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If it would be in reference to 'Continental Europe', the calling the Eiffel region the 'heart of Northern Europe' is completely non-nonsensical as it would not

If it would be in reference to 'Continental Europe', the calling the Eiffel region the 'heart of Northern Europe' is completely non-nonsensical as it would not even be above the mid-line of the continent. And inside 'old' Europe, There was a sharp contrast between the 'south' countries (Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal) that were economically less developed at the time, and the rest of the EEC members, that refereed in that context to themselves as 'North European'.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
toyg 6y ago
Oi, who you callin' "economically less developed"? Italy boomed post-WWII, was in G6 in 1975, and is still very much among the top 8 industrialized countries. In fact, this narration of "backward Southern Europe" is very much a recent artifact of monetary crisis due to debt, rather than anything to do with industrial output.
- Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
  Italy's GDP per capita is something like $35k vs $47k in Germany. Roughly 75% of Germany's GDP per capita. "Less developed" is a bit harsh, but there are certainly differences in income level between these two countries. It gets weirder when you compare other countries' GDP per capita, though. Consider this: $38k is the GDP per capita of Mississippi, the lowest of any US state. That's still a bit higher than Italy's. Germany's $47k GDP per capita would, if it were a US state, put it at roughly 42 of 50 states. There's less than a 10% difference between Alabama's GDP per capita ($45k) and Germany's. Maine, New Mexico, Kentucky, and Montana are within a few hundred dollars. The US as a whole has a per capita GDP of $62k. This puts Germany at 72% of the US's GDP per capita. Americans don't talk about Germany as "undeveloped" despite an even greater gap between the US and Germany. Norway is another country with a high GDP per capita at $77k. I doubt many Norwegians describe Germany or the US as "economically less developed." (All numbers taken from Wikipedia's list of country / US state by GDP per capita rankings. Other measures like PPP, median income, life expectancy, etc. all clearly matter)
  - toyg 6y ago
    Beyond the numbers, Italy has an industrial and economic tradition that cannot be considered "less developed" in any meaningful way. Even without going all the way back to the invention of double-entry accounting or Galvani and Volta, it's the country of Fermi, Marconi, Ferrari, Ducati, Guzzi, Olivetti, ENI, FIAT (now FCA) and so on and so forth. It even has the same problems of de-localization and offshoring that are typical of the most advanced systems! Just because it has accumulated a public debt that is only second to Japan, some interested parties nowadays tend to push a discriminatory narration, which definitely was not there in the '70s or '80s.
  - fsloth 6y ago
    "Italy's GDP per capita is something like $35k vs $47k in Germany." Ah, But! There are two Italys. The North and the South. The North is economically and industrially on par with any other region in Europe, where as the south is poor and ridden with systematic problems. Hence you cannot really speak of Italy in any single context when figuring who it is economically and so on - the regional differences are stark. You can't average these out over the entire country.
- PeterStuer 6y ago
  Post WWII right up to the 70's Italy had mass emigration> Reasons given are 'the poverty and lack of jobs and income opportunities caused by poor agriculture, which pushed Italians from both the North and the South to look for better chances abroad.' [1]. Thanks to this migration wave, East Belgium still has a very extended Italian descendant community. East Belgium is where the former coal mines were where most migrants found employment. Even today, you might have noticed these areas suffered more than average from COVID-19 because of the strong Italian connections where the virus hit hardest in early 2020. [1] 'Italian Migration' http://ftp.iza.org/dp938.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp938.pdf [pdf]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

toyg 6y ago

Oi, who you callin' "economically less developed"? Italy boomed post-WWII, was in G6 in 1975, and is still very much among the top 8 industrialized countries. In fact, this narration of "backward Southern Europe" is very much a recent artifact of monetary crisis due to debt, rather than anything to do with industrial output.

Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
Italy's GDP per capita is something like $35k vs $47k in Germany. Roughly 75% of Germany's GDP per capita. "Less developed" is a bit harsh, but there are certainly differences in income level between these two countries. It gets weirder when you compare other countries' GDP per capita, though. Consider this: $38k is the GDP per capita of Mississippi, the lowest of any US state. That's still a bit higher than Italy's. Germany's $47k GDP per capita would, if it were a US state, put it at roughly 42 of 50 states. There's less than a 10% difference between Alabama's GDP per capita ($45k) and Germany's. Maine, New Mexico, Kentucky, and Montana are within a few hundred dollars. The US as a whole has a per capita GDP of $62k. This puts Germany at 72% of the US's GDP per capita. Americans don't talk about Germany as "undeveloped" despite an even greater gap between the US and Germany. Norway is another country with a high GDP per capita at $77k. I doubt many Norwegians describe Germany or the US as "economically less developed." (All numbers taken from Wikipedia's list of country / US state by GDP per capita rankings. Other measures like PPP, median income, life expectancy, etc. all clearly matter)
- toyg 6y ago
  Beyond the numbers, Italy has an industrial and economic tradition that cannot be considered "less developed" in any meaningful way. Even without going all the way back to the invention of double-entry accounting or Galvani and Volta, it's the country of Fermi, Marconi, Ferrari, Ducati, Guzzi, Olivetti, ENI, FIAT (now FCA) and so on and so forth. It even has the same problems of de-localization and offshoring that are typical of the most advanced systems! Just because it has accumulated a public debt that is only second to Japan, some interested parties nowadays tend to push a discriminatory narration, which definitely was not there in the '70s or '80s.
- fsloth 6y ago
  "Italy's GDP per capita is something like $35k vs $47k in Germany." Ah, But! There are two Italys. The North and the South. The North is economically and industrially on par with any other region in Europe, where as the south is poor and ridden with systematic problems. Hence you cannot really speak of Italy in any single context when figuring who it is economically and so on - the regional differences are stark. You can't average these out over the entire country.
PeterStuer 6y ago
Post WWII right up to the 70's Italy had mass emigration> Reasons given are 'the poverty and lack of jobs and income opportunities caused by poor agriculture, which pushed Italians from both the North and the South to look for better chances abroad.' [1]. Thanks to this migration wave, East Belgium still has a very extended Italian descendant community. East Belgium is where the former coal mines were where most migrants found employment. Even today, you might have noticed these areas suffered more than average from COVID-19 because of the strong Italian connections where the virus hit hardest in early 2020. [1] 'Italian Migration' http://ftp.iza.org/dp938.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp938.pdf [pdf]