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I think it's actually that of all the western world, Americans are the most obsessed about government conspiracies. Which is so weird because despite all this

I think it's actually that of all the western world, Americans are the most obsessed about government conspiracies. Which is so weird because despite all this rugged "fight for your rights", Americans have some of the weakest labour and health rights. But I guess you do have the right to say you have very weak rights!

crocodiletears 6y ago
I'd wager that the UK is a little more extreme than most European nations with respect to privacy, at least as described by German and a Dutch friends of mine. I believe that the American conception of rights is quite distinct from the European one. In the US, the rights outlined in the constitution are independent of the state, which was engineered as their guarantor. These rights restrain the state, and ought ostensibly to be universally applied, but offer no guarantee of service beyond the securement of those rights, and provision for the common defense. Conversely, European rights seem to be hard-earned privileges or guarantees on quality of life that have been extended to the people by the state. These rights can directly impose duties on either the state, or certain members of the population (I.e. employers). Functionally, they're pretty similar day to day, but European-style rights benefit from flexibility, but are also much more likely to be subject to provisions or restrictions such as laws around speech, in part because they're closer to a negotiable agreement between the people and their government, as opposed to some inviolate universal law which requires extreme measures to actually amend. Europeans generally seem to have a higher quality of life, and are afforded better care and services by more broadly competent governments. They have superior labor protections. I wish we had some of them. I'm not convinced they have more rights, as I would define them.
- Robin_Message 6y ago
  The US also has a weird dichotomy between rights against the state, which are plentiful (i.e. Bill of Rights) and broadly stronger than anywhere else in the world, and a lack of rights against other citizens or corporations, where they are weaker than the rest of the West. So you get obnoxious Home-Owner Association rules when you buy a house, you get unions (your right to freely associate and organise with others) curtailed and destroyed, you get no meaningful privacy protection against scummy companies vacuuming up data (e.g. Equifax)
  - effie 6y ago
    It's weird from the standpoint of justice for all and citizen society. It makes perfect sense for morally corrupt powerful entities.
- amiga_500 6y ago
  sure, but the actual "on the ground" end result is Europeans get healthcare and rights at work, and Americans don't. Yes, Europeans do have a higher quality of life, I agree.
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    That's true. The US has a lot to work on, and there are trade-offs to be made before we achieve a proper balance. I'm personally quite happy to be in America, and it would take a lot to get me to consider living in a more paternalistic European society, even if it left me better off. Others wouldn't make that exchange, because they have little use for the more absolute liberties we have stateside.
    - amiga_500 6y ago
      Europeans have the right to free speech, to protest, to assemble (covid excepted), etc. What they don't have is an army of low paid people, who have no choice but to deliver services cheaply to those who can afford it. I suspect many in America like this part of "capitalism". ----- reply to effie below as I've talked about something that the HN police don't like and have the fake "you're submitting too fast". ----- It's a reasonable point, but as you say they have some protections, and this enables them to refuse low pay and bad working conditions, up to a point. Also although all human life has great value, we are comparing immigrants (and agreeing they have better protection) to citizens in the USA, who have weaker protection. Really quite incredible.
      - effie 6y ago
        Actually we have those! Cheap migrant workers from eastern Europe make lots of things move here but their choices are limited. We have protections for them at least on paper, and together with low pay that's still better for them than staying home. Most importantly, (I think) they can (with ordinary medical insurance) go to a doctor for an exam or medicine without getting charged thousands of dollars. The real difference is how the citizens are protected. In Europe, citizen is treated as human regardless of how much money they have. In U.S. this doesn't seem to be so. The money is more important.
T-hawk 6y ago
That last can be framed in the opposite direction: America has stronger company rights. American companies are more free to not pay a worker who is delivering no work on sick or parental leave, and to end employment of a worker they no longer want to employ. American health providers have more right to gain profits from their services. American companies are generally less burdened by things like VAT tracking and customs enforcement and silly cookie disclosures. There's a reason that the FAANG industry dominators all came from American origins, as well as those of yesteryear like IBM and Intel, or in other industries like Ford or Disney or Visa.
- amiga_500 6y ago
  companies are not people, so this amounts to weak rights for people. the beloved constitution was about the rights of people, yet they have weak rights in practice. I know you are kind of agreeing, but from a diff perspective.
- mantap 6y ago
  The USA has one of the most insane systems on the planet. There's 50 states plus DC. Each with their own laws which apply to anybody selling in that state, so if a business is selling in 50 states then they need to follow 50 sets of laws, and that's before we get to smaller jurisdictions. The tax system is byzantine and nightmarish even by the standards of tax systems. What the USA has going for it is that it was very far away from its enemies during WW2, and so while European countries had to rebuild everything, the US economy went into overdrive. Plus it's the 3rd most populous country in the world and that has advantages. It's certainly nothing to do with simplicity of doing business.
- effie 6y ago
  American companies in general have a lot of visible and objectionable protections, that is true. But your example, except for maybe Amazon, doesn't really exemplify this - these companies are successful for various other reasons such as U.S. winning both WWII and the cold war, American market size and world power status, huge government investments into semiconductors in 50's, embargoes on technology exports, lots of wealthy investors willing to invest in American companies. All this and other things helped in various proportions. Maybe Amazon got so big and starved the competition partly because the management treats the workers like serfs and is able to push prices down, but the others I do not really see how they benefit from weak employee rights.

