The Scandinavian culture, when it comes to business, is a little bit different than the American. In Scandinavia the laws and regulations protects the consumer more than it protects the corporation. We often see the big corporations as the big bad wolf and the consumer is the girl in the tale of the little red riding hood. In Finland the feelings for the corporate world is even more conflicted.

I visited the Soviet Union when I was 15 and saw people standing in a line for hours to get some bread and butter. And that was a country where everyone was supposedly equal. We worked hard to be able to be a part of the western economy, so we needed those big corporations and we needed small businesses too. There were people influenced by the communist ideals of a world where everyone is equal and no one should profit from people’s work, and they made their voices heard. It was, and still is, a balancing act between a healthy economy and the need to not let someone profit too much from other people’s hard work.

A strong economy should be built on good business ethics where people don’t make a distinction between their personal ethics and their business ethics.