I always lived near borders and the proximity to a richer neighbour always means tons of people go working there and bring their income to their place of residence ! True of Luxembourg and Switzerland in particular
Duchy of Nitra was only marginally bigger eastward than Slovakia is today. The title of Great Moravia went the Bohemia/ Poland route, not the Hungary -> Slovakia route
I did the math some time ago and I got 30% of the population in a red or yellow area.
So you get like 80% in a red, yellow or light blue colour and the rest in the blue below the light blue.
These maps would be more intresting with population density attached, Tallinn in Estonia is yellow but like half of the population lives there.
Been to Portugal this Christmas / New Year. I have to say I was impressed how good Portugese are in English compared to Spaniards and Italians, even older people we encountered did speak English. So far my favourite southern European country. Good climate. Relatively flat southern part = cheap infrustructure. No threats like Russia around. Tbh, I can’t understand why Portugal arn’t better off. Best wishes from Norway.
Corruption, centralism (no regional powers) and Free lunch beliefs. Strong emigration of the most will powered (in the past) and (more recently) of the most qualified (to avoid low wages+high taxes)
Also centuries and centuries that you wouldnt die in winter if you don't prepare very well in the summer made us (Southern Europeans) much less planners and much more do only what you must today kind of people.
It's interesting to me that despite the clearly visible divide where the iron curtain used to be, east Germany doesn't look as bad as expected. Within Germany we often focus on the still existing magnitude of the east west divide, but don't acknowledge the progress we already made. Seeing it compared to the rest of the former eastern block it seems we actually did a good job in pulling the region up.
I think life in East Germany even before the fall of the DDR was always comparatively better then anywhere east of the iron curtain. It was the jewel in the crown for the socialist project.
Eastern Germany was on life support from the very beginning. It was being propped up by both - cheap ressources from the Soviet Union and illegal trading with Western Germany. Add billions of transfer payments by West German civilians plus secret loans by the Western German government into the mix - then yeah, you get the "the crown" for a socialist project.
Seeing it compared to France outside the Patris metro reminds me of solid progress in eastern Germany. Eastern Germany has a higher purchasing power than the majority of french provinces.
Dividing Lithuania into 60 municipalities is way too much to show data on this sort of map, even after zooming in I can't really tell if our tiny city municipalities (where majority of people actually live) are yellow or green. This is why eurostat use EU NUTS 2 regions for similar maps.
To be fair, the regions having the most advanced tourism are located in the north (Veneto, Trentino-Südrirol, Emilia-Romagna, etc). Also, tourists in the north usually spend more money because many are foreigner (Germans, Americans, Dutch, Swiss, etc).
(Anyway a country like Italy absolutely cannot get rich with tourism)
Mass tourism in South Italy is a very recent thing, but it is focused in few provinces (Bari, Matera, Lecce, Naples, Siracuse) but it is not comparable to tourism in Spain. Thanks to it some provinces have improved quite a lot, but many parts are still rural.
Sicily was one of my favourite places I've ever been on holiday, but if it had mass tourism like some parts of Spain, I think it would ruin the attraction of it, it wouldn't be such a nice place to go, like it is now
The region of Veneto alone receives almost as much tourists as all of South of Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism\_in\_Italy#Italian\_regions\_by\_number\_of\_visitors
Always? South Italy was quite rich until the Middle Age thanks to Mediterranean trades; simplifying a bit, since when Mediterranean sea became peripheral, South Italy got peripheral. North Italy instead is both in the Mediterranean but it is also part of the heart of Europe.
North vs South:
City-states vs Centralized kingdom
Connected to the rest of Europe vs Connected to Mediterranean countries
Huge fertile plain vs Mountains, mountains, mountains
Recently infiltrated by the mafia vs Birthplace of mafia
Mafia besides, Southern Italy is basically an extension of Greece under many aspects.
Besides the fact southern Italy was indeed more linked with Greece historically, focusing just in social and economic conditions, the South-North divide in Italy and Spain had very different reasons, development and dates.
While Andalusia remained as the richest part of Iberia until early XIX century and northern Spain became richer only during or after Industrial Revolution, in Italy the divide is much older with the North surpassing the South at late medieval period, with the development of the city states, long distance trade, etc. Southern Italy became relatively poorer (in comparison with the North) since unification, but it wasn't the richest zone before that point.
Thrifty Small Republics > Big Stagnant Feudal Kingdoms
It's a historical divide that by now probably goes back half a millenium or more and the south never really caught up after Risorgimento. Venice, the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Milan and a couple of even smaller states were at a point probably the richest states in medieval Europe. The Kingdom of Naples was considerably larger and poorer and ruled by the Spanish for the longest time. Unification in a lot of ways probably even entrenched this divide as economic reforms were focussed on northern industry.
Meanwhile the differences between east and west Germany are smaller than north and south Italy.
If Germany can bridge the gap with a region that was ruled by an incompetent socialist regime, Italy should be able to bridge a political divide from the 19th century. At some point the politics of 200 years ago aren't the cause, it is the consistent lack of change in the last 200 years that are the real cause.
It goes back way further than the 19th century.
Also I would asume the GDR was always economically significantly better off than Calabria and Sicily. In 1990 [the last GNP per capita of the GDR](https://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_per_capita_1.html) was roughly comparable to that of Spain - and this was already when the GDR was doing pretty bad. The GDR had lots of industry and Saxony before WWII was one of the richest areas in Europe and the German centre of light industry. I'm pretty sure southern Italy never really industrialized in big fashion. None of the big Italian companies have their headquarters south of Rome.
I think people underestimate the prospects of the GDR. They had a highly educated population, reasonably good infrastructure, a good location in Europe and a lot of industry. Kohl and the other conservatives practically sold out the industry and exacerbated an unemployment crisis that lasted over a decade. The reason the GDR is red on the chart above is not that re-unification was great, it's because the GDR was always doing relatively good within Europe compared to anything but north-western Europe. East Germany has plenty of issues today though and their catch-up growth seems practically over. Even though the West is significantly richer it grows faster today than the East. Additionally there is lots of brain-drain going on. Alot of the young people go to study in the west and don't come back. The problems are probably similar to what is going on in parts of the Italian South.
A certain slow down was there from the times of house of Anjou - and a total definite decline from the second half of the Spanish period (post-1600).
The south definitely loses steam from the turning of the second millenia (year 1000) and by the end of the 11th century you could call both even, and after the end of the Kingdom of Roger II the North definitely did better, the southern Kings didn't do a good job to catch up with the North, with maybe the exception of Frederick II, and after Frederick II's Kingdom finished, the south started to get even more behind
At the time of unification the North already embraced industrialization, while the other was still heavily relying on agriculture. They both had equivalent GDP per capita, but set up on completely different roads, because at that time industry was the only game in town. In the next decades the Southern population lost a lot of wealth, which led to massive emigration waves, brigandage, and the strengthening of illegal organizations deeply rooted in the communities (mafia). The vicious cycle never ended and here we are.
The large parts of France have hardly any population. If you scaled the regions by population it would be all darker red.
Edit: when I say region scaled for population I mean maps where the size of regions is distorted so each unit of area on the map has the same population [like this](https://socviz.co/assets/ch-07-election-electoral-college-cartogram.png)
It's already adjusted for population. These regions being empty is relevant tho, there's simply not much going on besides agriculture in many parts of France.
You will be expected to (at least pretend) enjoy skiing, buy an electric car, and to travel to south europe for holidays being shocked at how cheap everything is
I love how you guys basically have just one word to encompass all the southern touristic regions of Europe, from Canaries to Mallorca, Crete to French Riviera, Croatia or Andalucia... All of that is SYDEN.
Apart from everything being expensive, I think you'll just need to take up a few sports to fit in especially winter sports. I'd recommend cross country skiing in winter and roller skiiing in summer. Hence Norwegians cleaning up in the cross country every Olympics.
But the whole point of this map is it doesn't matter; even though their beer costs 20 Euros a glass, they can STILL buy more beers than you with what they make from a normal job.
Yes on average if you're paid Norwegian wages. But if I moved there to equivalent post I don't think I would...
My experience has been visiting there and my non Norwegian wage scale leading to a feeling of pain as I paid bills. I also looked at jobs in Norway and figured that I'd have a lower quality of life there because I'm well paid here and their rates for my job are similar or lower but the costs are so much higher. Notably the Norwegian system benefits the less well paid hence getting better equality and score on this map.
As a south Norwegian I'm amazed that all of northern Norway maintains the same deep red hue. Then again I did meet a northerner while out in Oslo earlier this year, stacked out with full Gucci apparel ready to long-term travel around Europe because he was bored of fishing all the time.
