Finland has a reputation of being the happiest country in the world. This reputation has come about largely due to the World Happiness Reports where Finland regularly appears at the top of the list. Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1 % (Dorling, Reference Dorling2014) and Annika Koljonen have focused their scholarly gaze on Finland, arguing that other countries may learn from what they claim to be ‘the world’s happiest country’.

The book comes in three parts. The first part creates a geographical, historical and economic context, the second talks about social policy and the third about the future. The authors ascribe a great deal of Finland’s success and happiness to a well-functioning and comprehensive welfare state, which is funded largely through taxation.

‘Finntopia’ is rich in data. The authors present a staggering amount of statistics, illustrated in a way that is easy to comprehend. However, what is missing from the book is a discussion of ideas and discourses. Presumably, the authors have wanted to take a pragmatic point of view: they are interested in what works. At the same time, they simply take the idea of happiness for granted: the authors assume more happiness is good and less happiness is bad.

This assumption is in line with utilitarian ethics, according to which the purpose of life is to maximise pleasure and avoid pain. This idea may, however, be contested from an idealist perspective by saying that the realisation of human creative potential is the purpose in life and that sometimes the realisation of one’s potential involves pain.

The main message of the book is that progressive politics is possible and Finland is heralded as living proof of this statement. This is not a bad message at all since post-Covid-19 politics needs to contest the preceding hegemony of pro-market and pro-business politics. Pro-market neoliberalism has turned out to be socially and environmentally unsustainable.

Speaking of political ideas, the authors of ‘Finntopia’ ignore the neoliberal turn of Finnish politics since the 1990s. Although the authors mention many of the reforms that seem to reverse the traditional Finnish welfare state model, such as tax cuts and privatisations, they do not discuss the ideas or discourses behind these reforms. Furthermore, they do not discuss the role of neoclassical economics as the rationale behind social policy reform and they do not mention the role of the business lobby in promoting reforms in Finland quite opposite to the traditional Social Democratic welfare model.

Again, the authors probably wanted to focus on what works and therefore took an external and empiricist perspective on Finland. And the result is interesting and informative. While ‘Finntopia’ is a significant contribution to the international literature on Finland, it remains one-sided in its focus. What is refreshing, however, is that eminent scholars focus on Finland instead of Sweden, which is usually considered the model country of the Nordic welfare state.