Daniel
26
I think partly because we have ruled ourselves since the sixteenth century (and most of the time before that too), and partly because our greatest riches in modern times have been ore and lumber. Both needed to be brought south a great distance from the cold northern parts of our country and then refined.
So we needed engineering to get the iron out of the ground and the trees out of the forests, and also had plenty of materials and fuel to manufacture things. Skilled craftsmen from what is present-day Belgium were also invited to come and work in Sweden, bringing their knowledge.
Later we utilized our great rivers in the north with fast rapids to get cheap electricity. Inventors came up with ingenious things like dynamite, the spanner and ball bearings. Avoiding serious social unrest in the early 20th century by way of corporatism and cleverly staying out of both world wars also helped.
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