[xstartup]

Even if you apply Norway's policies to any other country, it will not magically become as prosperous as Norway.

It's a resource-rich nation, highly homogenous and part of EEA. Norway is able to ship low-value hazardous work to poor European countries without paying for their welfare/infra expenditure. Imports janitors and healthcare (the work which local aren't willing to do like wiping the ass of disabled people) workers from East Europe.

It's equivalent is of Uncle scourge swimming in gold and attributing his wealth to his ability to swim in gold.

Open your doors for third world low skilled immigrants then we'll see how much progress Norway is able to retain.

[vidarh]

As someone else pointed out: The US is wealthier. If it was down to wealth alone, we'd expect the US to have far fewer problems.

[xstartup]

Wealth, relatively small population and homogeneity (cultural/religious/economic) does make a lot of difference, See: Qatar.

US might be wealthier (I've not vetted this statement) but it still doesn't have many of the above.

[vidarh]

Well, yes, because you've just included a significant part of the solution (economic homogeneity) as one of the criteria. When you look back at Norwegian history over the last century, a lot of the shift happened in line with the rise of the labour movement and the rise of the welfare system, and a lot of the beneficial outcomes were visible before the oil revenue even started.

Norway as a result got one of the flattest income distributions in the world, and has relatively high degrees of social mobility, and a culture where the labour movement combined with religious groups (in what some might call a rather unholy alliance) promoted the ideal of modesty. E.g. in Norway sending your schools to private schools long held a significant stigma.

At the same time the US started moving in the exact opposite direction: Executive salaries as a multiple of workers salaries started skyrocketing etc..