3 ms·

> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pens

> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. As I see it, a government that ensures basic necessities will allow more people to take more risks. As it is, the privilege to take risks is limited to a select few in the upper and upper-middle classes, and those below don't have the chance to take a risk without it ruining their life.

germinalphrase 6y ago
Indeed. The freedom to fail without sending one’s self/family into destitution supports a culture of risk taking.
- umvi 6y ago
  Yet highly socialist countries never seem to have a culture of risk taking/startups/disruption/innovation/etc. I'd love to be proven wrong with an example.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    I’m not advocating for the United States to become “highly socialist”.
umvi 6y ago
If that's the case, why aren't more Amazons emerging from Europe where more basic necessities are being met and therefore more people could be taking risks? Couldn't it also be that having the government take care of people actually reduces their desire to take risks and move up socio economic ladder? In Germany, for example you don't see a lot of middle class people moving into upper class like you do in America.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  You don't see a middle class people moving into the upper class here either. Social mobility is higher in Europe than in the US, and economic mobility is higher in Europe as well, excluding the UK. For your first question, Europe has stronger protections for workers than the US, so Amazon would need to pay it's employees more and have more of them. This in general results in less centralized profiting. Bezos would make less but his median employee would make more, meaning as I said before, more social mobility for lower and middle class people like Amazon factory workers, at the cost of not having as many billionaires.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Sure you do - there is an entire generation of middle class people in America who started off lower middle class in the 80s and retired millionaires in the 2010s thanks to investments, promotions, increased education, real estate, etc. Not to mention immigrants who came to America as low middle class, worked their butts off in medical/dental/engineering school and are now upper middle class. Such mobility is not as common in Germany or Italy, for example (I keep bringing up Germany because I lived there for 4 years). In Germany you tend to get boxed into your career fairly early and after that you kind of just coast to the end of your life. You don't see aggressive job switching to try to get the highest salary and you don't see 40 year old Germans deciding they want to go to dental school like you do in America (for example). In Germany your future career is pretty much set by your mid-20s depending on how you did in school/exams. Europe tends to look down on risk taking/failure as well which is another reason you don't see many Amazons sprouting from there.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > Such mobility is not as common in Germany or Italy, for example (I keep bringing up Germany because I lived there for 4 years). In Germany you tend to get boxed into your career fairly early and after that you kind of just coast to the end of your life. I'm sorry to say it, but the actual data disagrees with you. > You don't see aggressive job switching to try to get the highest salary and you don't see 40 year old Germans deciding they want to go to dental school like you do in America (for example). In Germany your future career is pretty much set by your mid-20s depending on how you did in school/exams. You only see those things in already upper-middle or upper class environments in the US. An amazon warehouse worker doesn't aggressively switch jobs to maximize salary. They suffer in a shitty job because they need to to survive. If you ignore the existence of the least economically mobile when discussing class mobility, of course you'll see greater than average class mobility. There are more working and lower class people in the US than upper-middle class people, and those people have less mobility than their European counterparts, and data on social and economic mobility backs this up. Stop wearing rose-colored glasses and looking only at the social mobility of your peers. Look at everyone, and look at data. > Sure you do - there is an entire generation of middle class people in America who started off lower middle class in the 80s and retired millionaires in the 2010s thanks to investments, promotions, increased education, real estate, etc. I don't think that's true. There are some, perhaps, but what you're claiming is that there's an entire generation of blue and pink-collar workers who retired with six-figure incomes. That's not true.

germinalphrase 6y ago

Indeed. The freedom to fail without sending one’s self/family into destitution supports a culture of risk taking.

umvi 6y ago
Yet highly socialist countries never seem to have a culture of risk taking/startups/disruption/innovation/etc. I'd love to be proven wrong with an example.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  I’m not advocating for the United States to become “highly socialist”.

umvi 6y ago

If that's the case, why aren't more Amazons emerging from Europe where more basic necessities are being met and therefore more people could be taking risks? Couldn't it also be that having the government take care of people actually reduces their desire to take risks and move up socio economic ladder? In Germany, for example you don't see a lot of middle class people moving into upper class like you do in America.

joshuamorton 6y ago
You don't see a middle class people moving into the upper class here either. Social mobility is higher in Europe than in the US, and economic mobility is higher in Europe as well, excluding the UK. For your first question, Europe has stronger protections for workers than the US, so Amazon would need to pay it's employees more and have more of them. This in general results in less centralized profiting. Bezos would make less but his median employee would make more, meaning as I said before, more social mobility for lower and middle class people like Amazon factory workers, at the cost of not having as many billionaires.
- umvi 6y ago
  Sure you do - there is an entire generation of middle class people in America who started off lower middle class in the 80s and retired millionaires in the 2010s thanks to investments, promotions, increased education, real estate, etc. Not to mention immigrants who came to America as low middle class, worked their butts off in medical/dental/engineering school and are now upper middle class. Such mobility is not as common in Germany or Italy, for example (I keep bringing up Germany because I lived there for 4 years). In Germany you tend to get boxed into your career fairly early and after that you kind of just coast to the end of your life. You don't see aggressive job switching to try to get the highest salary and you don't see 40 year old Germans deciding they want to go to dental school like you do in America (for example). In Germany your future career is pretty much set by your mid-20s depending on how you did in school/exams. Europe tends to look down on risk taking/failure as well which is another reason you don't see many Amazons sprouting from there.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > Such mobility is not as common in Germany or Italy, for example (I keep bringing up Germany because I lived there for 4 years). In Germany you tend to get boxed into your career fairly early and after that you kind of just coast to the end of your life. I'm sorry to say it, but the actual data disagrees with you. > You don't see aggressive job switching to try to get the highest salary and you don't see 40 year old Germans deciding they want to go to dental school like you do in America (for example). In Germany your future career is pretty much set by your mid-20s depending on how you did in school/exams. You only see those things in already upper-middle or upper class environments in the US. An amazon warehouse worker doesn't aggressively switch jobs to maximize salary. They suffer in a shitty job because they need to to survive. If you ignore the existence of the least economically mobile when discussing class mobility, of course you'll see greater than average class mobility. There are more working and lower class people in the US than upper-middle class people, and those people have less mobility than their European counterparts, and data on social and economic mobility backs this up. Stop wearing rose-colored glasses and looking only at the social mobility of your peers. Look at everyone, and look at data. > Sure you do - there is an entire generation of middle class people in America who started off lower middle class in the 80s and retired millionaires in the 2010s thanks to investments, promotions, increased education, real estate, etc. I don't think that's true. There are some, perhaps, but what you're claiming is that there's an entire generation of blue and pink-collar workers who retired with six-figure incomes. That's not true.