Is this accurate or overstated? I was under the impression the Nordic Model is more predicated on fossil fuel exports than straight-up slave labor (as compared to, say, economic success of The Philippines or India or Israel or Saudi Arabia, where dirt cheap labor from neighboring states is essential to operations). Nords would be poorer without fossil fuel exports, but they’d still function within the EU trade network and enjoy a basic post-industrial standard of life with high quality education, health care, and mass transit.
By comparison, the Pacific Rim satraps are all ruled by folks who make their money entirely off of an export market powered by dirt cheap human labor. The shipping and vacation industries through the Pacific Islands are entirely a function of indentured labor. The agricultural industry is entirely plantation labor. Its a very different beast.