It's not as lopsided as you make it appear.
Norway was poor before they found oil. They basically had a fishing industry and that's it.
Britain was an empire that never saw the sun set.
Norway was poor before they found oil. They basically had a fishing industry and that's it.
Britain was an empire that never saw the sun set.
While it certainly wasn't a rich nation in the first half of the 1900s, Norway in 1938 was actually the world's 4th biggest shipping nation, and owned 7% of the world's tonnage[1]. The forest industry was also significant (pretty interesting historical overview at [2]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortraship#Norwegian_merchant_...
[2] https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-norway/
Norway before the discovery of North Sea oil was one of the poorest nations in Europe.
Not really. In 1969, the GDP per capita of Norway was $9,899. Compare that to Sweden ($12,540), UK ($10,552), Ireland ($6,089), Germany ($10,440), Finland ($8,878), Italy ($9,566), Portugal ($4,987) etc.
http://www.worldeconomics.com/Data/MadisonHistoricalGDP/Madi...
However, the Norwegian economy had made substantial progress in the post war years - prior to and independent of oil.
Also my (Norwegian) mother born just after WWII grew up without electricity and farmed with hand tools