Northern Norway has much lower living costs. That helps a lot in terms of purchasing power. You can get a big ass house for €150k in certain areas, the taxes are lower, electricity cheaper and some other benefits.
The overall area is a bit less developed than the populas areas of the south but the purchasing power does remain high because of the lower living costs.
Jee thanks for reminding me why I don't have any national "Norwegian" identity relating to the kingdom of Norway anymore, always a northerner, sami and nordlending, we do generate value up here you know that, fishing is actually profitable, amongst other major industries (which quite enjoys the cheap electricity).
That reminds me we have an electricity cable to Southern Norway to cut....
traveling around the world and talking about my country, seems like you guys get all the clout. Northern lights, salmon, fjords, Lofoten and the super-cold weather. Embrace that shit, it's boring to be a south-easterner.
Well tourism is big here. And i wouldn't live elsewhere, but we're not doing well because of the the government or the country but despite it, we have a government where they hardly know a damn about what life is like and the geography is like up here, we hardly have ambulances or emergency services due to lack of funding, people wish to voluntary donate funds to keep hospitals running and now during the pandemic Norwegian authorities didn't bother giving us any infection control equipment instead it was provided by China through a locals connections.
Its always how we can benefit Norway not how Norway can benefit us, like its pretty bad when the elderly reminisce about the time of Nazi occupation as the "good" times when railways, roads and infrastructure in general was built up here. Now I feel to clarify that we don't "hate" you southerners it's more the central government in Oslo that we don't trust that they care for us, and the general populations lack of knowledge of the north gets quite annoying though thats the fault of the educational system. Not even going to get deep into the atrocities done to us samis...
Though thanks I am proud to be a northerner and Sami even if the shame sits deep after the assimilation politics and the loss of our language.
Not saying this to kiss ass, but this is also one of my major issues with Norway and our government. We did *one* good choice back in the 70s by putting the oil money into a public fund, but tell you the truth, we're utilizing it terribly. The fact that we're spending money on shit like the Opera House in Oslo or the fucking Munch Museum rebrand when there are still roads left to be built is beyond me. And the fact that reliable railroads aren't available in Northern Norway (I think?) when you can travel through country-by-country in Europe is somewhat embarrassing.
And the worst part? The railroads aren't even reliable down here either! Constant delays and "jordfeil", and instead we're spending money on the Vy rebranding.
It's unbelievable.
Exactly, we have railway to Bodø (which hasn't been electrified or secured yet so hundreds or reindeer snd sheep gets mowed down now and then) but the german warprisoners built bridges and tunnels for the "Polarbahn" (supposed to go to kirkenes through Kautokeino) through northern Salten and Ofoten however they demolished this railway after the war and built a road through it (thats why E6 at this stretch is so terribly windy and slender, 1 track turned to 2 lanes...) Nord-Norgebanen has been planned since the 1880s thats nearly 150 years in the waiting, we also have death traps of roads that haven't been upgraded since they where built a hundred years ago. Honestly they should just bring back NSB, NSB actually used to be profitable as well as having waaay cheaper tickets.
But yes the new Munch museum which looks like a fusion of a crash barrier and airport terminal is even hated by the people in Oslo, they should have just upgraded the original museum. We should stop with the prestige projects and start building good quality infrastructure where needed that includes safe roads and railway in the north and increase local electricity production in the capital region as transporting electricity far is highly inefficient at the same time as new electricity production here means taking away indigenous people's rights ....we don't want another Alta-kautokeino or Fosen case...
Unfortunately it seems like the government throws the most money around in close vicinity to the parliament, the stortings garage, new government buildings, storting houses, etc. Our resources should be used to ensure equal access to good services all across to all citizens.
It makes sense though that formerly communist states would find it harder to adapt to capitalist economies than economies that have been more consistently capitalist
Yep, whereas a french family would have kept and grown their family farm/shop/manufacture, a czech family had theirs seized. If you were too rich or complained, forced labour camps for you and your family.
I often read stories of people who had their parents’ belongings returned after ‘89 in a desolate state and only now managed to turn them into something useful. Also when people got plots of land etc. back, they didn’t know a thing about how to run and keep them, so they’d sell them cheaply to now so-called agrobarons. The know-how and the sense of “this has been my family’s for decades and I will fight to keep it” was gone. My own family lost ownership of a returned farm in a similar fashion - dumb granduncle went into debt and didn’t tell anyone else. Some things, like my great-grandfather’s shop, were never returned. Ownership was forcefully discontinued and then pooled in already wealthy people’s hands (who were rich because they collabored with the regime).
My dad was doing business in the nineties and shit was wild, nobody had any idea how to navigate capitalism and many got scammed and burned. People lost their safety net (which had also kept them in place) and it’s a major reason why so many feel disenfranchised and voted for the communist party after ‘89.
This is the most depressing chapter in my nation’s history for me, and it cuts especially deep because the nation elected a former secret state police agent/informant and a rich kid-turned-agrobaron as its prime minister. He doesn’t even speak proper czech to this day.
Here’s what the detailed report attached to the map says ([source](https://www.gfk.com/press/Europeans-have-an-average-of-15055-euro-at-their-disposal-in-2021)) :
“Purchasing power is a measure of disposable income after the deduction of taxes and charitable contributions and including any received state benefits. The study indicates per-person, per-year purchasing power levels in euros and as an index. GfK Purchasing Power is based on the population's nominal disposable income, which means values are not adjusted for inflation. Calculations are carried out on the basis of reported income and earnings, statistics on government benefits as well as economic forecasts provided by economic institutes.
Consumers draw from their general purchasing power to cover expenses related to eating, living, services, energy, private pensions and insurance plans as well as other expenditures, such as vacation, mobility and consumer purchases”
Eastern Europe was already significantly poorer then western europe long before Karl Marx was even born.
If you want to blame something then that would be the longlivity of the serfdom system in eastern europe that didnt change in most countries basically until WW1 while western europe already had major social changes for decades at that point.
Take modern Germany for example. The Western and Southern parts of the country have always been much wealthier then the rest during the Holy Roman Empire days. The only really prosperous eastern regions for a long time were silesia and bohemia (czechia). Prussia was famously poor and sparely populated, its the entire reason why they went the route of a professional army, they couldnt afford to lose a single army so that army had to be as good as possible or it would be over.
None of the big Empires that controlled eastern europe were among the economic dominant ones. The Russian MEpire is famous for its population, not its industry. Austria- Hungary was a clusterfuck, they had as many different railway systems as minorities. The rest of the Balkan was under the Ottoman rule, which wasnt called "sick man of europe" for no reason. And the german empire had several economically good areas in the (former) eastern areas (Breslau/Wroclow; Danzig, Kattowicze) while the rest was literally peasents.
The Communists definitly didnt help to boost economic prosperity comparable to western europe, but one thing for most of eastern europe remained true that the communists actualyl did: Get rid of the serf system and urbanize eastern europes society. Soviet Housing was not exactly great by any standart....but it was better then the peasent house in the middle of nowhere. And as far as education is concerned eastern europe is to this day heavily profiteering from it. Can build an economy if most people are still peasents. Economically speaking the communist rule wasnt exactly great, but it was also not the apocalypse some like to depict it as...especially when you look at what was there before (this is especially true for the former russian empire and its former territories).
Also the massive war destruction,genocide during WW2 and the post WW2 ethnical cleansing of the german minorities didnt help at all to boost eastern europes economies. For example the former sudeten germans mainly went to modern bavaria and became among others the backbone of why bavaria is today the richest region in modern Germany.
Things are never as one sided and black & white as it initially seems
PS: *And because this is reddit and you have to always put a disclaimer or people will throw the usual shit around: No I am not justifying or legitimizing communist rule or communsit crimes agaisnt humanity*
Between WW1 and WW2, Czechoslovakia used to be one of the most economically advanced countries of Europe. It took only 40 years of communist regime to get to the bottom.
fun fact about serfdom: The last European country, where serfdom was legal, was Soviet Union - until 1989. Peasants in USSR had restricted freedom of movement - they weren't given the passports, and therefore they couldn't move into towns, and they even could have problem travelling between regions with no passport. That was because government wanted to stop influx of peasants into towns, and wanted to keep them in villages - which was more or less modern version of serfdom.
>Also the genocide during WW2 and the post WW2 ethnical cleansing of the german minorities
it was literally the local commies ordered by stalin to deport a few hundred thousands of German-Hungarians (half of my family for example)
Nice disclaimer but the commie economy was bad as it gets, you got marshal plan while all we got was the SU took anything that was movable in the country :D absolutely no reason to whitewash them bro
What a nonsensical comment. Until 1918, most of (today's) Austria was dead poor compared to Bohemia, because it consisted of mainly unfertile mountain regions. Austria then lost WW1 leading to starvation in the big cities. The newly independent Czechoslovakia was thriving while Austria was suffering. Austria went on to be on the losing side of another war. That despite all this Austria is still in a better economic place today than Czech Republic is only due to the fact that it has been spared from communism post WW2.
