Right, that's why at the heart of the tech innovation peple are running from mentally ill homeless people the insulating themselves in gated communities to pretend like living in a german village. Huge success.
I wouldn't obsess too much with the GDP too, its not as good as a proxy to the important stuff as people are trying to make it. An appendicitis surgery generates much more economic activity in USA than in Europe and Americans don't end with better appendixes.
You define success in terms of houses, cars, and tech gadgets? This is in view of widening wealth gap and increased isolation, depression, and an opioid epidemic. Meanwhile people in Europe have less stressful lives and enjoy hobbies and relationships. I think I’d prefer having a smaller house, last year’s tech, and smaller car with more friends and neighbors than being isolated in my McMansion.
Well let's put it in perspective. The GDP of germany is smaller than the overwhelming majority of US states. That's not the whole US, that's each state by themselves. Americans are more productive by an order of magnitude.
Not that the various European nations don't have things to offer or aren't doing novel things. There's plenty that they do, but the sheer volume that the US produces across the spectrum including novel things is unmatched by a long shot.
I agree, but from spending a fair bit of time in both countries, America has a lot of advantages over Germany as well. For the poor, working, and lower-middle class, Germany is far better to live in without doubt, but for the well-off, it's a tougher comparison.
I would rattle things off, but it's more like an aggregate of small things rather than big things like "free healthcare", and I don't want to seem petty and discount the critical importance of healthcare and education. But as one example, if you want to create a tech startup, there are many reasons why it's better to do it in America than in Germany. Other people's lives matter more than fulfilling one's "Uber for dogs" startup fantasy or something, to be sure, but people optimize for different things given their personal circumstances.
Europe, as a whole, seems to do better with a wider range of middle class.
Personally I lament that we have very little tech industry. No Google’s or Apples- but at the same time the majority of the people living and working here seem better off than their contemporaries in the US. So it’s mostly selfish of me to lament the lack of tech.
Eventually though I guess, the tremendous wealth generated by US tech industries will enrich everyone’s lives in the USA, but, that hasn’t happened historically. So I guess we’ll see.
The US has strong anti poverty programs and provided more generous pandemic aid than any European country. At some point, you have to consider street homelessness a lifestyle preference of the American political system. A lot of the people on the street in America would be in locked treatment facilities in Europe, but it seems like the American democratic process prefers the current solution.
(Yes I understand a big part of this has to do with high rents and not mental illness, but even that is primarily caused by America’s adherence to the dysfunctional Anglo land use regulatory system. Its solution, to simplify, is less regulation not more. And the best schemes to copy from are in Asia not Europe.)
And yet standards of living in Europe are comparable to those in the US, and preferable at the median. Our attention is captured by speculative valuations of unicorns, and yet people actually need real stuff made, drugs developed and made etc. Europe does perfectly well in many non winner takes all sectors where English language and network effects are less relevant.
The political instability created by the US neoliberal experiment is something I hope we can avoid over here too.
> You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances.
If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe?
I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In the US, it is widely felt that the system should serve the tax payers. Europeans, on the other hand, seem to have a lot more solidarity with the poor who, for whatever reason, don't pay significant taxes. Additionally (and controversially), I think a significant amount of the European attitude comes down to ethnic solidarity. European countries are ethnostates and the US isn't.
One interesting thing is that Europeans benefit from American innovation. They have iphones, windows pcs, use google, etc like everyone else.
I do not think these two facts are linked. I don't think the US economy is growing faster because they have a less regulated healthcare system.
If anything one would intuitively think the opposite should be true. That with a better safety net, entrepreneurship should be more common in Europe, while Americans should be more risk-averse. But I think in this case there is a HUGE cultural (and maybe even partly epigenetic) component that is always ignored.
Also your original comment compared ‘Europe’ and not Germany or a specific country. The population of ‘Europe’ is roughly twice that of America.
Also: [..]The European Union's GDP was estimated to be around $17.9 trillion (nominal) in 2020, representing around one sixth of the global economy.[..]
