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Thanks for the context. These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. Your point on innovation is but one ov

Thanks for the context. These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. Your point on innovation is but one overlooked factor that these stats don't account for. I'd love to get some global statistics on educational knowledge of 18 year olds in all of these countries, and also get statistics on the per capita numbers on new businesses opening up by this age group in these countries as well. Just a thought that IMO may not skew these stats so much towards monocultural/collectivist societies so much.

lolcraft 13y ago
These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. eyeroll. You know what's typically American? This kind of masturbatory pop sociology bullshit. Something in US culture makes its citizens specially prone to this kind of hasty over-generalization: a Blue/Red outlook on civilization, the globe neatly divided on the Entrepreneurial City on the Hill (i. e. the United States) and Conformist Worker Bee cultures (i. e. everyone else). You have no idea of how condescending this particular national meme comes across to the rest of the world -- specially when talking about primary education test scores, of all things. History seen as nothing but war between economic classes indeed, it's just we're taking the side of capitalists. Of course, mention to this kind of americano that the most vibrant economy in the world is Japan, and they'll blush. As they should. Or that Germany's much praised labour reform in the Schroeder era actually gave to unions seats in the management board. Not easy to frame in Reaganite shades of grey. Or the economic status of Sweden, and its leadership in many industries. Try to think about that, next time you find yourself saluting the flag or something.
quinnchr 13y ago
The U.S. actually ranks pretty low among OECD countries in terms of rate of entrepreneurship. There is a strong correlation between a strong safety net and entrepreneurship.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  And I'm sure innovation in general is even harder to monitor. Well I still stand by my observation that the top rated countries are on average more monocultural and collectivistic (which would lead to better safety nets I'd hope).

lolcraft 13y ago

These statistics favor monocultural societies and collectivist societies over individualist ones. eyeroll. You know what's typically American? This kind of masturbatory pop sociology bullshit. Something in US culture makes its citizens specially prone to this kind of hasty over-generalization: a Blue/Red outlook on civilization, the globe neatly divided on the Entrepreneurial City on the Hill (i. e. the United States) and Conformist Worker Bee cultures (i. e. everyone else). You have no idea of how condescending this particular national meme comes across to the rest of the world -- specially when talking about primary education test scores, of all things. History seen as nothing but war between economic classes indeed, it's just we're taking the side of capitalists. Of course, mention to this kind of americano that the most vibrant economy in the world is Japan, and they'll blush. As they should. Or that Germany's much praised labour reform in the Schroeder era actually gave to unions seats in the management board. Not easy to frame in Reaganite shades of grey. Or the economic status of Sweden, and its leadership in many industries. Try to think about that, next time you find yourself saluting the flag or something.

quinnchr 13y ago

The U.S. actually ranks pretty low among OECD countries in terms of rate of entrepreneurship. There is a strong correlation between a strong safety net and entrepreneurship.

tokenizer 13y ago
And I'm sure innovation in general is even harder to monitor. Well I still stand by my observation that the top rated countries are on average more monocultural and collectivistic (which would lead to better safety nets I'd hope).