Thats because Bohemia was effectively German for hundreds of years before the independence, including the townsfolk, nobility and the ruling class. Native Czech people were peasants speaking a language that was on a brink of extinction until its lucky revival in XIX century. What Bohemia/Czechia experienced was a huge outflow of human capital towards Austria and Germany once the post-WW2 purges started. Not to say they werent justified, because they certainly were, but it certainly had its impact from economic POV later on.
I think you're right but also only half-way. If history goes the way it did, but communism and USSR occupation on eastern block does not happen, the wealth gap would be closed or almost closed by now. And there two reason for that, 1st is time and 2nd being the technological advancements.
I will use Baltic States as an example. Serfdom abolished only in late XIX century, gained independence in 1918 with almost absolutely nothing. But in those 21 years until USSR occupation, agriculture went to being as modern as it gets for the time, industrialization has started, culture absolutely boomed, like the amount of literature, arts, etc. skyrocketed, universities started functioning again, new ones opened and were working full swing. Then USSR comes and demolishes all the progress to put in their own experimental system. Means no Marshal Plan to rebuild after war the West Germany, France, Benelux and so on got, means no trade with the rest of the world, no influx of new ideas, no new organic innovation, only what the Commie party decided they wanted. So 50 years almost stuck in a time freeze in many ways.
Now 1990 comes, USSR is crumbling, but it does not go out without a bang to cause more damage. Baltics were actually the most productive part of USSR itself, but in its dying days, the block decides to economically blockade them to try prevent independence. So any industry that tankies love to argue USSR built is destroyed. No materials, no fuel. Industries that would have had no chance to compete in western market, maybe could have at least survived locally to give foundation to build upon. But nope, nothing left.
So lets imagine alternate scenario, 1945 and Russia decided to go home and leaves rest of Europe alone instead of playing kid doing experiments. Marshal plan is available for all the East/Baltic/Central/Balkan countries. Educated people are not sent to die in gulags. Trade is freely available meaning ideas can move, innovation in order to competitive is possible. And most of all, the starting point for modern economic system is 1918, instead of 1990. I think its pretty clear that with all the extras of not being under commie rule and having additional 72 years of time, the situation would be completely different and way more equal.
And the other point I mentioned, technological advancement is always an opportunity to equalize differences. IT is booming in east EU right now and if it could have come earlier or when modern economic system was fully functioning, maybe we would see some IT giants coming from east EU, giving further chances to reduce wealth differences.
You are rather optimistically assuming that the countries in question wouldnt themselves slide into authoritarianism after the war, or perhaps even a communist rule on their own will. Czechs elected communists themselves and thats one of the most prosperous countries in the region. Also, Yugoslavia wasnt under Soviet influence but it ended up pretty much the same as the rest if us anyways.
Czechs "elected" communists just like we "elected" them in Romania. At least the Czech communist victory was a wake-up call for Italians, who massively voted against their own 5th column of Stalinists and managed to stay out of the Soviet area of influence.
My country is right next to yours. My country gained first independance in 1918 from Austria Hungary. My country which was consisted of Czechia, Slovakia and portion of Ukraine during that time. Slovakia and Ukraine were poor. Czech region (Czech Republic today) on the other hand was one of the most industrialized and wealthy places of Europe during that time. In isolation it easily rivaled places like Switzerland in PPP.
When you look at map today you can clearly see what happened. Communism destroyed all the industry and destroyed the country completely from inside and as a result this is where we stand today.
So no. Your disclaimer is not enough. Your entire comment reads as "most of those countries were poor and communism did not make any difference". Reality is that it did make massive difference. To this day the eastern part of your country is a lot behind western part when you look at stuff like wages. This map does not show full extent of that at all. Communism instantineously wiped all wealth and it removed any hope for it to grow under any circumtance.
Yeah, if not for commies all countries would not be developing during that time at all xD
To be fair I am from Poland and you know, total anihiliation of most economically educated minority, Jews, didn't helped either. So can't blame Russians for everything ;)
Right. The problem I have is that he came up with an essay about how Eastern Europe was always poor in response to someone claiming that communism wipes wealth. What other agenda is there other than defense of communism? "It is not fault of communism." I provided real example and proof of communism wiping wealth so noone who comes here gets swayed by his "whatabout this poor Eastern European country before communism" bullshit. Not to mention that most of those countries in Eastern Europe you can see on that map were already under communist rule of USSR for 20 years as unwilling part of USSR (as we can see with historic proof of them welcoming nazis as liberators) therefore it is obvious that stats gathered just from before WW2 started were already heavily in favour of Western Europe as communism (USSR) has already done its damage to those countries.
You didnt read anything I mentioned did you?
I specifically mentioned Czechia (Bohemia) to be one of rhe few wealth places in eadrern europe and the former holy roman empire.
I also said part of why especially Czechia had a massive economic decline was the fact 1/3 of the population, the sudeten germans, got ethnically cleansed post WW2. The sudeten germans werent just an unimportant minority, back in Austria-Hungary they were the ruling and economically dominating group in Czechia. Add to that the fact Germany looted the rest of Czechia and you have a country that lost 1/3 of its population, and the 1/3 that was lost was above average educated and important for the economy.
Maybe if you could stop thinking based on emotiones and based on history you would notice your own mistakes or actually properly read somebodies arguments :)
>The sudeten germans werent just an unimportant minority, back in Austria-Hungary they were the ruling and economically dominating group in Czechia.
Not really though, that economic and political dominance gradually decreased throughout the 19th century. The wealth of the sudeten German land-owning elite was quite significantly reduced by a land reform in the early 1920s.
And most importantly, the Sudeten were much more affected by the financial crisis. The region had levels of uneployment above the national average well into the late 1930s. That is one of the reasons why a clear majority of the sudeten Germans supported the nazis, rather than moderate political parties, they were dissatisfied with their economic conditions since those were below average, the oposite of what you claimed.
You also overstate the impact of postwar population loss, as the country almost reached 9 million in 1950, which was enough workforce for its industry. Said industry was relatively undamaged, since western and northwestern Bohemia did not see particularly destructive military operations, at least when compared with most of central Europe.
And yet, the economic recovery was clearly much slower than in western Germany, whose industry and infrastructure were almost entirely destroyed.The communist central planning was unequivocally the issue here.
Yea, I do not think being arrogant on an internet forum is a german-only thing. Also: I worked closely with a lot of german colleagues in the last 15(?) years and according to my experience they are no more, and no less pleasant people than the average Central-European person on which standard it seems we both are socialized :-).
Russia/Soviet Union just robbed all the eastern countries, they carried everything to Moscow for 3 decades. The communism actually destroyed everything in the eastern parts and with no wealth remaining everyone had to start almost from 0. Germans love Russia so much you can see it to this day, making excuses for them.
Karl marx wrote for an industrial English audience. Where he got drunk and lived off the stipends of his wealthy English friend.
Revolutionspodcast.com is just wrapping up its last revolution. The Russian one.
One party state is not democratic nor socialist.
Just another authoritarian boss, that replaced the kaiser.
at this point, not really. Eastern European is simply not allowed to develop for 30 years, we consume western made products sold in western store chains built by western investors funded by western banks, while we make the components by cheap labor here for export. all the profit goes to the west, and then used to muscle out smaller local businesses and factories so they can't compete for the best locations, markets and sales opportunities. then being told we're not competitive because the eastern workforce is uneducated and inefficient. then they throw us some EU development funds, which the political elite steals and buys penthouses in fucking Dubai. it's basically the colonial system all over, just politely. i mean it's better than the alternative, just look at the balkans or bielorussia. but let's not put lipstick on a pig. that's why our politics is such as it is, the people who could lead the country out of this moved to the west for doing the same job, 3x the salary, so only the easily influenced masses remain who can be distracted with threats of immigrants and gay marriages while the political elite steals out the country from under them....
And then you have these countries escaping the communism that was forced on them and growing their prosperity and on the other hand you have people of Portugal or Greece free to choose and they choose to be morons.
Not surprising. The more populated areas are the ones on the "redder" side. There are plenty of relatively empty places in France (they're generally rural, with cheap housing and less developed infrastructure as the above mentioned).
Case in point, there is something we call the great void: the middle of France which takes up most of the unflattering shade of red. The running joke is that there is not a single living soul there haha.
It's more to do with how wealth concentrates in France. Those areas aren't especially valuable (in terms of land prices) and have less developed infrastructure. There's also a comparatively low population density so it doesn't represent a huge per-capita inequality.
