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.
「北歐夢」差不多是這樣的：每天能按時下班，回家和孩子們一起喫晚飯；支付子女的教育或醫療費用毫無壓力；所在地區很安全，街道上治安良好；住在一所負擔得起的房子裏，親人們也住在附近；經常休假；長壽。你不會變得富有，但你也不需要。這幅美好生活構想很少有人說起（除了傑里米•裏夫金(Jeremy Rifkin)在2004年出版的《歐洲夢》(The European Dream)中談論過），但它給西到冰島、東至德國、南到法國的這個地區帶來勃勃生機。如今，「北歐夢」正在取代家喻戶曉的「美國夢」，甚至在美國國內也有此趨勢，這非同尋常。