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This paper deals with the historical and current socio-economic situation of the northern interior of Sweden. Its forestal resources, hydro-energy and minerals have all been heavily extracted to the benefit of the Swedish state, forming a basis for the development of Sweden as a highly modernised wellfare-state. The environmental, cultural and economic costs for the Norrland regions are here analysed from the perspective of world system theory, seeing accumulation of wealth in central regions as dependent on the deprivation of geographical and economic peripheries. Today, the high-days of the extraction era are over, and researchers, politicians and civilians all suggest different solutions.