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The Nordic countries are rich and spend 50% of GDP. Doesn't that disprove everything?

Yes — but their growth rates are not high. Denmark averaged ~1.3% and Finland ~0.9% GDP growth in the 2005–2023 structural period: exactly where the power law model places high-spending countries. Their wealth is a legacy of industrialisation built when governments were smaller. Sweden cut spending from 67% to ~49% of GDP between 1993 and 2007 and had its strongest growth decades immediately after. Wealth (a stock) persists long after the conditions that created it change; growth rates (a flow) respond more quickly.