9 ms·

Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. Most business owners I know s

Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with. I will concede that there are a fair percentage of businesses that are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. However, to paint an entire nation with a broad stroke is ignorance at it's worst. It would be the same as saying "The Brits have terrible teeth" or "The French smell." It may be true for a percentage of people but is no way to address a body of people.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mjburgess 13y ago
You have this thing called "The American Dream" and you have an entire cultural history tied to self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier"... Clearly every single american isnt subject to the same cultural pre-occupations, that's absurd. But there are only certain cultural phenomena possible in one place or another. A right-wing party in the UK could not even begin to use any of the ideas or rhetoric of the republican party - they'd be widespread revulsion. We dont sing our national anthem in the UK, we dont "pleg" anything, we dont consider our country "Exceptional" (hence American Exceptionalism). There hasnt been the suggestion that our prime minister is impotent for not interfering in Ukraine, at least, nothing like the inferiority-complex about Obama's lack of big-dickery. The idea that the west is culturally homogenous is "Bullshit". As compared to anywhere in europe, americans are vastly more market-oriented, mistrustful of government, approving of business success, etc. It is simply the case, insofar as I can see, that "business" isnt really a dream of any kind in europe. People dont grow up wanting to run/own/be in business in anyway, we dont really have an "explorer"/inventor dreams either. A considerable amount has been written by the european experience of america and an almost ubquitious theme in the accounts is "the feeling of unlimited possibility", an ostentatiousness and pre-occupation with wealth, etc.
- melvinram 13y ago
  "The American Dream", self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier" are all good things IMHO. However, they aren't the same as "unreflectingly capitalistic" and "pre-occupied with monetary success". I'm not going to address the rest of your America bashing because the response requires a nuanced answer that I don't have the time to write today. I'll leave that to others.
  - tunap 13y ago
    [quote]"The American Dream", self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier" are all good things IMHO.[/quote] Everything in moderation. Here in the US, however, moderation has no place. It's all or nothing mentality, like a fricking casino bet. Fair compensation for effort is dead when everybody is taking risks for maximum rewards and training their work-force to pander the lowest common denominator... the hard sell. Everywhere I go retail workers are badgering me to upsell, banks & home improvement chains are the worst, IMO. That's what happens when there are 100's of candidates for every job opening and all the competition has been killed off by the oligops. Everywhere you go in the US, if it's a large enough customer base, it's oligops all the way down.
  - mjburgess 13y ago
    > However, they aren't the same as "unreflectingly capitalistic" and "pre-occupied with monetary success". They have become inextricably linked. Maybe early in the 19th C. you'd be right. After the rise of american industry and maufacture and its corresponding propaganda (edison, etc.) AND after the cold war, "capitalism", "democracy", "patriotism" all became intertwined. Such that today The American Dream is almost purely capitalist and pragmatic. The American Dream has, to my eyes, for a long time been directed towards individuals - it is their dream. A person achieves their dream. Once, perhaps, The American Dream was a dream for Americans - a common enterprise, with common goals, something achieved for everyone or no one, etc. The author of this article did not explain why ONO was part of a common enterpise, which its activity was making all our lives better and helping us achieve our ideals. He said, "built originally by Eugenio Galdon and mostly by my friend Richard Alden between 2001 and 2011, is in the process of being sold to Vodafone for around $9.5bn, and nobody cares." If that's doesnt read hollow and pathetic to you I dont know what could. It's complete mythologising of two people "building" a company, it's display of hurt feeling over the fact that $10bn doesnt impress people enough, its utter pre-occupation with self-aggrandizement and money. The rhetoric in this article is almost suffocating its message and very few can tell - because this rhetoric has become the language in which we phrase our dreams today.
coldtea 13y ago
>Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Well, most of the business people I know of, only see a need in areas that they thing are profitable. How many try to actual affect people's lives in substancial ways, instead of building the next Instagram (and now WhatsApp)? >Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning Preoccupation with financial success (that idea of continuous enlargment) is what has killed a lot of companies from functioning. They had good product X, people loved, it sold in droves, and then some BS managers just have to expand to field Y, and ruin all the qualities that made X and the company good in the first place. >I will concede that there are a fair percentage of businesses that are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. However, to paint an entire nation with a broad stroke is ignorance at it's worst. Well, that's how generalisations work -- and they are a valuable compass, it's not all prejudice. It doesn't take everybody being pre-occupied with monetary success to call a nation as "pre-occupied with monetary success". It just takes a more-than-usual number of such people, or a culture more open to it. If in a country X there are 1% preoccupied with such things and in country Y there are 10%, then the general sentiment that Y nation is far more preoccupied with such things is valid.
- melvinram 13y ago
  > Well, most of the business people I know of, only see a need in areas that they thing are profitable Yes and people only live in areas where they have a way to get food, air and water. A business can't function without profits. Naturally, a business owner will spend their energy on addressing needs through a model that can sustain itself. Others may choose to go the non-profit route and try to sustain themselves through grants/subsidies/benefactors/etc. There are 1.5 million non-profits in the US [1]. One way or another, the organization has to sustain itself. [1] http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/howmany.html http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/howmany.htm...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Yes and people only live in areas where they have a way to get food, air and water. A business can't function without profits. Well, tons of musicians, writers, painters etc don't give up if they have to function without profits. In fact lots of them keep at their craft, without ever achieving much monetary success, and they produce stuff. A person making a web service could do just as much, if he really wanted to "fill a need and change the world". At least he/she could go at it for a reasonable income, without aiming for bucketloads of money. And yet, lots of people here sneer at "lifestyle businesses".
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tete 13y ago
> Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with. I disagree. Capitalism is used in political rhetoric in the US, more than it is in (mainland) Europe. I don't think that this statement can be compared with "terrible teeth" or "French smell", because those things are globally seen as bad, while having a strong pride of financial success is neither in Europe nor in the US seen as bad per se. I think financial success is simply used as a universal measure of success in the US, because capitalism as a philosophical, social and political thing had it's strongest development in the US and UK. Another thing that added to this is Marx criticism. Now, I don't talk about political communism, but the criticisms that liberals and capitalists tend to agree with, while the broad society (by that I mean people who simply never studied economy or philosophy), but know that communism emerged from this criticism of capitalism don't want to be associated with it. The meaning of socialism and communism vary a lot depending on the country you live in. That is because in the US it sometimes nearly synonymous to "enemy dictatorship", these the term the term might in Europe be used for a totalitarian system, but also as the resistance to such a thing, as in Nazi-Germany. It might be about not making everything about money, but also many other things. Every country in Europe has another history. In some you can make a communist party that even company owners would vote, while in others nobody would vote for such a party. I think it's also not fair to make such statements about the whole US, but depending on the society you live in success always means financial success. If you live in London, maybe in a banking district this is surely more true than if you live in another part of the city or somewhere else. With the US it is really hard, especially for Europeans the US can be a hard way to look at, because it is considered one country and since you can only hear a certain amount about it, even if you are very interested into the country. The chance that you for example hear Ron Paul saying that someone who dies because he cannot afford a surgery can be proud of supporting his country or something like that is more likely than many other things. For many people especially in big cities, no matter