this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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The "Global North" is largely de-industrialized and mainly functions by exporting industrial Capital to the "Global South." The US is chief among these Global North countries as world Hegemon, but the Nordics do it too, especially with regards to predatory debt traps through IMF loans. Hudson's Super-Imperialism goes over this, but is US-focused.
the nordics are heavily industrialized though. our economies are mostly based on exporting metals, minerals and wood, as well as products made thereof, including heavy machinery, medical-grade steel, oil, and so on. yes the IMF sucks for having a destabilizing effect but that's not really something an area with half the population of canada can do much about. we don't have that much influence on the global stage.
I think you should read these articles by The Guardian and Al Jazeera respectively. Norway, for example, has one of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds. At a country-level, the Nordics heavily financially invest in and profit off of countries in the Global South, like investment bankers. This in turn expropriates large amounts of money, which are used to fund safety nets. The welfare in the Nordics is funded by the Global South.
yes, norway is an insanely rich oil nation. the fund is called "oljefondet". it comes from oil sales.
as for SDI, since it's normalised and based on development, the nordic countries falling is only natural, since emerging economies are doing the stuff we did in the 70s. it doesn't mean we're getting worse, it means they're rapidly getting better. ideally, SDI regresses to the mean.
also none of those articles mention that third point?
I'm not sure how you can understand that the Nordics act like investment bankers, without acknowledging that this means the Nordics essentially fund their safety nets off of unequal exchange and exploitation of the Global South. It isn't about influence, it's about parasitism.
i am open to it but i've yet to see the numbers. so far it's been generalisations covering the entire northern hemisphere and semi-related articles. and i'm not really convinced of aljazeera's objectivity since they uncritically ran an article claiming the swedish state kidnaps children.
fact is, i know where my tax money goes. our budgets are all public. those are the numbers i've seen.