Yeah, but the UK probably has 6 more rich people than Norway. Checkmate, atheists
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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Well no, but the UKs rich people have at least 6 more money.
Isn't Norway a petrostate? Or is that the point of the joke?
It's kinda is yes.
But more specifically to this post, the UK and Norway both discovered oil in the North Sea around the same time and took very different approaches to hope to manage this new resource.
Norway treated the oil money like communal property and heavily taxed oil production. Norway used the taxes to further develop oil drilling and exploration technologies, so that they would still have access to harder to reach reserves in the future BUT more importantly the oil taxes had to benefit Norway as a whole after the oil is gone.
The most obvious result of this is the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which is basically an endowment with the intent to continue to improve the lives of all Norwegians for future generations. Norway uses the dividends from this massive investment portfolio to continually support the welfare state reducing the tax load on its citizens.
The UK, under Thatcher, just used the oil taxes to cut taxes elsewhere. The problem is, the easy to reach oil is long gone. The new technology to reach remaining oil reserves is increasingly expensive AND there's no more oil money coming in. So now services are being cut and some politicians want to privatize others to make up the funding gaps.
There's plenty of other factors at play, but at the end of the day the UK took a short term economy approach while Norway took a long term communal approach to the same scare resource at a similar point in time. Norway is still seeing the benefits to their approach while the UK has nothing to show for theirs.
Norwegian production peaked at ~300,000,000 barrels per year, the UK peaked at 140,000,000. Today, Norway is at 190 Mbpy and the UK is at 50 Mbpy.
The UK has a ~12x larger population than Norway. That's 25x to 45x higher production per capita throughout the entire time the North Sea has been exploited.
That's all true. However, USA peaked production in 1970 at 9.6 million barrels per day (~3,500,000,000 barrels that year). Their production is predicted to peak again in 2027 above this prior record.
The US population is roughly 5x larger than the UK, but also produced 10x as much oil as them.
The US national debt.. $38 trillion USD and predicted to be growing faster than GDP sometime this year. They have famously pathetic social services for their citizens and are reducing services, coverage, and safety-nets every year.
This problem has nothing to do with the amount of oil generated nor the amount of citizens in the country, and all to do with taxing finite natural resources significantly (Norway) and investing the taxation in a well-regulated manner for the good of the people (Norway), rather than letting billionaires strip the resources for a pittance of taxation (US, UK), living off debt to bankers (US, UK), and privatising your social services (US, UK).
It also only worked because Norway didn't get invaded because of this approach. Plenty of countries tried to keep valuable natural in national hands, they get sanctioned to oblivion and then the CIA conducts a coup.
I'm so tired of this Norway is only successful because of oil cop out.
Norway, and all other Nordic countries, by adopting social-democratic policies of the Nordic model, became rich before the discovery of oil.
Norway just happened to get incredibly lucky afterwards with oil, but even after becoming a petrostate, still has similar incomes and high standards of living to the rest of the Nordic countries, who don't have oil.
And, as the other commenter pointed out, both the UK and Norway (and the Netherlands while we're at it) discovered North sea oil at the same time. The three pursued three rather different policies; of them, the Nordic policies have produced the most fiscally healthy outcome.
And, equally so, now that we're selling out our welfare and becoming little America, everything is going to shit here in Sweden.
Oh, absolutely. I'm not saying Norway's oil is the sole (or even most significant) reason for its success, but a different country might have been a more direct comparison.
The point is that Norway didn't allow private interests to take all of their oil for no benefit to the nation.
It might even have "dutch diseased" them a while. Swedens industry was (and is) booming while Norway didn't really have that much. Now they're back on track for what I know, by fantastic management IMO. But cheap natural resources are often a blessing in disguise.
The point is that it’s wealth belongs to the people and not just the wealthy.
We've been so brainwashed for so long, hearing someone say it sounds absurd, but you are right, it should belong to the people.
Hey hey none of that here please, won't someone please think of all the rich people! they need to get their kicks from asset stripping and firing everyone
its
Let's say Norway is a petrostate.
The point is the UK could have done the same with their North Sea oil.
They didn't. Just pissed the opportunity away letting all the money go into private hands.
The point is the UK could have done the same with their North Sea oil.
They could still do it with their highly lucrative network of wind farms under construction.
ever heard of bp? british petrol
and the brits have been at the exploiting natural resources for centuries
UK has North Sea oil.
I hadn't considered that! But looking at wikipedia, Norway has 8100 million barrels of proven reserves, vs UK's 2500.
England and Wales are the only countries in the world which have fully privatised both our water sources AND water infrastructure.
We're doubly fucked
It's happening all over the US, too. But we have our dip shit city planners still trying to make infinite suburban creep a thing.
With the execs of said water companies dragging home MOUNTAINS of cash.
Norway is privatising a tonne of shit, from public transport to generating electricity. It will go to shit of Norway continues in the same path it has for the past 20 years.
Source: am Norwegian.
You come to me on my daughter’s wedding day, and tell me that neoliberals are assholes? This I can not let stand.
The problem with capitalism is eventually you run out of other peoples labor and assets to steal. But I think this stats in this comparison is juiced by the Norwegian oil.
I was about to say the same thing but then I remembered the UK has North Sea oil, too.
Now the UK owns nothing and has £3tn in debt
The UK has accumulated plenty of valuable capital in this period and spends a sizeable chunk of that accrued debt protecting it.
They can take it back whenever they choose. The Brits simply have a national, state, and local leadership more invested in the well-being of the leisure class than the working class.
but where is the sauces
Beautiful