where on the planet capitalism, liberalism and democracy bind together and others see socialism, liberalism and democracy as one thing, while others see that as impossible. This was really political, but the way these terms relate can also change how you define success. But that's not all, cause there are different reasons for wanting to be financially successful. If you live in the US it might be that you just want your children to be able to go to college. So even if this is the only reason you might for someone from Europe, where you can study cheaply or even for free, look really focused on monetary success. The difference between the states and cities in the US should really be considered in making such comments, but when people talk about another country they tend to talk about the political elite of a country and in the US it appears to be focused on financial success and parties that reject such rhetoric aren't usually considered. As a European you often don't even know that there are other parties that people are able to vote for. Basically the reasons are about nonces. That's why Europeans think US people are super capitalist and US people tend to think Europeans are super socialist. None of these statements is true, even if I strongly agree that US people seem to take more pride in having companies making money, just like other countries take pride in making great wine or whatever. Often such things look kinda like a religion to outsiders. You know, like capitalism where the market is your god and everyone tries to please it, but you cannot really control it and it is hard to see what the outcome is and the capitalists are like "You should not try to control it, because it knows best", basically like "Don't try to play god" and no matter who you are you are, capitalist, socialist, communist, republican or democrat, everyone thinks when your party finally wins everything will be amazing, people will finally see the truth and everyone will be living together nicely. Socialists think everyone will share everything and capitalists that everyone will be rich and only pay for good companies and it will all somehow work out, with only minor bad happenings. I don't think it's that way and that people might be better off not caring about things like other people's definition of success, especially not when it's a generalization, but also not of individuals, because it is incredibly easy to be wrong about it. I think we should try to not lose trust that humans, as social (in biological terms), as long as they are sane generally tend to measure success also from a social perspective (see various foundations), even if they of course also are able to forget about it. And of course power corrupts that sanity, be it power through money or power through a political position. I guess that's why democracies are neither perfect nor evil.
jdietrich 13y ago
The most generous American employers barely meet the minimum legal requirements in Europe. Americans tolerate conditions of employment that would be utterly unthinkable to most western Europeans. EU workers are entitled to a minimum of four weeks paid holiday. The EU requires 20 weeks of paid maternity leave, mandates a maximum working week of 48 hours for most employees and enshrines a great deal of protection against unfair dismissal. Those pan-EU minimums are exceeded in most member states. A very large proportion of European companies, especially French and German businesses, regard the wellbeing of their employees as a primary aim, not a cost of doing business. Planning is done in the long-term, with the creation of stable and sustainable jobs being a primary objective. Silicon valley 'perks' like subsidised canteens and employer-sponsored social clubs are the norm for semi-skilled manual workers in many EU countries. That's before we even address things like generous welfare benefits, state healthcare and other policies that are as normal in the EU as they are unthinkable in the US. The Democratic party would be considered centre-right in most European countries. A left wing in the European sense simply does not exist in the US. 20 seats in the French Senate are held by communists - not socialists (they hold 128 seats), but bona fide Internationale-singing, red flag flying communists. If you think that Americans aren't unusually capitalistic, you really need to travel more.
- wooter 13y ago
  > The most generous American employers barely meet the minimum legal requirements in Europe. Americans tolerate conditions of employment that would be utterly unthinkable to most western Europeans. Yea, googlers live like shit. Oh and work visas for Europe aren't in huge demand and don't run out early every single time. Also, we don't have dramatically more immigrants from Europe than visa-versa. OH OH and italy, spain, and greece don't have a huge unemployment problem - all those riots are celebratory of that fact.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mjburgess 13y ago