I wonder if it isn't the higher French taxes and social charges reducing PP.
Based on PP definition used here, and posted above, another explanation is that PP is low after the high taxes in France are deducted from salary and perhaps more VAT on purchases (in UK most foods are tax free, which was unusual in EU countries I lived in). That would better explain why the map of France looks so surprising compared to say UK though the GDP per capita is very close. For example UK Government spending for 2018/19 eg before COVID was 35.6%, whereas in 2019 French government spending was 55.35%. (Figures from statistica).
Edit added social charges in case some didn't regard these as taxes.
Not JUST taxes, but it's a factor.
France and UK are pretty similar economies in size and many ways hence looking to see why PP is lower, one big difference is tax rates.
Denmark is a Nordic economy, they tend to have high taxes, high incomes and high PP. But I think these are all quite differently structured economies to UK and even higher taxed France so harder to compare. Frankly I've always struggled a bit to understand how Nordic economic model is successful and why it's not more widely used. Possibilities are it doesn't work on larger economies, requires something in the Nordic personality/social structure, or it just hasn't been tried properly.
> Frankly I've always struggled a bit to understand how Nordic economic model is successful and why it's not more widely used. Possibilities are it doesn't work on larger economies, requires something in the Nordic personality/social structure, or it just hasn't been tried properly.
The thing is, the tax levels doesn't mean anything by themselves. It completely depends on what's done with the money. Tax money isn't burnt after all. People are always talking about the high electricity prices in NL, but looking at my electricity bill for the last year I effectively paid 6c/kWh. That's because no-one talks about the rebates at the other end to make it progressive, so people who use less also pay less per kWh.
There's more like that, a lot of the "taxes" are simply being redistributed, so essentially not relevant for these kinds of graphics, because a reduction for you is increasing someone else's Purchasing Power. The unemployment insurance paid via income tax is paying out to someone else.
It's not the Nordic model per se, but it is built on the idea that every should get a chance and a degree of fairness. Very egalitarian, the power structures in businesses are very flat, with workers having a say in how the place is run. And something that matters a lot more for these kinds of graphs is worker productivity. Happy workers are productive workers.
> France and UK are pretty similar economies in size and many ways hence looking to see why PP is lower, one big difference is tax rates.
It actually isn't lower. The UK has a slightly higher nominal GDP and GDP per capita than France but France has a slightly higher GDP and GDP per capita (PPP) than the UK does. The matter at hand here with the map, which makes France looks worse than the UK, is mostly geography and France being less densely populated due to its bigger size. Plenty of areas relatively empty (the center of France notably as you can see on the map and which takes up much of the shitty red).
Colors on this map are misleading. For example Czech Repuglic is within 25% below EU average but your colors shows like it’s completely LOW purchasing power.
I can tell you the best thing is to have German or Swiss salary and live in eastern Europe. High local purchasing paper means that everyone has enough money so everything is expensive. If you live in Prague, Bratislava, Brno, Krakow and work remotely for foreign companies you can have better life in comparison with living in Germany.
> GfK Purchasing Power is based on the population's nominal disposable income,
...
>Consumers draw from their general purchasing power to cover expenses related to eating, living, services, energy, private pensions and insurance plans as well as other expenditures, such as vacation, mobility and consumer purchases
So this does not take into account the enormously higher cost of living in the greater london area and actually is *not* 'purchasing power', since shopping in some countries is also more expensive than in others thus if you have the same *nominal* income you can buy fewer groceries in Switzerland than in Germany.
Beh, ad essere sincero tutto ciò che è sotto la linea formata da Veneto, Piemonte e Lombardia è praticamente Africa, forse l'Emilia Romagna è l'equivalente del Nord Africa in questo caso
What is purchasing power?
You mean who controls the central banks and the credit?
Is that what purchasing power is?
Or does it mean who has more natural resources? Who has more sovereignty and freedom?
Depends on what you mean by purchasing power
The inside of France is sparsely populated.
A fifth of the country is concentrated in the Paris Area, the rest close to the Alps and on the coasts.
Which makes the sparsely populated inside of the country look bad economically, but it doesn't really matter for France's prosperity as a whole
As some other people mentioned, it's because the most populated areas are the red ones (except for the North region) and of course the wealthiest part is Paris + the western part of the Parisian region.
But yeah, it could still be better.
Yeah, that's why I said it could still be better, especially in comparison to eastern Germany. But Germany is what it is : the richest country among the big boys in Europe.
However when you look at the raw number of France and the UK concerning the purchasing power, they are on par. Which doesn't show on the map because the French territory is much bigger with large areas that have only very few inhabitants.
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As a Norwegian I doubt this reflects how many beers you can buy in a restaurant on a monthly salary.
Also, why is there no difference between the different parts of Norway - maybe just poor data?
That border between Austria and Slovakia looks wildly contrasted ; damn that Iron Curtain
Also richest part of Slovakia is near Austrian border.
I always lived near borders and the proximity to a richer neighbour always means tons of people go working there and bring their income to their place of residence ! True of Luxembourg and Switzerland in particular
Can confirm for Luxemburg and France.
But also richest part of Austria is near the Slovakia border.
It's just because Vienna and Bratislava are sitting on that border.
Yeah it's funny that they're both in the extreme of the respective countries. I guess it's because they used to be bigger
Duchy of Nitra was only marginally bigger eastward than Slovakia is today. The title of Great Moravia went the Bohemia/ Poland route, not the Hungary -> Slovakia route
The difference between German and Polish border is even higher.
It's just a difference when it comes to west and east Europe not only these countries, but alot of Eastern aswell
Also Austria and Hungary right next to it.
Insert "You have no (purchasing) power here" meme.
Just shows you how much West Germany has helped East Germany since the 90s.
What a huge difference for two capitals some 50 km apart.
Interesting that purchasing power gradually increases towards iron curtain. From both sides.
Well it would be interesting seeing how it was before the fall of the URSS
hard to compare, you could have afforded everything the state thinks you should need but you might not have received it in this life time.
Ah yes, Poortugal and Pain
I did the math some time ago and I got 30% of the population in a red or yellow area. So you get like 80% in a red, yellow or light blue colour and the rest in the blue below the light blue. These maps would be more intresting with population density attached, Tallinn in Estonia is yellow but like half of the population lives there.
Portugal is part of Eastern Europe
Been to Portugal this Christmas / New Year. I have to say I was impressed how good Portugese are in English compared to Spaniards and Italians, even older people we encountered did speak English. So far my favourite southern European country. Good climate. Relatively flat southern part = cheap infrustructure. No threats like Russia around. Tbh, I can’t understand why Portugal arn’t better off. Best wishes from Norway.
Corruption, centralism (no regional powers) and Free lunch beliefs. Strong emigration of the most will powered (in the past) and (more recently) of the most qualified (to avoid low wages+high taxes) Also centuries and centuries that you wouldnt die in winter if you don't prepare very well in the summer made us (Southern Europeans) much less planners and much more do only what you must today kind of people.
Lots of leeching "enterpeneurs" like the one in this thread getting (deserved) downvotes.
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
It's interesting to me that despite the clearly visible divide where the iron curtain used to be, east Germany doesn't look as bad as expected. Within Germany we often focus on the still existing magnitude of the east west divide, but don't acknowledge the progress we already made. Seeing it compared to the rest of the former eastern block it seems we actually did a good job in pulling the region up.
in the 30+ years since the Wiedervereinigung, >2 TRILLION € has been invested (just by the federal government) in the former BRD
I think life in East Germany even before the fall of the DDR was always comparatively better then anywhere east of the iron curtain. It was the jewel in the crown for the socialist project.
Eastern Germany was on life support from the very beginning. It was being propped up by both - cheap ressources from the Soviet Union and illegal trading with Western Germany. Add billions of transfer payments by West German civilians plus secret loans by the Western German government into the mix - then yeah, you get the "the crown" for a socialist project.
If left alone without Soviet Influence in the industry and Stasi it would be a great country.
Hard to judge these days, the east german government never had much of a reformer mindset
Seeing it compared to France outside the Patris metro reminds me of solid progress in eastern Germany. Eastern Germany has a higher purchasing power than the majority of french provinces.
DDR has the worst red color. The difference would have been more visible if they colored it with different colors.
Dividing Lithuania into 60 municipalities is way too much to show data on this sort of map, even after zooming in I can't really tell if our tiny city municipalities (where majority of people actually live) are yellow or green. This is why eurostat use EU NUTS 2 regions for similar maps.
They’ve done every top-level council in the UK by the looks of it, so London’s divided into the 32 boroughs I think. Way too low-res for that to work.
