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One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and Chin
by 0xpgm 10d ago
One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and China embrace entreprenuership wholeheartedly.
If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.
- _heimdall 10d agoThe CCP retains too much power over businesses and business leaders for me to consider them to "embrace entrepreneurship wholeheartedly."
- ohyoutravel 10d agoDidn’t China force Meta to unwind Manus? In no way is China embracing entrepreneurs wholeheartedly.
- monideas 10d agoThe US has something called CFIUS. This is normal statecraft
- ohyoutravel 10d agoI believe Manus was a Chinese company.
- monideas 10d agoBut Meta isn’t
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- petesergeant 10d agoThe US _also_ embraces rent-seeking, regulatory capture, and the externalization of social and environmental costs as entrepreneurship.
- pyrale 10d ago> One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture No, that's just the 2010s propaganda fed to you by people who assert that not letting them do whatever they want is "bureaucratic". These very same people are completely fine lobbying legislature for more moat when they benefit from it. The difference between "middle democracies" or whatever that means and the US is just that politics aren't corrupted enough yet that they can buy whatever they want.
- mmrezaie 10d agoI did some admin work for the startup around 5 years ago and I have to say EU countries specially mine Sweden is far more clear. In USA you are basically hopeless without a lawyer. but I did a search and for clarity of rule I searched and this came up using AI: World Bank’s broad “Regulatory Quality” measure supports that direction: Sweden scored 95.28/100 and the US 90.57/100 in its latest comparable 2023 data. I couldn't find EU wide score. I wanted to help someone to get work visa and I thought it is like Sweden and you just fill a small form, oh boy! We hired a lawyer for just filling the US side application.
- enaaem 9d agoWhen it comes to innovation Sweden punches far above its weight.
- petesergeant 10d agoHeavily country-dependent, in practice. The UK lets you set up a company online cheaply, quickly, and filing is easy. Insurance is plentiful and sensible, as are business bank accounts. The law is mostly straight-forward. Setting up a German limited-liability company OTOH involves putting down some ghastly large sum as a guarantee. But yes, Americans are told they have the freest speech and the freest markets, and don't seem to question either.
- mitxela 10d agoI live in one, it's definitely true. It doesn't mean entrepreneurship doesn't exist, but there is a lot of bureaucracy and the bureaucracy is iron law. They will go to any extreme to make reality align with the bureaucracy. For example if you build a building without permission, the police will come by with a bulldozer, demolish your building, dispose of the remains, and then bill you for it. Even if the building is hosting the world's first AGI, or whatever extremely important thing you can think of - there is no excuse for not complying with the bureaucracy. Whereas the US would allow you to keep it and maybe pay a fine.
- InsideOutSanta 10d agoIt's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
- hilbert42 10d ago"…as a normal part of a free market." That's unfettered capitalism at work—"free" implies no bounds. Multinational corporations have never been more powerful now than at anytime in history.
- mcv 10d agoAnd that hurts the free market. A free market should be transparent, have low barriers to entry, and not be dominated by monopolies or cartels. There's nothing free about American capitalism.
- InsideOutSanta 10d ago> "free" implies no bounds No bounds for whom? Your implied premise is that private companies cannot impede others' freedom, which isn't true. In unfettered capitalism, only the largest corporations have the power and money to be free.
- anhner 10d agowell you see, maybe one day they'll be the CEO of that multi-trillion dollar company, so it's better to err on the side of capitalism. /s
- roncesvalles 10d agoDon't you see that the same bureaucracy that adds friction to entrepreneurship also serves the purpose of protecting the incumbents? It is odious to start a company in the EU. There are many accounts of this on HN itself.
- mitxela 10d ago
- NuclearPM 10d agoThis is just wrong. The US prioritizes billionaires over entrepreneurs.
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- hilbert42 10d ago"If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves." If they were to change some within the citizenry would stand to gain at the expense of others. Inequality would increase. Seems—for now—middle democracies aren't prepared to pay the high price of social upheaval such a policy would create.
- noir_lord 10d agoSome of us are citizens of what where previously world powers, even then it wasn't great for the average person living there (understating it wildly). When people go on about a Golden Age, I'm the awkward one who asks "Golden for who exactly?"
- throwaway283737 10d agoYou're getting downvoted now, but it's the Europeans who are running out of money for healthcare and public services (and voting for neo-fascist parties promising fixes that will never come). European sentiment is totally out of touch with European reality. They'll post gleefully online about how much better their life is and then go back to their sardine flat where they can't afford to pay for heating, and it never ever occurs to them to reconsider any priors. They'll huff copium on Reddit about how bad American healthcare is, while waiting for years for desperately needed surgeries, paying far more for healthcare by way of taxes than any American does. Are their ideas out of touch? No, it's reality that's wrong.
- bryanlarsen 10d agoAmerican government deficits are far larger than European or Canadian deficits. It's not the Europeans who are running out of money.
- jgwil2 10d ago> paying far more for healthcare by way of taxes than any American does This is blatantly false. Americans spend 18% of GDP on healthcare, while most European countries are around 10%.