crocodiletears 6y ago

I'd wager that the UK is a little more extreme than most European nations with respect to privacy, at least as described by German and a Dutch friends of mine. I believe that the American conception of rights is quite distinct from the European one. In the US, the rights outlined in the constitution are independent of the state, which was engineered as their guarantor. These rights restrain the state, and ought ostensibly to be universally applied, but offer no guarantee of service beyond the securement of those rights, and provision for the common defense. Conversely, European rights seem to be hard-earned privileges or guarantees on quality of life that have been extended to the people by the state. These rights can directly impose duties on either the state, or certain members of the population (I.e. employers). Functionally, they're pretty similar day to day, but European-style rights benefit from flexibility, but are also much more likely to be subject to provisions or restrictions such as laws around speech, in part because they're closer to a negotiable agreement between the people and their government, as opposed to some inviolate universal law which requires extreme measures to actually amend. Europeans generally seem to have a higher quality of life, and are afforded better care and services by more broadly competent governments. They have superior labor protections. I wish we had some of them. I'm not convinced they have more rights, as I would define them.

Robin_Message 6y ago
The US also has a weird dichotomy between rights against the state, which are plentiful (i.e. Bill of Rights) and broadly stronger than anywhere else in the world, and a lack of rights against other citizens or corporations, where they are weaker than the rest of the West. So you get obnoxious Home-Owner Association rules when you buy a house, you get unions (your right to freely associate and organise with others) curtailed and destroyed, you get no meaningful privacy protection against scummy companies vacuuming up data (e.g. Equifax)
- effie 6y ago
  It's weird from the standpoint of justice for all and citizen society. It makes perfect sense for morally corrupt powerful entities.
amiga_500 6y ago
sure, but the actual "on the ground" end result is Europeans get healthcare and rights at work, and Americans don't. Yes, Europeans do have a higher quality of life, I agree.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  That's true. The US has a lot to work on, and there are trade-offs to be made before we achieve a proper balance. I'm personally quite happy to be in America, and it would take a lot to get me to consider living in a more paternalistic European society, even if it left me better off. Others wouldn't make that exchange, because they have little use for the more absolute liberties we have stateside.
  - amiga_500 6y ago
    Europeans have the right to free speech, to protest, to assemble (covid excepted), etc. What they don't have is an army of low paid people, who have no choice but to deliver services cheaply to those who can afford it. I suspect many in America like this part of "capitalism". ----- reply to effie below as I've talked about something that the HN police don't like and have the fake "you're submitting too fast". ----- It's a reasonable point, but as you say they have some protections, and this enables them to refuse low pay and bad working conditions, up to a point. Also although all human life has great value, we are comparing immigrants (and agreeing they have better protection) to citizens in the USA, who have weaker protection. Really quite incredible.
    - effie 6y ago
      Actually we have those! Cheap migrant workers from eastern Europe make lots of things move here but their choices are limited. We have protections for them at least on paper, and together with low pay that's still better for them than staying home. Most importantly, (I think) they can (with ordinary medical insurance) go to a doctor for an exam or medicine without getting charged thousands of dollars. The real difference is how the citizens are protected. In Europe, citizen is treated as human regardless of how much money they have. In U.S. this doesn't seem to be so. The money is more important.

T-hawk 6y ago

That last can be framed in the opposite direction: America has stronger company rights. American companies are more free to not pay a worker who is delivering no work on sick or parental leave, and to end employment of a worker they no longer want to employ. American health providers have more right to gain profits from their services. American companies are generally less burdened by things like VAT tracking and customs enforcement and silly cookie disclosures. There's a reason that the FAANG industry dominators all came from American origins, as well as those of yesteryear like IBM and Intel, or in other industries like Ford or Disney or Visa.

amiga_500 6y ago
companies are not people, so this amounts to weak rights for people. the beloved constitution was about the rights of people, yet they have weak rights in practice. I know you are kind of agreeing, but from a diff perspective.
mantap 6y ago
The USA has one of the most insane systems on the planet. There's 50 states plus DC. Each with their own laws which apply to anybody selling in that state, so if a business is selling in 50 states then they need to follow 50 sets of laws, and that's before we get to smaller jurisdictions. The tax system is byzantine and nightmarish even by the standards of tax systems. What the USA has going for it is that it was very far away from its enemies during WW2, and so while European countries had to rebuild everything, the US economy went into overdrive. Plus it's the 3rd most populous country in the world and that has advantages. It's certainly nothing to do with simplicity of doing business.
effie 6y ago
American companies in general have a lot of visible and objectionable protections, that is true. But your example, except for maybe Amazon, doesn't really exemplify this - these companies are successful for various other reasons such as U.S. winning both WWII and the cold war, American market size and world power status, huge government investments into semiconductors in 50's, embargoes on technology exports, lots of wealthy investors willing to invest in American companies. All this and other things helped in various proportions. Maybe Amazon got so big and starved the competition partly because the management treats the workers like serfs and is able to push prices down, but the others I do not really see how they benefit from weak employee rights.