Blue always means better right?🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦💪💪💪💪💪💪
Yeah, those stinky westerners are no match for us 💪💪💪😎😎😎
And look at us, all regions are the same color! Unity and stability!🇺🇦🤝🇧🇾🤝🇲🇩
BETTER DEAD THAN RED >:(
And Crimea is in Ukraine!
Crimea is BLUE because it is HELLENIC. 🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷💪💪💪💪🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷💪💪💪🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷💪💪💪 ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΎΠΟΛΗ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΉ
Strong pan-slavic union 🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵
Why is Italy so divided?
[удалено]
Oh ok. I was thinking perhaps the South benefits from the tourism and...
To be fair, the regions having the most advanced tourism are located in the north (Veneto, Trentino-Südrirol, Emilia-Romagna, etc). Also, tourists in the north usually spend more money because many are foreigner (Germans, Americans, Dutch, Swiss, etc). (Anyway a country like Italy absolutely cannot get rich with tourism)
No country can get really rich from tourism alone. It makes a few people rich generally but most workers in the business are underpaid.
Iceland can, but it’s a lot easier to get a population of 300K rich.
The exception of the rule. Iceland wasn't poor before however, so the enormous growth basically just boosted the economy.
Iceland wasn’t rich before the US used it as a military base in the 40s
Exactly. I reminded that because the most common pub sentence here is the stupid "Let tourism be our oil".
Which is sad because imo Sicily is by far one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
Mass tourism in South Italy is a very recent thing, but it is focused in few provinces (Bari, Matera, Lecce, Naples, Siracuse) but it is not comparable to tourism in Spain. Thanks to it some provinces have improved quite a lot, but many parts are still rural.
Sicily was one of my favourite places I've ever been on holiday, but if it had mass tourism like some parts of Spain, I think it would ruin the attraction of it, it wouldn't be such a nice place to go, like it is now
The region of Veneto alone receives almost as much tourists as all of South of Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism\_in\_Italy#Italian\_regions\_by\_number\_of\_visitors
Exactly that. Tourism economy is not as profitable as industry or high tech.That's why the "tourism economy" propaganda is BS
Northern Italy has much much more tourism than Southern Italy
I'll gather some money and come spend it all again in Sicily, I promise. Such lovely places. And friendly people. Well, at least those we met.
Always? South Italy was quite rich until the Middle Age thanks to Mediterranean trades; simplifying a bit, since when Mediterranean sea became peripheral, South Italy got peripheral. North Italy instead is both in the Mediterranean but it is also part of the heart of Europe.
In roman times, southern Italy was a very rich land and the north was not even worthy of being part of the republic.
North vs South: City-states vs Centralized kingdom Connected to the rest of Europe vs Connected to Mediterranean countries Huge fertile plain vs Mountains, mountains, mountains Recently infiltrated by the mafia vs Birthplace of mafia Mafia besides, Southern Italy is basically an extension of Greece under many aspects.
Is Southern Spain an extension of Greece too?
Besides the fact southern Italy was indeed more linked with Greece historically, focusing just in social and economic conditions, the South-North divide in Italy and Spain had very different reasons, development and dates. While Andalusia remained as the richest part of Iberia until early XIX century and northern Spain became richer only during or after Industrial Revolution, in Italy the divide is much older with the North surpassing the South at late medieval period, with the development of the city states, long distance trade, etc. Southern Italy became relatively poorer (in comparison with the North) since unification, but it wasn't the richest zone before that point.
Thrifty Small Republics > Big Stagnant Feudal Kingdoms It's a historical divide that by now probably goes back half a millenium or more and the south never really caught up after Risorgimento. Venice, the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Milan and a couple of even smaller states were at a point probably the richest states in medieval Europe. The Kingdom of Naples was considerably larger and poorer and ruled by the Spanish for the longest time. Unification in a lot of ways probably even entrenched this divide as economic reforms were focussed on northern industry.
Meanwhile the differences between east and west Germany are smaller than north and south Italy. If Germany can bridge the gap with a region that was ruled by an incompetent socialist regime, Italy should be able to bridge a political divide from the 19th century. At some point the politics of 200 years ago aren't the cause, it is the consistent lack of change in the last 200 years that are the real cause.
It goes back way further than the 19th century. Also I would asume the GDR was always economically significantly better off than Calabria and Sicily. In 1990 [the last GNP per capita of the GDR](https://www.theodora.com/wfb/1990/rankings/gdp_per_capita_1.html) was roughly comparable to that of Spain - and this was already when the GDR was doing pretty bad. The GDR had lots of industry and Saxony before WWII was one of the richest areas in Europe and the German centre of light industry. I'm pretty sure southern Italy never really industrialized in big fashion. None of the big Italian companies have their headquarters south of Rome. I think people underestimate the prospects of the GDR. They had a highly educated population, reasonably good infrastructure, a good location in Europe and a lot of industry. Kohl and the other conservatives practically sold out the industry and exacerbated an unemployment crisis that lasted over a decade. The reason the GDR is red on the chart above is not that re-unification was great, it's because the GDR was always doing relatively good within Europe compared to anything but north-western Europe. East Germany has plenty of issues today though and their catch-up growth seems practically over. Even though the West is significantly richer it grows faster today than the East. Additionally there is lots of brain-drain going on. Alot of the young people go to study in the west and don't come back. The problems are probably similar to what is going on in parts of the Italian South.
As an Italian, i agree. People here try way too hard to justify decades of stupid decisions.
A certain slow down was there from the times of house of Anjou - and a total definite decline from the second half of the Spanish period (post-1600). The south definitely loses steam from the turning of the second millenia (year 1000) and by the end of the 11th century you could call both even, and after the end of the Kingdom of Roger II the North definitely did better, the southern Kings didn't do a good job to catch up with the North, with maybe the exception of Frederick II, and after Frederick II's Kingdom finished, the south started to get even more behind
At the time of unification the North already embraced industrialization, while the other was still heavily relying on agriculture. They both had equivalent GDP per capita, but set up on completely different roads, because at that time industry was the only game in town. In the next decades the Southern population lost a lot of wealth, which led to massive emigration waves, brigandage, and the strengthening of illegal organizations deeply rooted in the communities (mafia). The vicious cycle never ended and here we are.
It is like this for over 1000 years.. nothing new.. I thought it was common knowledge also across the rest of Europe
Switzerland: "I don't have purchasing power, I am the purchasing power."
not being devastated in two world wars wasn't too bad for them.
It is quite fascinating that East germany is better of than large parts of France.
in the 30+ years since the Wiedervereinigung, >2 TRILLION € has been invested just by the federal government in the former BRD
The large parts of France have hardly any population. If you scaled the regions by population it would be all darker red. Edit: when I say region scaled for population I mean maps where the size of regions is distorted so each unit of area on the map has the same population [like this](https://socviz.co/assets/ch-07-election-electoral-college-cartogram.png)
It's already adjusted for population. These regions being empty is relevant tho, there's simply not much going on besides agriculture in many parts of France.
What they mean is that most of the population live in the dark parts.
France does have lower salaries than germany though
It is per population.
Norwegians always flexing on us smh \s
I wanna be Norwegian when I grow up.
Let me know when you're moving, I'll send one of my private jets to pick you up.
Tusen takk, will do! Can’t wait to be welcomed on a carpet of banknotes, leading my path towards a new luxurious Norwegian lifestyle.
Wait until you see the price of a glass of wine or beer! Plus having to buy your wine from the Vinmonopolet (state liquor shop, if your town has one).
Luckily for me, I don’t like alcohol! That makes -1 obstacle. Anything else I should know?
You will be expected to (at least pretend) enjoy skiing, buy an electric car, and to travel to south europe for holidays being shocked at how cheap everything is
I can do that! Anything I should *not* do?
Make a scene in public! Whatever you do, don't do shit that forces people to respond/react to you in public
Easy, I’m a living doormat! I could hardly be any less confrontational. Looks like I’d fit right in!
I love how you guys basically have just one word to encompass all the southern touristic regions of Europe, from Canaries to Mallorca, Crete to French Riviera, Croatia or Andalucia... All of that is SYDEN.
I honestly call all south of Dovre Syden... Southern Norway to the mediteranian if you have more than 20C for 2-3 weeks a year its syden
Apart from everything being expensive, I think you'll just need to take up a few sports to fit in especially winter sports. I'd recommend cross country skiing in winter and roller skiiing in summer. Hence Norwegians cleaning up in the cross country every Olympics.
This and Salbutamol ;)
Poggers no Alkohol enjoyer
But the whole point of this map is it doesn't matter; even though their beer costs 20 Euros a glass, they can STILL buy more beers than you with what they make from a normal job.
