What allowed the Nordic countries to develop into such wealthy societies? Historically they were the poor backwater of Europe, but today they are held as the gold standard for European countries. Is this down to pure luck?

by alekzander01

From what I've read on "the Nordic Model", it doesn't really strike me as anything particularly unique in Western Europe. France, Italy, Germany and the UK also have and had very generous welfare states, yet they did not achieve the same results as Sweden or Denmark in terms of overall GDP per capita, low Gini, safety, etc. What happened in Scandinavia that makes them so successful, but which countries like Italy or Belgium seemingly lack?

ReaperReader

There is alway more to be said on a topic, but for some reason the Nordic countries appear to be unusually socially cohesive and with low corruption, a common factor in wealthy societies today. I wrote a comment a couple of months ago on Finland which discusses on a recent paper speculating as to why.