Minnesotans who long for the state’s &uot;good old days&uot; will be even more heartbroken when they read a series on Finland’s successful welfare state. But they should read it anyway, because it shows so clearly how much the state has changed &045; and how much would have to change again, for those &uot;good old days&uot; to be brought back.

The Minnesota of old, of course, was the one made famous in the 1973 Time magazine cover &045; headlined &uot;The good life in Minnesota,&uot; and featuring then-Gov. Wendell Anderson hoisting a northern pike.

The state’s high-tax, high-service economy led Time to conclude that &uot;If the American good life has anywhere survived in some intelligent equilibrium, it may be in Minnesota.&uot;

Today, a pair of Washington Post reporters are in Finland, to learn the secrets of &uot;the world’s most interesting country that Americans know least about.&uot;

&uot;It has the best school system in the world, some of the most liberated women (the president is female), more cell phones per capita than anyone else, one of the world’s best high-tech companies (Nokia), remarkable information technology of many kinds, great music from rock and jazz to classical.&uot;

To top it off, &uot;the Finns are proud of their generous welfare state, which provides, among much else, free health care and free education at every level.&uot;

The profile the Post is offering so far &045; it’s online at blogs.washingtonpost.com/finlanddiary/ &045; is more balanced than those quotes suggest; for example, it points out the high suicide rate among Finnish men. But read this quote from Finnish author and philosopher Pekka Himanen; realize that it could have been uttered by most elected officials in Minnesota in the 1960s and 70s; and ponder how much and why things changed:

&uot;Finnish tax rates are quite high, but not the highest in Europe. As long as Finns feel they get a good return on their tax Euros in terms of public services, they are willing to pay. They generally see taxes as a fair price to pay for a society that provides equal opportunities, and because everyone benefits directly from our public services ….

&uot;If you don’t allow your democratically-elected government to tax the economy to provide equal opportunities in life for everyone, no one else can do it.&uot;

&045; Grand Forks Herald, May 25