Why does Sweden do better economically than Finland? (Yle) The answer may partly be blowing in the wind

A few days ago, I participated in a conference. The message: it's not going so well for Finland, and the question is why? In Today's Yle a similar question was asked. Common knowledge is that our species is equipped with executive functions, including entrepreneurial thinking which flourished in Tiundaland, and probably in Satakunda during the Vendel period and forward. After Russia's invasion, Finland went into decline and tribalism, currently marked by a national debt of 74%, and twice as high a prevalence of Alzheimer's compared to Sweden. 5 pages.

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A few days ago, I participated in a conference. The invited speaker was almost on the government level. The message: it's not going so well for Finland, and the question is why?

In Today's Yle, the Swedish-speaking version, a similar question was asked.

Translated via Google.

Link to source.

The outlook from the speaker and the two media commentators was economy. That viewpoint is limited.

Common knowledge in biological anthropology and social neuropsychology is that our species are equipped with executive functions – a plethora of sub-sets that unpacks during early age (Baker et al. 2020; Barkley, 2001; Baumrind, 1966; Farran och Formby, 2011;Gopnik, 2016; Hart och Risley, 1995;LaFlamme et al. 2012; Olsson, 2022), including the capacity to elaborate scenarios forward in time, entrepreneurial thinking and social creativity for problem-solving and innovation (Ardila, 2008, Ardila et al. 2018; Adornetti, 2016; Barkley, 2001; Diamond and Lee, 2011;Gilbert och Wilson, 2007; Pagel, 2019; Österberg, 2004 a; 2012; Österberg Köping Olsson, 2021), and there's a father effect (Rolle et al. 2019; Sethna, 2017; Vieno et al. 2009, 2014; Österberg, 2004 b).

These abilities are dependent on population density and work climate (Ekvall and Ryhammar, 1998). This cultural expression has been tangible in the Baltic sea region since the Vendel period (540 – 750 AD), with it's epicenter in Tiundaland - a long forgotten folkland Which extended into present-day Finland. Satakunda, which today is represented by the counties Satakunta and Birkaland, means hundred parishes (Hundrasockneland) which semantically is equal to Tiundaland.

Because Finland and Sweden share, not only biology, but also history as well as language and culture, one expects that development should be rather equal or symmetrical on both sides of the pond (the Baltic sea). But as Sweden's economy is strong, Finland's ditto is weak; Sweden's national debt is 17% of GNP, whereas Finland's ditto is 74%.

Another important aspect is health. Life expectancy in Sweden is several years longer compared to Finland; death by heart disease is 50% higher in Finland compared to Sweden, and death by Alzheimer's is 100% more prevalent per capita in Finland (Österberg, 2024).

2022:

• The Helsingfors police department said that Finnish women's relational aggressiveness (psychological domestic violence) is their biggest challenge.
  
  
• The ministry of education and culture said that too many Finnish children fail reading comprehension and numeracy.

In 2023,

• Helsingin Sanomat reported that the research at the University of Helsingfors had collapsed.
  
  
• Maj Estlander, Bensow, said that 40% of Finnish school kids are victims of psychological domestic violence.

The explanatory model is of course multi-factorial, and it's hard to estimate the r-square and the epsilon. Even so, there are some historical markers which may shed some light into this conundrum. And some aspects seem to have to do with the wind.

Sometime during the Vendel period (540 - 750 AD) entrepreneurial thinking arose in the folkland called Tiundaland, in Suehtiod (Svitjod). That's today's Uppland in the kingdom of Sweden.

Actually, no one knows if the folkland was called Tiundaland during the Vendel period, but what is known is that in 1296, Tiundaland, together with three other folklands, was merged into Uppland.

Tiundaland had a geographical continuation to the northeast, and included the northern coastal area of another folkland – Roden. It was called Tiundalands rod (Björklund, 2014). And Tiundaland extended further, across the Gulf of Bothnia to include Satakunda:

“When we connect this strong marine character of Suethiod with our knowledge that Satakunda and Vakka-Finland - the areas around Nystad and Kaland - very long ago had extremely close connections with Mälardalen, then one could probably see these areas as parts of the old maritime kingdom of Suethiod” (Klinge, 1984, s. 8).

The original, in Swedish:

“Då vi sammanbinder denna Suethiods starkt marina karaktär med vår kunskap om att Satakunda och Vakka-Finland – trakterna kring Nystad och Kaland – mycket långt tillbaka har haft synnerligen nära förbindelser med Mälardalen, så torde man kunna se dessa områden som delar av det gamla sjökungariket Suethiod” (Klinge, 1984, s. 8).

From an anthropological point of view, this is very odd, because it's not the shortest way across the waters of the Gulf of Bothnia or the Baltic sea to Finland – rather the opposite: 5 times the distance compared to the shortest distance over the southern quark. From the shoreline of Tiundalands rod to Satakunda, it's ~200 km.

But why would the lords of Svitjod choose a route which was five times longer to cross?

Well, the day before the conference, I attended a social meeting with people from various countries. One person, from Finland, told me an anecdote which included the following phrase:

– during the summers, the wind in Helsingfors is coming in from the southwest.

In elementary school we learned to draw curves (lines), e.g. from the equation of the straight line and to move these lines in a parallel fashion. If you move the line representing the-wind-blowing-in-from-the-southwest so that the starting point is Uppsala, it will cut through Tiundaland and Tiundalands rod, and end up in either Björneborg or Raumo in Satakunda.

Ergo. They went where the wind took them, or as Bob Dylan sings: the answer is blowing in the wind.

And because Satakunda belonged to Svitjod, they shared language, and with language comes culture (Reich, 2019). It's logical to conclude that Satakunda had a similar entrepreneurial culture as Tiundaland, and that that was facilitated by the renaissance, science revolution, and enlightenment thinking (McKneown, 2009; Pinker, 2018; Widmalm, 2012).

In 1808 Russia invaded the Swedish fortress Sveaborg just outside Helsingfors. And in 1863, Kreml imposed that the Finns should abandon the trade language around the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic sea in favor of a uralic language which was spoken in various forms by tribes in the inland. Finland started to stagnate. Sometime between 1910 - 1940 this new language reached break-even, resulting in Finland's language strife. From 1940 and forward, Finland's decline increased. Today, Finland's national dept is 74% of GNP, compared to Sweden's 17%. Life expectancy is shorter, and physical and mental Health issues are significantly more prevalent.

During his third Gifford lecture (2019), Mark Pagel, a biological anthropologist, talked about tribalism. His first example was Papua New Guinea. The other was Finland.

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