My father is from Iceland, small lots of volcanoes. Abject, and I mean third world poverty, mud hut poverty until the 1960s. Stuff that only exists on Indian reservations in the US. The city that I live in now in the US is roughly the size of Iceland.
Icelanders are, per capita, enormously, outrageously successful. The football team is better than most, we publish the most books per capita (read more too). Iceland has a diversifying economy after they tried to take over global banking, they fish, farm, have tourists, make films and music. The fishing industry is as successful as can be.
My father accidentally ended up in America, got married, had kids. Stayed. Died here. But he always thought it was odd. The virtue signaling of WORK and WORK and MONEY AND SUCCESS. Icelanders work, they work hard. But if you are a famous footballer who made it big after working hard playing on gravel, and were (yes lucky) enough to get spotted by a scout that brought you to England or Germany, and you go into a restaurant in Reykjavik, you don't look down on the guy serving you, you know he works hard, and you know that he does something that needs to be done and that you can't. (And there is a good chance you are related) And the guy who is in and out of the library and the police station? Homeless? You don't look down on him either. You work to make sure he and his family might have a chance to take a step up. He gets a nice modest apartment when one comes open and some training to package fish or wash dishes. Then the opportunity to get educated and make software or if he wants, maybe write books or make coffee. The society values the contributions and potential of everyone regardless of what their parents did.
It is a society that is 60 years removed from some of the worst living conditions in one of the harshest places on earth, and they are thriving, but they haven't thrown people under the bus. They pool their resources to give early child care, health care, education, libraries, and all sorts of things that would seem insane to Americans.
But guess what? For the size of the country, all this community spirit and communitarian living has produced a society that blows America out of the water when it comes to capitalism. Giving people a platform that turns into a springboard. They do capitalism better, and they don't cut throats of their neighbors or push them down to do it.