You have this thing called "The American Dream" and you have an entire cultural history tied to self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier"... Clearly every single american isnt subject to the same cultural pre-occupations, that's absurd. But there are only certain cultural phenomena possible in one place or another. A right-wing party in the UK could not even begin to use any of the ideas or rhetoric of the republican party - they'd be widespread revulsion. We dont sing our national anthem in the UK, we dont "pleg" anything, we dont consider our country "Exceptional" (hence American Exceptionalism). There hasnt been the suggestion that our prime minister is impotent for not interfering in Ukraine, at least, nothing like the inferiority-complex about Obama's lack of big-dickery. The idea that the west is culturally homogenous is "Bullshit". As compared to anywhere in europe, americans are vastly more market-oriented, mistrustful of government, approving of business success, etc. It is simply the case, insofar as I can see, that "business" isnt really a dream of any kind in europe. People dont grow up wanting to run/own/be in business in anyway, we dont really have an "explorer"/inventor dreams either. A considerable amount has been written by the european experience of america and an almost ubquitious theme in the accounts is "the feeling of unlimited possibility", an ostentatiousness and pre-occupation with wealth, etc.

melvinram 13y ago
"The American Dream", self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier" are all good things IMHO. However, they aren't the same as "unreflectingly capitalistic" and "pre-occupied with monetary success". I'm not going to address the rest of your America bashing because the response requires a nuanced answer that I don't have the time to write today. I'll leave that to others.
- tunap 13y ago
  [quote]"The American Dream", self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier" are all good things IMHO.[/quote] Everything in moderation. Here in the US, however, moderation has no place. It's all or nothing mentality, like a fricking casino bet. Fair compensation for effort is dead when everybody is taking risks for maximum rewards and training their work-force to pander the lowest common denominator... the hard sell. Everywhere I go retail workers are badgering me to upsell, banks & home improvement chains are the worst, IMO. That's what happens when there are 100's of candidates for every job opening and all the competition has been killed off by the oligops. Everywhere you go in the US, if it's a large enough customer base, it's oligops all the way down.
- mjburgess 13y ago
  > However, they aren't the same as "unreflectingly capitalistic" and "pre-occupied with monetary success". They have become inextricably linked. Maybe early in the 19th C. you'd be right. After the rise of american industry and maufacture and its corresponding propaganda (edison, etc.) AND after the cold war, "capitalism", "democracy", "patriotism" all became intertwined. Such that today The American Dream is almost purely capitalist and pragmatic. The American Dream has, to my eyes, for a long time been directed towards individuals - it is their dream. A person achieves their dream. Once, perhaps, The American Dream was a dream for Americans - a common enterprise, with common goals, something achieved for everyone or no one, etc. The author of this article did not explain why ONO was part of a common enterpise, which its activity was making all our lives better and helping us achieve our ideals. He said, "built originally by Eugenio Galdon and mostly by my friend Richard Alden between 2001 and 2011, is in the process of being sold to Vodafone for around $9.5bn, and nobody cares." If that's doesnt read hollow and pathetic to you I dont know what could. It's complete mythologising of two people "building" a company, it's display of hurt feeling over the fact that $10bn doesnt impress people enough, its utter pre-occupation with self-aggrandizement and money. The rhetoric in this article is almost suffocating its message and very few can tell - because this rhetoric has become the language in which we phrase our dreams today.

coldtea 13y ago

>Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Well, most of the business people I know of, only see a need in areas that they thing are profitable. How many try to actual affect people's lives in substancial ways, instead of building the next Instagram (and now WhatsApp)? >Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning Preoccupation with financial success (that idea of continuous enlargment) is what has killed a lot of companies from functioning. They had good product X, people loved, it sold in droves, and then some BS managers just have to expand to field Y, and ruin all the qualities that made X and the company good in the first place. >I will concede that there are a fair percentage of businesses that are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. However, to paint an entire nation with a broad stroke is ignorance at it's worst. Well, that's how generalisations work -- and they are a valuable compass, it's not all prejudice. It doesn't take everybody being pre-occupied with monetary success to call a nation as "pre-occupied with monetary success". It just takes a more-than-usual number of such people, or a culture more open to it. If in a country X there are 1% preoccupied with such things and in country Y there are 10%, then the general sentiment that Y nation is far more preoccupied with such things is valid.

melvinram 13y ago
> Well, most of the business people I know of, only see a need in areas that they thing are profitable Yes and people only live in areas where they have a way to get food, air and water. A business can't function without profits. Naturally, a business owner will spend their energy on addressing needs through a model that can sustain itself. Others may choose to go the non-profit route and try to sustain themselves through grants/subsidies/benefactors/etc. There are 1.5 million non-profits in the US [1]. One way or another, the organization has to sustain itself. [1] http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/howmany.html http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/faqs/html/howmany.htm...
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Yes and people only live in areas where they have a way to get food, air and water. A business can't function without profits. Well, tons of musicians, writers, painters etc don't give up if they have to function without profits. In fact lots of them keep at their craft, without ever achieving much monetary success, and they produce stuff. A person making a web service could do just as much, if he really wanted to "fill a need and change the world". At least he/she could go at it for a reasonable income, without aiming for bucketloads of money. And yet, lots of people here sneer at "lifestyle businesses".

