However, without North-Sea oil, Denmark and
Sweden run into a lot of economic difficulties
in the last decades and the first "solution" was
to attempt to cut back social benefits.
The Suiss are a special case, but I
think they also rely on
the world money market ultimately.
I doubt if the capitalist structure could
gradually change into something else,
any rate, even looking at Norway,
we haven't got that timeframe left (unfortunately),
the environmental damage/wars and poverty will
force on us rapid change one way or the other.
Eva
.....
I regard the agreement that has been reached about making education a
part of work a natural contination of the development that has been
going on here for more than a century.
It is known that 150 years ago when the common man began to become
more interested in politics and to work for the rights of larger
groups to get the right to vote, among the founding groups were lots
of "reading clubs", peasants who joined together to buy books which
they shared and discussed, and these "reading clubs/societies" became
an important part of their education. Education and democracy have
always been closely connected, and education was always regarded as
valuable among all groups.
But more important is the tradition of investments. Recently was a
quite large Norwegian history published in twelve volumes by a
publishing company called Aschehoug. I have read most of it.
It is written there about the years 1890-1900 that if one was to look
for something like the "Asian tigers" at that time, Norway would have
been among them, because at that time was Norway investing a larger
part of ite GNP than any other European country, although it was
among the poorest countries in Europe per capita/person.
Since then Norway has always been, and is still, among the countries
in the World that have the largest investments as part of GNP.
I would call it a part of the "Norwegian credo". We believe in
investments, and are only comfortable when a large part of GNP is
being invested.
And to put a larger part of GNP into education will fit very well in
with our Credo.
I looked recently into an old textbook from school, from about 1970,
and in 1967, before any North Sea oil at all was developed, did only
three other European countries have a larger GNP per person than
Norway. Those were Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark. Investments done
during a long time were already paying off before the oil came
on stage. Big investments and strong unions are the solution!
Tor Forde
> >Ed,
> >You make a good point which reminded me of our own example of the same
> >phenomenon: Alberta. What often passes for good management in that province is
> >actually a whole lot of oil and natural gas in the ground.
> >
> >In the case of Norway, it seems to me that they are on the right track. It is
> >often said that the best use of non-renewable resources is for the development
> >of renewable resources. Norway's most important renewable resource is its its
> >people and investment in that resource is the very best use that could be made
> >of its revenues from the North Sea. Compare that with Canada's 10 year
> record of
> >what I would call disinvesting in people.
> >As always, it is mentally challenging to talk to you.
> >Rudy Rogalsky
> >
>
> Rudy,
>
> Good to hear from you. I agree with you. I don't what much about the
> Norwegian political system. Perhaps Tor can help us out. It may be more
> centralized than ours. We have a terrible time doing anything positive
> because of jurisdictional splits between the federal and provincial
> governments, and because we have become deeply mired in the belief that
> governments should behave like businesses, always watching the "bottom line"
> and balancing budgets year to year. (Eva: it is not only Marx who is dead,
> Keynes is too.)
>
> Best regards,
> Ed Weick
>
>
----- End of forwarded message from Tor Forde -----