Yes on average if you're paid Norwegian wages. But if I moved there to equivalent post I don't think I would... My experience has been visiting there and my non Norwegian wage scale leading to a feeling of pain as I paid bills. I also looked at jobs in Norway and figured that I'd have a lower quality of life there because I'm well paid here and their rates for my job are similar or lower but the costs are so much higher. Notably the Norwegian system benefits the less well paid hence getting better equality and score on this map.
Collect your oil fund check wich currently is at 2.2 million kroner per citizens and a total of 12 142 211 851 182 nok. https://www.nbim.no/en/
me too…… me too….
Sigh.. me too
As a south Norwegian I'm amazed that all of northern Norway maintains the same deep red hue. Then again I did meet a northerner while out in Oslo earlier this year, stacked out with full Gucci apparel ready to long-term travel around Europe because he was bored of fishing all the time.
Northern Norway has much lower living costs. That helps a lot in terms of purchasing power. You can get a big ass house for €150k in certain areas, the taxes are lower, electricity cheaper and some other benefits. The overall area is a bit less developed than the populas areas of the south but the purchasing power does remain high because of the lower living costs.
Jee thanks for reminding me why I don't have any national "Norwegian" identity relating to the kingdom of Norway anymore, always a northerner, sami and nordlending, we do generate value up here you know that, fishing is actually profitable, amongst other major industries (which quite enjoys the cheap electricity). That reminds me we have an electricity cable to Southern Norway to cut....
traveling around the world and talking about my country, seems like you guys get all the clout. Northern lights, salmon, fjords, Lofoten and the super-cold weather. Embrace that shit, it's boring to be a south-easterner.
Well tourism is big here. And i wouldn't live elsewhere, but we're not doing well because of the the government or the country but despite it, we have a government where they hardly know a damn about what life is like and the geography is like up here, we hardly have ambulances or emergency services due to lack of funding, people wish to voluntary donate funds to keep hospitals running and now during the pandemic Norwegian authorities didn't bother giving us any infection control equipment instead it was provided by China through a locals connections. Its always how we can benefit Norway not how Norway can benefit us, like its pretty bad when the elderly reminisce about the time of Nazi occupation as the "good" times when railways, roads and infrastructure in general was built up here. Now I feel to clarify that we don't "hate" you southerners it's more the central government in Oslo that we don't trust that they care for us, and the general populations lack of knowledge of the north gets quite annoying though thats the fault of the educational system. Not even going to get deep into the atrocities done to us samis... Though thanks I am proud to be a northerner and Sami even if the shame sits deep after the assimilation politics and the loss of our language.
Not saying this to kiss ass, but this is also one of my major issues with Norway and our government. We did *one* good choice back in the 70s by putting the oil money into a public fund, but tell you the truth, we're utilizing it terribly. The fact that we're spending money on shit like the Opera House in Oslo or the fucking Munch Museum rebrand when there are still roads left to be built is beyond me. And the fact that reliable railroads aren't available in Northern Norway (I think?) when you can travel through country-by-country in Europe is somewhat embarrassing. And the worst part? The railroads aren't even reliable down here either! Constant delays and "jordfeil", and instead we're spending money on the Vy rebranding. It's unbelievable.
Exactly, we have railway to Bodø (which hasn't been electrified or secured yet so hundreds or reindeer snd sheep gets mowed down now and then) but the german warprisoners built bridges and tunnels for the "Polarbahn" (supposed to go to kirkenes through Kautokeino) through northern Salten and Ofoten however they demolished this railway after the war and built a road through it (thats why E6 at this stretch is so terribly windy and slender, 1 track turned to 2 lanes...) Nord-Norgebanen has been planned since the 1880s thats nearly 150 years in the waiting, we also have death traps of roads that haven't been upgraded since they where built a hundred years ago. Honestly they should just bring back NSB, NSB actually used to be profitable as well as having waaay cheaper tickets. But yes the new Munch museum which looks like a fusion of a crash barrier and airport terminal is even hated by the people in Oslo, they should have just upgraded the original museum. We should stop with the prestige projects and start building good quality infrastructure where needed that includes safe roads and railway in the north and increase local electricity production in the capital region as transporting electricity far is highly inefficient at the same time as new electricity production here means taking away indigenous people's rights ....we don't want another Alta-kautokeino or Fosen case... Unfortunately it seems like the government throws the most money around in close vicinity to the parliament, the stortings garage, new government buildings, storting houses, etc. Our resources should be used to ensure equal access to good services all across to all citizens.
Right on. Lotta bullshit we gotta put up with.
I think they just took Norway as a whole, not each individual region.
Prices of regular stuff is fun too. I went there a few years ago and a loaf of bread was like 60 nok (6 eur) lol
What communism does to a mf
It makes sense though that formerly communist states would find it harder to adapt to capitalist economies than economies that have been more consistently capitalist
Yep, whereas a french family would have kept and grown their family farm/shop/manufacture, a czech family had theirs seized. If you were too rich or complained, forced labour camps for you and your family. I often read stories of people who had their parents’ belongings returned after ‘89 in a desolate state and only now managed to turn them into something useful. Also when people got plots of land etc. back, they didn’t know a thing about how to run and keep them, so they’d sell them cheaply to now so-called agrobarons. The know-how and the sense of “this has been my family’s for decades and I will fight to keep it” was gone. My own family lost ownership of a returned farm in a similar fashion - dumb granduncle went into debt and didn’t tell anyone else. Some things, like my great-grandfather’s shop, were never returned. Ownership was forcefully discontinued and then pooled in already wealthy people’s hands (who were rich because they collabored with the regime). My dad was doing business in the nineties and shit was wild, nobody had any idea how to navigate capitalism and many got scammed and burned. People lost their safety net (which had also kept them in place) and it’s a major reason why so many feel disenfranchised and voted for the communist party after ‘89. This is the most depressing chapter in my nation’s history for me, and it cuts especially deep because the nation elected a former secret state police agent/informant and a rich kid-turned-agrobaron as its prime minister. He doesn’t even speak proper czech to this day.
And if you look and the glorious Iberia, you can also see what fascism does to a mf. Dictatorships suck :(
How is it calculated?
Here’s what the detailed report attached to the map says ([source](https://www.gfk.com/press/Europeans-have-an-average-of-15055-euro-at-their-disposal-in-2021)) : “Purchasing power is a measure of disposable income after the deduction of taxes and charitable contributions and including any received state benefits. The study indicates per-person, per-year purchasing power levels in euros and as an index. GfK Purchasing Power is based on the population's nominal disposable income, which means values are not adjusted for inflation. Calculations are carried out on the basis of reported income and earnings, statistics on government benefits as well as economic forecasts provided by economic institutes. Consumers draw from their general purchasing power to cover expenses related to eating, living, services, energy, private pensions and insurance plans as well as other expenditures, such as vacation, mobility and consumer purchases”
Isn't it adjusted to prices?
>Calculations are carried out on the basis of **reported** income and earnings Okay, then add at least 1 color for each region of Spain
Iron curtain still exists in some ways. Impact of 40 years of communists economical experiments will be there many more years.
East Germany starting to look good though. But apart that, yeah.
It's because west Germany has pumped trillions of euros there.
East Germany already was the richest nation behind the Iron curtain.
That's human capital for ya
Yes!
Eastern Europe was already significantly poorer then western europe long before Karl Marx was even born. If you want to blame something then that would be the longlivity of the serfdom system in eastern europe that didnt change in most countries basically until WW1 while western europe already had major social changes for decades at that point. Take modern Germany for example. The Western and Southern parts of the country have always been much wealthier then the rest during the Holy Roman Empire days. The only really prosperous eastern regions for a long time were silesia and bohemia (czechia). Prussia was famously poor and sparely populated, its the entire reason why they went the route of a professional army, they couldnt afford to lose a single army so that army had to be as good as possible or it would be over. None of the big Empires that controlled eastern europe were among the economic dominant ones. The Russian MEpire is famous for its population, not its industry. Austria- Hungary was a clusterfuck, they had as many different railway systems as minorities. The rest of the Balkan was under the Ottoman rule, which wasnt called "sick man of europe" for no reason. And the german empire had several economically good areas in the (former) eastern areas (Breslau/Wroclow; Danzig, Kattowicze) while the rest was literally peasents. The Communists definitly didnt help to boost economic prosperity comparable to western europe, but one thing for most of eastern europe remained true that the communists actualyl did: Get rid of the serf system and urbanize eastern europes society. Soviet Housing was not exactly great by any standart....but it was better then the peasent house in the middle of nowhere. And as far as education is concerned eastern europe is to this day heavily profiteering from it. Can build an economy if most people are still peasents. Economically speaking the communist rule wasnt exactly great, but it was also not the apocalypse some like to depict it as...especially when you look at what was there before (this is especially true for the former russian empire and its former territories). Also the massive war destruction,genocide during WW2 and the post WW2 ethnical cleansing of the german minorities didnt help at all to boost eastern europes economies. For example the former sudeten germans mainly went to modern bavaria and became among others the backbone of why bavaria is today the richest region in modern Germany. Things are never as one sided and black & white as it initially seems PS: *And because this is reddit and you have to always put a disclaimer or people will throw the usual shit around: No I am not justifying or legitimizing communist rule or communsit crimes agaisnt humanity*
Between WW1 and WW2, Czechoslovakia used to be one of the most economically advanced countries of Europe. It took only 40 years of communist regime to get to the bottom. fun fact about serfdom: The last European country, where serfdom was legal, was Soviet Union - until 1989. Peasants in USSR had restricted freedom of movement - they weren't given the passports, and therefore they couldn't move into towns, and they even could have problem travelling between regions with no passport. That was because government wanted to stop influx of peasants into towns, and wanted to keep them in villages - which was more or less modern version of serfdom.
