While we would generate less tax revenue per capita than Norway would, that's not the point. The point is the state should take a much larger share of the profits of extracting natural resources that state owns.
[1]: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/federal-oil-and-gas...
[2]: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Docume...
This is horrific. Also the best argument I’ve seen.
Norway may be at the far end of the spectrum, but it's not black and white. Most countries have resources and very few share them with their citizens. It's not just to be born into a system where an incumbent oligarchy has control of resources. That kind of modern realpolitik doesn't develop any kind of civic duty or pride.
Norway is white.
Source: https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/production-and-exports/expo...
Norway EXPORTS about $80Bn worth of oil & gas per year. Which is about $14,800 per capita.
I don't agree with this being used as a primary metric for determining the worth of a nation or the value of its policies.
The #1 priority of a country should be the well-being of its people. Not "of its wealthiest"; not "of its economy". The well-being of all its people.
Norway is, last I knew, consistently among the happiest countries on Earth. I think that's a far, far more meaningful metric than "how many new ways to part people from their money have they come up with?"
(Now, I think there's a reasonable argument to be made with respect to things like basic scientific research, improved green technologies and other advances toward ending climate change, etc—particularly since that's vitally important for every nation's long-term well-being. But that's not at all the same thing as "innovation, companies, etc".)
It is also extremely disingenuous to call innovation and companies "new ways to part people from their money." People are often parting with their money because that new thing meaningfully improves their lives. Also, the basic scientific research argument is extremely overplayed. Breakthroughs in basic scientific research amount to nothing if they don't make it into the supply chain for goods and services eventually and that happens through company formation.
Then you're rich and I'm not.
This is how almost every single human being alive right now or alive in the past thinks. I have a lifelong friend who through a combination of luck, hard work, and being a legitimate genius is now wealthy ($10,000,000+ net worth and climbing).
However, he and his wife insist they are not 'rich'.
If you own a penthouse in a 30 story condominium and a lake house on the Great Lakes and haven't flown less than first / business class in the past 10 years, you're rich by any nation's standard.
Yes I know Venezuela is not Norway.
>"you just want free stuff"
Ah the old patronizing "I invent a quote the person didn't say, and then I straw man against it like they did."
Oh, wait. He was born rich, continues to suckle the teat of the US government, and will generally make money if all he does is sit there and do nothing, because money is power, and power has a gravitational pull of its own.
Also, the reason that wealthy people with families who have hundreds of years of wealth are so stingy is because they don't want to work for it.
Not foisting Uber on the world is a strength, not a weakness...
Being stable, taking care of your own stuff, that's strength.
Your idea of a strong economy has its foundations in a growth-only myth that has caused all of the issues we see before us.
Do you have anything to back this claim up? Most of what I've searched about the Nordic countries in terms of innovation seems to disagree with this assertion.
https://voxeu.org/article/nordic-innovation-cuddly-capitalis... https://www.ft.com/content/e3c15066-cd77-11e4-9144-00144feab... https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/analysis-indicator
If you look at your first link Norway is explicitly excluded. In the third link Norway is 20th while Sweden and Denmark are 2nd and 9th.
Norway is sitting on a gigantic pile of offshore gas that it uses to generate massive profits that go into a huge fund they don't know what to do with, all of that for a 5M population that drowns into social programs.
There is literally no country in the world that has this ratio of natural resources $ / capita.
Yet, when you look at what Norway has actually produced over the past few decades in terms of innovation, companies, etc. the picture is very, very empty.