Most of the tech sector relies on immigrant talent from places like India even though most stay on work visas without ever getting to enjoy the benefits they paid into the system.
If America were to follow European standards, then you’d think we’d be importing or outsourcing European labour. Oh wait! We don’t do that!
At least, we will stay warm this winter. And maybe save the world with our evil military when beckoned.
Racism exists. In every part of the world. Including HN. I would recommend that you not stay calm about it. Maybe you have the luxury of not caring if you are discriminated against, but many of us don’t have that privilege. Take care. I don’t enjoy these online ping pong matches unless you are consistent with your data.
From what I've seen, salaries in EU tech hubs are significantly lower than in provincial markets in the US - where weeks are close to 40 hours and managers would laugh at paying for lunch or putting in cots so you can spend the night. Most Americans don't work in the tech hubs, yet still earn significantly more on average. FYI, anyone with a decent job in the US has access to some of the best health care in the world. The US with a far more diverse and unwell population has better outcomes for the cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
I don't think you're recognizing the effective tradeoffs that exist between the German and US economies. In Germany per capita average individual consumption is more than 30% lower than the US. ($25,000 thousand per capita vs. $36,000)
That translates into some major differences in material living conditions. The average German home is about 50% smaller than the average American home. Germans have 30% fewer cars per capita. Meat consumption is 20% lower.
Many German homes don't have common household appliances that Americans take for granted. 30% of Germans don't own microwaves. Same for dishwashers. Most Germans don't have air conditioners. Only 42% of German homes have clothes dryers. Only 50% have freezers.
It's not just an issue of America being stupid. Things like strong social safety nets, universal healthcare, and free university all come with major major economic tradeoffs. Europeans do sacrifice a lot in terms of middle-class luxuries to enjoy those benefits.
You may say that things like bigger houses, fancy appliances and steak dinners aren't worth the stress and struggle, you need to recognize that that's a personal preference. One that many Americans are unlikely to agree with you on.
The reality is that Germany is a fundamentally different culture than America. And most Americans wouldn't choose to sacrifice their creature comforts for a Western European lifestyle. I'd be shocked if any more than a small percent of Americans would move into a house half with half their current square footage, even in exchange for free healthcare and eight weeks of vacation.
If the conclusion of this is true, why aren't we seeing grand scale innovation and entrepreneurship from European countries that are most certainly very strong welfare states?
Why instead are we seeing massive amounts of unemployment?
There seems to be a delicate balance to strike to get this right. The fact of the matter is that in many European countries someone who is not working can enjoy the same standard of life as someone who is, except they don't have to get up in the morning to earn it.
Those benefiting from these states likely have very little incentive to rock their own boat of comfort by stepping out and taking on debt/risk for more of a reward. Especially when you throw high taxation into the mix, where that risk/reward ratio is further skewed because even if you do very well you'll end up paying the state a huge amount of tax, to then support the same welfare system.
In the US, on the other hand, you've a significantly less generous safety net and I would imagine the vast majority of those who fall into it from a more grand place - such as being securely in the middle class - would fight more to get out of it.
That's intuitive anyway.
Where the argument starts to fall apart is when you look at all the young tech entrepreneurs, whether it's hardware or software, or those starting up new media companies, or whatever, very few seem to come from the type of background where if they failed they'd end up on food stamps.
Are they better risk takers because they have a better, non-government provided safety net, perhaps? Which then goes on to conflict with the enhanced safety net available in Europe and the comparatively low level of innovation and entrepreneurship.
My conclusion would be that the government provided welfare is likely not a factor in determining innovation and entrepreneurship and that there's other, less obvious, factors at play.
It seemed like you were claiming that people with fewer resources may counter-intuitively do more innovative businesses, so providing people with UBI or similar resources could reduce innovation in entrepreneurship.
The inventiveness you need to thrive as a poor person is very different from that, and I don't think losing that kind of inventiveness would be a real loss in our world.
We “piggy back” on US innovation - just like many other fields - but (a) we pay for everything we buy from America and (b) we’re still able to offer extended healthcare despite having in many cases comparable - or the same! - technology.
