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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 certa

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.

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.