Norway is, in real terms, the richest western nation on earth?

The country owns the sea rights to enough oil to be the third-largest exporter in the world, and the government is a state-run oil company monopoly (Statoil). You can't compare it to any other place on earth. They control and profit from being a huge supplier of the two most-demanded commodities in the world--oil and natural gas. It sits on a wealth of other natural resources that make a lot of money. And it has a very homogeneous population of only 4.8 million people. How many metropolitan areas does the U.S. have with more people than that -- rich and poor? Of course when that few people control that much oil, they can afford to buy themselves health care and give new parents a year off of paid leave. But their good fortune isn't something anyone can emulate. Unless you can emulate luck -- they discovered massive amounts of oil in the 1960s. How do you make that happen in the U.S.? If the world's dependence on oil ever lessons, their crazy world goes poof. Until then, they know they are blessed. When you are that sickly rich, it's nice that you offer asylum to people from crappy places like Vietnam and Chile (the 70s), the Balkans (90s), Afghanistan (00s). Those people are grateful to be anywhere but where they were born and the Norwegians need people to do the manual jobs the natives don't want. But as nice and liberal and laudable as their immigration policy is, there are about a half a million immigrants living in the country in total. That total isn't even half of what the U.S. lets in every year, and the U.S.'s GDP per capita isn't nearly as high -- we aren't oil rich.

EDIT: Meant to include this. Their standard of living, despite their GDP per capita being so high isn't nearly as great as people on here are assuming. It's a ridiculously expensive place to live. There are way more than 4.8 million Americans living better than the majority of the 4.8 million Norwegians. Also, they need to stay insular to enjoy their oil wealth. It's why they have refused to join the EU. They'd have to support much of the the rest of Europe. They are not THAT magnanimous.

 

That's $33,700 US. Don't you want to hold out for a bit more?

 

That was kind of the point. Norway is a country that hit the lottery, discovering huge oil reserves off its coast. And it has a tiny, insular population. People on here making sarcastic comments about how the U.S. is too stupid to emulate NORWAY are essentially saying, "We should take 4.8 million people of similar background who won the lottery, and we should extend what they do to everyone in the U.S!" I simply pointed out that the U.S. has population 65 times greater than Norway. Our immigration policy is way more liberal than theirs is. And a great deal (more than 4.8 million people) of our population enjoys a standard of living just as great as the typical Norwegian.

The truest test of any society may be lots of things, but using your standard, how can anyone compare Norway to the U.S.? Norway can afford to give people a year off when they have a baby and guarantee a full salary -- the state-run monopoly oil company makes that possible. Tell me how the U.S. can control a huge amount of a VERY scarce resource that is in worldwide demand (thus making us rich beyond belief), and I'll indulge a comparison between how our society is structured and how Norway's is. They live in Candyland.

In many ways, Greece's society is structured very much like Norway's. Minus the oil. And they kept up this great charade most of last decade. Retire at 60. Full pension. Health care for everyone (although it really is one of the shittiest, underfunded system, but they couldn't create THAT much debt). Half of the people being paid by government jobs that are guaranteed. Their government doesn't have an oil monopoly to fund it, though. They racked up huge amounts debt, lied about their debt, and pulled it off for a few years until the whole thing crashed like a house of cards. And now the people are striking and rioting because of the sense of entitlement to the Candyland you advocate.

Seeing that, I'd say a better test of any society is how entrepreneurial it is given its natural resources and how much liberty its people are given to pursue their own course and create sustained economic growth that can continue raising its people's standard of living.

 

You talking Nauru in 1970 or Nauru today? Because they strip-mined all the phosphate (destroying the environment) and blew through the money and the per capita income today is less than $5,000 per person. They actually rely on the Russians for a boatload of economic aid. There's no more bat-shit money to be had there.