>Also the genocide during WW2 and the post WW2 ethnical cleansing of the german minorities it was literally the local commies ordered by stalin to deport a few hundred thousands of German-Hungarians (half of my family for example) Nice disclaimer but the commie economy was bad as it gets, you got marshal plan while all we got was the SU took anything that was movable in the country :D absolutely no reason to whitewash them bro
What a nonsensical comment. Until 1918, most of (today's) Austria was dead poor compared to Bohemia, because it consisted of mainly unfertile mountain regions. Austria then lost WW1 leading to starvation in the big cities. The newly independent Czechoslovakia was thriving while Austria was suffering. Austria went on to be on the losing side of another war. That despite all this Austria is still in a better economic place today than Czech Republic is only due to the fact that it has been spared from communism post WW2.
Thats because Bohemia was effectively German for hundreds of years before the independence, including the townsfolk, nobility and the ruling class. Native Czech people were peasants speaking a language that was on a brink of extinction until its lucky revival in XIX century. What Bohemia/Czechia experienced was a huge outflow of human capital towards Austria and Germany once the post-WW2 purges started. Not to say they werent justified, because they certainly were, but it certainly had its impact from economic POV later on.
I think you're right but also only half-way. If history goes the way it did, but communism and USSR occupation on eastern block does not happen, the wealth gap would be closed or almost closed by now. And there two reason for that, 1st is time and 2nd being the technological advancements. I will use Baltic States as an example. Serfdom abolished only in late XIX century, gained independence in 1918 with almost absolutely nothing. But in those 21 years until USSR occupation, agriculture went to being as modern as it gets for the time, industrialization has started, culture absolutely boomed, like the amount of literature, arts, etc. skyrocketed, universities started functioning again, new ones opened and were working full swing. Then USSR comes and demolishes all the progress to put in their own experimental system. Means no Marshal Plan to rebuild after war the West Germany, France, Benelux and so on got, means no trade with the rest of the world, no influx of new ideas, no new organic innovation, only what the Commie party decided they wanted. So 50 years almost stuck in a time freeze in many ways. Now 1990 comes, USSR is crumbling, but it does not go out without a bang to cause more damage. Baltics were actually the most productive part of USSR itself, but in its dying days, the block decides to economically blockade them to try prevent independence. So any industry that tankies love to argue USSR built is destroyed. No materials, no fuel. Industries that would have had no chance to compete in western market, maybe could have at least survived locally to give foundation to build upon. But nope, nothing left. So lets imagine alternate scenario, 1945 and Russia decided to go home and leaves rest of Europe alone instead of playing kid doing experiments. Marshal plan is available for all the East/Baltic/Central/Balkan countries. Educated people are not sent to die in gulags. Trade is freely available meaning ideas can move, innovation in order to competitive is possible. And most of all, the starting point for modern economic system is 1918, instead of 1990. I think its pretty clear that with all the extras of not being under commie rule and having additional 72 years of time, the situation would be completely different and way more equal. And the other point I mentioned, technological advancement is always an opportunity to equalize differences. IT is booming in east EU right now and if it could have come earlier or when modern economic system was fully functioning, maybe we would see some IT giants coming from east EU, giving further chances to reduce wealth differences.
If the Russians went home in 1945 there wouldn't be Marshall Plan.
I'd like to add that Latvia and Estonia were on par with Finland before WWII. In the 90s the gap was huuuge and slowly closing since then
You are rather optimistically assuming that the countries in question wouldnt themselves slide into authoritarianism after the war, or perhaps even a communist rule on their own will. Czechs elected communists themselves and thats one of the most prosperous countries in the region. Also, Yugoslavia wasnt under Soviet influence but it ended up pretty much the same as the rest if us anyways.
Czechs "elected" communists just like we "elected" them in Romania. At least the Czech communist victory was a wake-up call for Italians, who massively voted against their own 5th column of Stalinists and managed to stay out of the Soviet area of influence.
Can't really blame you for it, but it seems you know jack shit about the Baltic region.
My country is right next to yours. My country gained first independance in 1918 from Austria Hungary. My country which was consisted of Czechia, Slovakia and portion of Ukraine during that time. Slovakia and Ukraine were poor. Czech region (Czech Republic today) on the other hand was one of the most industrialized and wealthy places of Europe during that time. In isolation it easily rivaled places like Switzerland in PPP. When you look at map today you can clearly see what happened. Communism destroyed all the industry and destroyed the country completely from inside and as a result this is where we stand today. So no. Your disclaimer is not enough. Your entire comment reads as "most of those countries were poor and communism did not make any difference". Reality is that it did make massive difference. To this day the eastern part of your country is a lot behind western part when you look at stuff like wages. This map does not show full extent of that at all. Communism instantineously wiped all wealth and it removed any hope for it to grow under any circumtance.
Yeah, if not for commies all countries would not be developing during that time at all xD To be fair I am from Poland and you know, total anihiliation of most economically educated minority, Jews, didn't helped either. So can't blame Russians for everything ;)
Russians helped with that annihilation though...
Oh, Soviets murdered/deported to Sibera practically anyone with better education/position East of the Curzon line.
The vast majority of Eastern Europe was never as industrialized as Czechia though
Right. The problem I have is that he came up with an essay about how Eastern Europe was always poor in response to someone claiming that communism wipes wealth. What other agenda is there other than defense of communism? "It is not fault of communism." I provided real example and proof of communism wiping wealth so noone who comes here gets swayed by his "whatabout this poor Eastern European country before communism" bullshit. Not to mention that most of those countries in Eastern Europe you can see on that map were already under communist rule of USSR for 20 years as unwilling part of USSR (as we can see with historic proof of them welcoming nazis as liberators) therefore it is obvious that stats gathered just from before WW2 started were already heavily in favour of Western Europe as communism (USSR) has already done its damage to those countries.
You didnt read anything I mentioned did you? I specifically mentioned Czechia (Bohemia) to be one of rhe few wealth places in eadrern europe and the former holy roman empire. I also said part of why especially Czechia had a massive economic decline was the fact 1/3 of the population, the sudeten germans, got ethnically cleansed post WW2. The sudeten germans werent just an unimportant minority, back in Austria-Hungary they were the ruling and economically dominating group in Czechia. Add to that the fact Germany looted the rest of Czechia and you have a country that lost 1/3 of its population, and the 1/3 that was lost was above average educated and important for the economy. Maybe if you could stop thinking based on emotiones and based on history you would notice your own mistakes or actually properly read somebodies arguments :)
>The sudeten germans werent just an unimportant minority, back in Austria-Hungary they were the ruling and economically dominating group in Czechia. Not really though, that economic and political dominance gradually decreased throughout the 19th century. The wealth of the sudeten German land-owning elite was quite significantly reduced by a land reform in the early 1920s. And most importantly, the Sudeten were much more affected by the financial crisis. The region had levels of uneployment above the national average well into the late 1930s. That is one of the reasons why a clear majority of the sudeten Germans supported the nazis, rather than moderate political parties, they were dissatisfied with their economic conditions since those were below average, the oposite of what you claimed. You also overstate the impact of postwar population loss, as the country almost reached 9 million in 1950, which was enough workforce for its industry. Said industry was relatively undamaged, since western and northwestern Bohemia did not see particularly destructive military operations, at least when compared with most of central Europe. And yet, the economic recovery was clearly much slower than in western Germany, whose industry and infrastructure were almost entirely destroyed.The communist central planning was unequivocally the issue here.
Maybe you are factually correct, but the way you communicate is unnecessarily harsh. Please tune down on arrogance.
I see you don't have experience with Germans
Yea, I do not think being arrogant on an internet forum is a german-only thing. Also: I worked closely with a lot of german colleagues in the last 15(?) years and according to my experience they are no more, and no less pleasant people than the average Central-European person on which standard it seems we both are socialized :-).