Or are you suggesting that the American people must sacrifice their poor so that Europeans can “piggy back” on the gains?
You are right about the part about making money in the US and being ok. I would argue though that the higher standard of living in Europe across the board has a compounding affect. When you know that your neighbors are taken care of and you don't see as much social rot out in the streets, you tend to feel happier, less stressed, more willing to continue supporting and being a part of your community. At least that is my personal experience as an American living in Germany. In addition, it is not just about making money, you get a lot more time off, holidays and as many sick days as the doctor says that you need, within reason of course.
Sorry but the evidence doesn't stand up to this AT ALL.
Americans are much, MUCH more entrepreneurial than anyone in Europe. I'm American, I live in Europe, I know this very, very well. (Yes, anecdotally speaking, of course!)
Americans simply embrace risk, and embrace potential failure, far better than anyone else in the world, taken as a whole. Europeans meanwhile are a more gloomy bunch, more risk-averse, and far less likely to strike out on their own. Notable slight exceptions being the Dutch to some degree.
America is so far from a "welfare state" - it is about as far away as you can get. America is a "if you're going to fall, you are going to fall all the way down, and no one is going to save you, no matter what". And somehow, a huge part of the world's entrepreneurs and innovation come from there. I don't know why.
And don't take me as some kind of patriotic jingoist champion of the US of A - I am just about as far as you can get from the "Yeah Murica" kind of ultra patriots - heck, I live in Europe because I prefer the slower pace, the old world, the semblance of an actual culture, the environment that has not eaten itself from capitalism taken to the extreme.
Why do you think that actions of these huge institutions are not impactful to the life quality of the Americans?
Also, why do you think that the European live longer thanks to the medicine developed in the USA? Maybe the USA develops medicine thanks to the free and equal opportunity education culture in the Europe? If you look closely to the researchers, you will see that lot's of the people who develop these things have European roots and by roots I don't mean their grandpa was Irish, I mean they were educated in Europe and it just happens that the organisation that develops these drugs is incorporated in the USA.
The tech revolution that changed the world was also developed in Europe, the web was developed by the British in EU institution, Linux was made by a Finnish guy called Linus, Nginx is Russian-made.
Also, we are at a verge of AI revolution and some of the leading researchers are Europe educated people. Just check the bio of the top researchers who were instrumental at Tesla or OpenAI.
Maybe the USA is just the industrial zone of Europe? Maybe the US appears rich and acts poor simply because because the richness comes from the accounting choices? Just kidding of course, the USA is a superpower and is actually rich thanks to many things like its abundant resources and brilliant people but the notion that the Europe is doing better because they just drink smoothies and meditate all day on the American resources and innovation is ridiculous.
Europeans can boost the GDP significantly by embracing American style healthcare.
For example, having an appendicitis in US increases the GDP by $10K but in most of Europe it barely moves the needle, thus Europeans lag in GDP metrics for the same healthcare.
Fresh, healthy produce as standart? Maybe good for people but destroys the GDP statistics. If Europeans embraced the idea that healthy stuff is for the rich and charge for it accordingly, they too can extract much more numbers from the tomatoes and have nicer GDP.
That wasn't the point. The point is that if you have minimal money, some freedom, and plenty of free space, you can just about function (as the tent cities, favelas, and so forth demonstrate). Those are dire places to live but at least you have mobility when the jobs come back.. whereas if you're stuck in social housing you are screwed.
The US is full of mobile, resourceful people who have a freedom over the land Europeans could only dream of. They'll get through this however bad it gets. Lazy, dole-riding Europeans? I'm not so sure.
(note: I'm not saying "all Europeans are X" but using an adjective to describe a group of Europeans.. sadly some people are stupid enough to think <adjective> <noun> means all <noun> are <adjective>)
I wouldn't obsess too much with the GDP too, its not as good as a proxy to the important stuff as people are trying to make it. An appendicitis surgery generates much more economic activity in USA than in Europe and Americans don't end with better appendixes.
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