. Austria and the United States are both wealthy industrial democracies. The United States has been a republic since its founding (albeit an imperfect one), and Austria has been reliably democratic since 1955, when the foreign armies that had occupied the country after World War II finally withdrew.
In both countries, populists won significant victories in the most recent election, although the direct political effects will be different. In Austria’s September poll, the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), led by Herbert Kickl, received the largest share of the vote (28.8 percent), despite its occasional use of Nazi symbols and rhetoric and a past record of dubious conduct. In the United States, of course, convicted felon Trump won the presidency again, and Republicans took both houses of Congress.
Because Austria has a parliamentary system and the FPO did not gain an absolute majority, the other main parties have prevented it from forming a government, and current Prime Minister Karl Nehammer may remain the head of a multiparty coalition, although setting it up is proving to be an arduous process.
The similarities don’t end there. In both countries, opposition to immigration has been a major boon for populist politicians, just it has in other parts of Europe. Voting patterns in both countries also reflect a profound urban-rural divide: Vienna and other Austrian cities lean strongly center-left. (The mayor of Graz, Austria’s second-largest city by population, is a communist), and cities in many red (Republican-leaning) states in the U.S. vote blue (that is, for Democrats) or purple.
Both countries also have powerful religious traditions—although Austria is still predominantly Catholic, and Americans have many different religious affiliations—though religious observance is declining in both countries, and Austria’s faithful are increasingly diverse.
The bottom line: Although Austria is a small country with a population of roughly 9 million and the United States is a continent-sized superpower of nearly 340 million, they share several striking similarities—most notably, a recent shift toward the populist right.
What about the differences? Perhaps the most obvious is inequality: Although both countries are wealthy, income is far more evenly distributed in Austria than in the United States. Austria’s Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) is 10 points lower than that of the United States (with a score of 29.8 vs. 39.8). In Austria, the bottom 50 percent of the population receives 22 percent of income; in the United States, the comparable figure is only 13 percent. In Austria, the top 10 percent gets 29 percent of the income; in the United States, the same segment receives 45 percent.
Not surprisingly, therefore, London-based research organization World Economics ranks Austria as 21st in the world in economic equality, and the United States is way down the list at No. 66. Among other things, that suggests that contemporary populism is only loosely connected to economic inequality.
The differences are even more striking if you live in Vienna, which fully deserves its reputation as one of the world’s most livable cities. As one of my colleagues told me shortly after I arrived, “Vienna shows you what a city can be when it’s ruled by a socialist government for more than a century.” Vienna has extraordinary public transit that no U.S. city can match: The subways, streetcars, and buses are comfortable, run frequently and on time, and can take you just about everywhere. And getting around is remarkably affordable—my monthly pass allows unlimited use of the entire system and costs just 51 euros.
Similarly, Austria has a remarkable system of public housing (known here as “social housing”), and its structure and purpose are very different from that of the United States. Instead of being reserved solely for the poorest and used as a not-so-subtle way to separate the poor from the rest of the population, a much wider range of Viennese residents can qualify for social housing, which is also far more appealing than its equivalent in the United States.
The result is that the residents of Austrian social housing span a wider range of social classes, and these communities are free of many of the dysfunctions that mar public housing projects in the United States. Because affordable housing is so widely available, private one-year rentals cost much less than they would in most U.S. cities. (A downside is that short-term rentals—such as the apartment I’m living in at present—are scarce and expensive).
Like most of Europe, Austria’s public health system also puts America’s to shame, and it is one of the reasons that Austria has significantly higher life expectancy than the United States (81 years vs. 76.4 years). Austria’s murder rate is eight times lower than the United States; it is a far safer place regardless of who you are or where you live. If more Americans had a chance to live in Vienna for a few months, they might begin to suspect that Sen. Bernie Sanders was on to something.
Of course, it helps that Austria is a small, neutral country that gave up its imperial pretensions when the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, so it hasn’t been squandering its wealth on ill-advised foreign adventures.
Is Austria perfect? Of course not. Austrian bureaucracy can be maddeningly arbitrary; the Viennese are unfailingly courteous but not especially welcoming to immigrants; the social housing system is not perfect; and the country is facing the same demographic problems (an aging and declining population) that afflict most of Europe. Vienna isn’t cheap; inflation and public debt are a significant problem, and Austrian society is averse to change. If Silicon Valley’s mantra is “move fast and break things,” Austria’s slogan might be “move slowly and conserve as much as possible.”
Like all countries, Austria has some unsavory moments in its past that aren’t quite fully buried. And it would be nice to be able to buy an ibuprofen on a Sunday, when almost all shops—including pharmacies—are closed.
But despite these features, there’s a lot here to like. A U.S. president who genuinely wanted to improve the day-to-day lives of ordinary Americans could learn some valuable lessons from the Austrian example. Alas, it will be at least four years before Americans have the chance to elect someone like that.
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