Surviving Sweden-Norway

Oddball

Monthly Donor
It's rather odd, as there's a Finnish myth of Finland being the least developed country until 1945 when there was the magical growth period...:D While there are lies, damned lies and statistics the statistical picture usually puts Norway (and Finland) to Western European / Canadian GDP per capita levels in 1930's, far ahead of Eastern and Southern Europe.

The reason why there's the myth of poor Norway and Finland is because of those damn Swedes. Historically Sweden has not been only richer in per capita GDP terms but also in terms of showing off wealth in those mansions financed by Operation German Liberation.

Atleast the magical growt in Norway after 1945 have a natural explanation: Marshal Aid. ;)

I also suspect that GDP is a rather dubious scale when discussing rate of development pre ww2. I could ofcourse be wrong :)

I do not know much about the Finnish situation tough :eek:
 
It's rather odd, as there's a Finnish myth of Finland being the least developed country until 1945 when there was the magical growth period...:D While there are lies, damned lies and statistics the statistical picture usually puts Norway (and Finland) to Western European / Canadian GDP per capita levels in 1930's, far ahead of Eastern and Southern Europe.

The reason why there's the myth of poor Norway and Finland is because of those damn Swedes. Historically Sweden has not been only richer in per capita GDP terms but also in terms of showing off wealth in those mansions financed by Operation German Liberation.

Decent GDP per capita figures say, to me, that Finland and Norway in the 30s were strong developing countries (in actual fact rather than using a PC term), on their way to affluence. But in terms of average accumulated capital, one of my favourite measures of development-cum-affluence, we were pretty much among the poorest countries in Europe, a long way behind earlier industrialisers like Sweden. In many ways, Finland was still poor, but already working hard to overcome it.

You are right, though, if you want to assert that Finnish prosperity post-war has longer roots (in the interbellum and during autonomy) than according to a "traditional" view.
 
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