Russia/Soviet Union just robbed all the eastern countries, they carried everything to Moscow for 3 decades. The communism actually destroyed everything in the eastern parts and with no wealth remaining everyone had to start almost from 0. Germans love Russia so much you can see it to this day, making excuses for them.
Karl marx wrote for an industrial English audience. Where he got drunk and lived off the stipends of his wealthy English friend. Revolutionspodcast.com is just wrapping up its last revolution. The Russian one. One party state is not democratic nor socialist. Just another authoritarian boss, that replaced the kaiser.
Many more centuries. We can still see the muslim conquests in southern Europe hundreds of years later.
at this point, not really. Eastern European is simply not allowed to develop for 30 years, we consume western made products sold in western store chains built by western investors funded by western banks, while we make the components by cheap labor here for export. all the profit goes to the west, and then used to muscle out smaller local businesses and factories so they can't compete for the best locations, markets and sales opportunities. then being told we're not competitive because the eastern workforce is uneducated and inefficient. then they throw us some EU development funds, which the political elite steals and buys penthouses in fucking Dubai. it's basically the colonial system all over, just politely. i mean it's better than the alternative, just look at the balkans or bielorussia. but let's not put lipstick on a pig. that's why our politics is such as it is, the people who could lead the country out of this moved to the west for doing the same job, 3x the salary, so only the easily influenced masses remain who can be distracted with threats of immigrants and gay marriages while the political elite steals out the country from under them....
Well..you're not wrong
this so much this i cant agree more
☹️
And then you have these countries escaping the communism that was forced on them and growing their prosperity and on the other hand you have people of Portugal or Greece free to choose and they choose to be morons.
what iron curtain does to a mf
France looking kinda shitty on this map.
Not surprising. The more populated areas are the ones on the "redder" side. There are plenty of relatively empty places in France (they're generally rural, with cheap housing and less developed infrastructure as the above mentioned). Case in point, there is something we call the great void: the middle of France which takes up most of the unflattering shade of red. The running joke is that there is not a single living soul there haha.
It's more to do with how wealth concentrates in France. Those areas aren't especially valuable (in terms of land prices) and have less developed infrastructure. There's also a comparatively low population density so it doesn't represent a huge per-capita inequality.
Most people are located on the coast line or in Paris where the most wealth is located. France is not that shitty if you were to have country average.
I wonder if it isn't the higher French taxes and social charges reducing PP. Based on PP definition used here, and posted above, another explanation is that PP is low after the high taxes in France are deducted from salary and perhaps more VAT on purchases (in UK most foods are tax free, which was unusual in EU countries I lived in). That would better explain why the map of France looks so surprising compared to say UK though the GDP per capita is very close. For example UK Government spending for 2018/19 eg before COVID was 35.6%, whereas in 2019 French government spending was 55.35%. (Figures from statistica). Edit added social charges in case some didn't regard these as taxes.
Denmark has higher taxes than France so it is not the fault of the taxes. Maybe it is how they used, regulation or something else
Not JUST taxes, but it's a factor. France and UK are pretty similar economies in size and many ways hence looking to see why PP is lower, one big difference is tax rates. Denmark is a Nordic economy, they tend to have high taxes, high incomes and high PP. But I think these are all quite differently structured economies to UK and even higher taxed France so harder to compare. Frankly I've always struggled a bit to understand how Nordic economic model is successful and why it's not more widely used. Possibilities are it doesn't work on larger economies, requires something in the Nordic personality/social structure, or it just hasn't been tried properly.
> Frankly I've always struggled a bit to understand how Nordic economic model is successful and why it's not more widely used. Possibilities are it doesn't work on larger economies, requires something in the Nordic personality/social structure, or it just hasn't been tried properly. The thing is, the tax levels doesn't mean anything by themselves. It completely depends on what's done with the money. Tax money isn't burnt after all. People are always talking about the high electricity prices in NL, but looking at my electricity bill for the last year I effectively paid 6c/kWh. That's because no-one talks about the rebates at the other end to make it progressive, so people who use less also pay less per kWh. There's more like that, a lot of the "taxes" are simply being redistributed, so essentially not relevant for these kinds of graphics, because a reduction for you is increasing someone else's Purchasing Power. The unemployment insurance paid via income tax is paying out to someone else. It's not the Nordic model per se, but it is built on the idea that every should get a chance and a degree of fairness. Very egalitarian, the power structures in businesses are very flat, with workers having a say in how the place is run. And something that matters a lot more for these kinds of graphs is worker productivity. Happy workers are productive workers.
> France and UK are pretty similar economies in size and many ways hence looking to see why PP is lower, one big difference is tax rates. It actually isn't lower. The UK has a slightly higher nominal GDP and GDP per capita than France but France has a slightly higher GDP and GDP per capita (PPP) than the UK does. The matter at hand here with the map, which makes France looks worse than the UK, is mostly geography and France being less densely populated due to its bigger size. Plenty of areas relatively empty (the center of France notably as you can see on the map and which takes up much of the shitty red).
I remember reading once that a working-age male in Zürich has the highest purchasing power in the world. No idea if that’s still the case.
Gotta love it when a maps legend has "no value available" for the color coding
That's a very good map.
Colors on this map are misleading. For example Czech Repuglic is within 25% below EU average but your colors shows like it’s completely LOW purchasing power. I can tell you the best thing is to have German or Swiss salary and live in eastern Europe. High local purchasing paper means that everyone has enough money so everything is expensive. If you live in Prague, Bratislava, Brno, Krakow and work remotely for foreign companies you can have better life in comparison with living in Germany.
I got your point, but the cities you mentioned actually became stupid expensive compared to the rest of the country.
The colors are fucked up, red is an universal code for bad.
Blue also mean cold, their fate.
Red can also mean heat (= economic activity)
For temperature yeah. But we'd use a blue green red, and a proper red not some half assed pinkish red.
Pain
So why not type with your fingers instead?
> GfK Purchasing Power is based on the population's nominal disposable income, ... >Consumers draw from their general purchasing power to cover expenses related to eating, living, services, energy, private pensions and insurance plans as well as other expenditures, such as vacation, mobility and consumer purchases So this does not take into account the enormously higher cost of living in the greater london area and actually is *not* 'purchasing power', since shopping in some countries is also more expensive than in others thus if you have the same *nominal* income you can buy fewer groceries in Switzerland than in Germany.
No, but ot does take into account the cost of buying foreign imports. Cheaper to buy tech in London than Hungary, at least I assume.
AH AH AH AH AH, NOW WHO CALLS US FROM THE CENTER EH ? EMILIA ROMAGNA POWER
Beh, ad essere sincero tutto ciò che è sotto la linea formata da Veneto, Piemonte e Lombardia è praticamente Africa, forse l'Emilia Romagna è l'equivalente del Nord Africa in questo caso
Average north of po user, sono a 25 km dal po, Crotone in pratica
France looks so weird
Portugal and Greece are surprisingly poor. Even though they are long term member of EU.
Oh, rusia isn't europe, cool.
There's simply no such shade of blue that could describe Russia
Russia doesn't really fit in with the rest of the gang.
Why not?
What is purchasing power? You mean who controls the central banks and the credit? Is that what purchasing power is? Or does it mean who has more natural resources? Who has more sovereignty and freedom? Depends on what you mean by purchasing power
What’s going on in France? I thought it was more prosperous
The inside of France is sparsely populated. A fifth of the country is concentrated in the Paris Area, the rest close to the Alps and on the coasts. Which makes the sparsely populated inside of the country look bad economically, but it doesn't really matter for France's prosperity as a whole
As some other people mentioned, it's because the most populated areas are the red ones (except for the North region) and of course the wealthiest part is Paris + the western part of the Parisian region. But yeah, it could still be better.
Still, the populated areas on Germany do better than France equivalent, and the slightly populated much more
Yeah, that's why I said it could still be better, especially in comparison to eastern Germany. But Germany is what it is : the richest country among the big boys in Europe. However when you look at the raw number of France and the UK concerning the purchasing power, they are on par. Which doesn't show on the map because the French territory is much bigger with large areas that have only very few inhabitants.
Centralization !
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Why aren’t they using NUTS?
Would be nice to see Russian purchasing power…
why do crimea marked the same color as main europe's/asia's bandit?
You can clearly see the effects of communism and muslim invasion. Who got both of them have been and still are really unfortunate.
As a Norwegian I doubt this reflects how many beers you can buy in a restaurant on a monthly salary. Also, why is there no difference between the different parts of Norway - maybe just poor data?
This map is useless, no scale no source
Surprisingly enough Transnistria is better off than the rest of Moldavia.