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Comment by sspiff | Hacker News Reader

This is something people fail to realize. Scandinavia today is associated with wealth and strong social welfare programs.

Norway before the discovery of North Sea oil was one of the poorest nations in Europe.

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> 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...

You're off by a few years. Norway in the first half of the 20th century was certainly one of the poorest in Europe. This held true through the (global) great depression, which was coupled with and compounded by their own home-grown economic crisis.

However, the Norwegian economy had made substantial progress in the post war years - prior to and independent of oil.

Half-Norwegian / Half-American here. Comparing the stories I was told from the grandparents and great-grandparents on each side, this checks out at least anecdotally. Norway in 1900--1940 sounded like absolute dirt poverty compared to the USA in 1900-1940.

Also my (Norwegian) mother born just after WWII grew up without electricity and farmed with hand tools

Ah, my bad. Thanks for the information, I got to learn something today :)

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