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tete 13y ago

> Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with. I disagree. Capitalism is used in political rhetoric in the US, more than it is in (mainland) Europe. I don't think that this statement can be compared with "terrible teeth" or "French smell", because those things are globally seen as bad, while having a strong pride of financial success is neither in Europe nor in the US seen as bad per se. I think financial success is simply used as a universal measure of success in the US, because capitalism as a philosophical, social and political thing had it's strongest development in the US and UK. Another thing that added to this is Marx criticism. Now, I don't talk about political communism, but the criticisms that liberals and capitalists tend to agree with, while the broad society (by that I mean people who simply never studied economy or philosophy), but know that communism emerged from this criticism of capitalism don't want to be associated with it. The meaning of socialism and communism vary a lot depending on the country you live in. That is because in the US it sometimes nearly synonymous to "enemy dictatorship", these the term the term might in Europe be used for a totalitarian system, but also as the resistance to such a thing, as in Nazi-Germany. It might be about not making everything about money, but also many other things. Every country in Europe has another history. In some you can make a communist party that even company owners would vote, while in others nobody would vote for such a party. I think it's also not fair to make such statements about the whole US, but depending on the society you live in success always means financial success. If you live in London, maybe in a banking district this is surely more true than if you live in another part of the city or somewhere else. With the US it is really hard, especially for Europeans the US can be a hard way to look at, because it is considered one country and since you can only hear a certain amount about it, even if you are very interested into the country. The chance that you for example hear Ron Paul saying that someone who dies because he cannot afford a surgery can be proud of supporting his country or something like that is more likely than many other things. For many people especially in big cities, no matter where on the planet capitalism, liberalism and democracy bind together and others see socialism, liberalism and democracy as one thing, while others see that as impossible. This was really political, but the way these terms relate can also change how you define success. But that's not all, cause there are different reasons for wanting to be financially successful. If you live in the US it might be that you just want your children to be able to go to college. So even if this is the only reason you might for someone from Europe, where you can study cheaply or even for free, look really focused on monetary success. The difference between the states and cities in the US should really be considered in making such comments, but when people talk about another country they tend to talk about the political elite of a country and in the US it appears to be focused on financial success and parties that reject such rhetoric aren't usually considered. As a European you often don't even know that there are other parties that people are able to vote for. Basically the reasons are about nonces. That's why Europeans think US people are super capitalist and US people tend to think Europeans are super socialist. None of these statements is true, even if I strongly agree that US people seem to take more pride in having companies making money, just like other countries take pride in making great wine or whatever. Often such things look kinda like a religion to outsiders. You know, like capitalism where the market is your god and everyone tries to please it, but you cannot really control it and it is hard to see what the outcome is and the capitalists are like "You should not try to control it, because it knows best", basically like "Don't try to play god" and no matter who you are you are, capitalist, socialist, communist, republican or democrat, everyone thinks when your party finally wins everything will be amazing, people will finally see the truth and everyone will be living together nicely. Socialists think everyone will share everything and capitalists that everyone will be rich and only pay for good companies and it will all somehow work out, with only minor bad happenings. I don't think it's that way and that people might be better off not caring about things like other people's definition of success, especially not when it's a generalization, but also not of individuals, because it is incredibly easy to be wrong about it. I think we should try to not lose trust that humans, as social (in biological terms), as long as they are sane generally tend to measure success also from a social perspective (see various foundations), even if they of course also are able to forget about it. And of course power corrupts that sanity, be it power through money or power through a political position. I guess that's why democracies are neither perfect nor evil.

jdietrich 13y ago

The most generous American employers barely meet the minimum legal requirements in Europe. Americans tolerate conditions of employment that would be utterly unthinkable to most western Europeans. EU workers are entitled to a minimum of four weeks paid holiday. The EU requires 20 weeks of paid maternity leave, mandates a maximum working week of 48 hours for most employees and enshrines a great deal of protection against unfair dismissal. Those pan-EU minimums are exceeded in most member states. A very large proportion of European companies, especially French and German businesses, regard the wellbeing of their employees as a primary aim, not a cost of doing business. Planning is done in the long-term, with the creation of stable and sustainable jobs being a primary objective. Silicon valley 'perks' like subsidised canteens and employer-sponsored social clubs are the norm for semi-skilled manual workers in many EU countries. That's before we even address things like generous welfare benefits, state healthcare and other policies that are as normal in the EU as they are unthinkable in the US. The Democratic party would be considered centre-right in most European countries. A left wing in the European sense simply does not exist in the US. 20 seats in the French Senate are held by communists - not socialists (they hold 128 seats), but bona fide Internationale-singing, red flag flying communists. If you think that Americans aren't unusually capitalistic, you really need to travel more.

wooter 13y ago
> The most generous American employers barely meet the minimum legal requirements in Europe. Americans tolerate conditions of employment that would be utterly unthinkable to most western Europeans. Yea, googlers live like shit. Oh and work visas for Europe aren't in huge demand and don't run out early every single time. Also, we don't have dramatically more immigrants from Europe than visa-versa. OH OH and italy, spain, and greece don't have a huge unemployment problem - all those riots are celebratory of that fact.