The wasted potential economic energy in this country is a tragedy of colossal proportions. Interesting observation. Now hypothetically lets imagine for the

The wasted potential economic energy in this country is a tragedy of colossal proportions. Interesting observation. Now hypothetically lets imagine for the sake of argument we've a safety net of the likes of somewhere on the spectrum between France and one of the Scandinavian countries. All else equal, do you think the American entrepreneurial dynamism you see now would still be around if we had one such welfare state-lite? Or do you think people would grow lackadaisical? Have there been studies on this sort of thing? I'm not implying that its necessarily bad but this comes up a lot in discussions of UBI and such. Tangentially, just last week there was a discussion on how labor laws make life difficult for startups in France.[1] The discussion there makes you wonder perhaps the issues surrounding what actually spurs the indomitable entrepreneurial instinct is more complex than it seems on the surface.[2] [1] Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There? (nytimes.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169314 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169740