I broadly like & agree with this characterization! One note though —
> The US, in turn, benefitted from … a combination of the New Deal and not being economically decimated by World War II. As European nations rebuilt their economies and constitutions from scratch, scarred by the memory of the Great Depression, they were sympathetic towards social-democratic policies and strong unions. The US felt no need to change course and give the workforce a greater role in economic governance.
This is path dependence, sure, but it's also the way that historical circumstance affects political culture (more sympathy/support for social democracy + worker protections), which then gets institutionalized as policy, right? I think culture & its perpetuation does matter — but that its origins are deeper than surface-level personality traits (e.g. tall poppy syndrome) + policy is often required to "lock it in"
Yes I basically agree and it is often hard to distinguish these on a practical level. I think where I landed was a version of: "if there's a policy lever you can pull to fix it, de-emphasise culture", "if it's a common bias you see among people who hold power, but there isn't a lever you can pull to change it, call it culture". But I realise that's imperfect.
I alluded to Marxism in the intro and this is ultimately why only the very crudest of Marxists ended up arguing that economic forces determined everything. Even late Engels acknowledged base and superstructure were interdependent to some degree. Thanks for reading!
The 'why we should care' is I think because having a high concentration of the most powerful and successful corporations outside of Europe is material both economically and politically (see last years' reports that 50% of Nvidia employees are worth more than $25m).
Comparative advantage - sure - but when one sector is so important for the global economy it's hard to be happy about focusing on handbags.
I don't find that Europeans are culturally meaningfully less entrepreneurial, but it is harder to scale. To me that seems to mostly be about availability of capital and knowhow and ultimately the strength of public markets. Amazon and Uber seem to have negotiated our internal barriers pretty well.
I broadly like & agree with this characterization! One note though —
> The US, in turn, benefitted from … a combination of the New Deal and not being economically decimated by World War II. As European nations rebuilt their economies and constitutions from scratch, scarred by the memory of the Great Depression, they were sympathetic towards social-democratic policies and strong unions. The US felt no need to change course and give the workforce a greater role in economic governance.
This is path dependence, sure, but it's also the way that historical circumstance affects political culture (more sympathy/support for social democracy + worker protections), which then gets institutionalized as policy, right? I think culture & its perpetuation does matter — but that its origins are deeper than surface-level personality traits (e.g. tall poppy syndrome) + policy is often required to "lock it in"
Yes I basically agree and it is often hard to distinguish these on a practical level. I think where I landed was a version of: "if there's a policy lever you can pull to fix it, de-emphasise culture", "if it's a common bias you see among people who hold power, but there isn't a lever you can pull to change it, call it culture". But I realise that's imperfect.
I alluded to Marxism in the intro and this is ultimately why only the very crudest of Marxists ended up arguing that economic forces determined everything. Even late Engels acknowledged base and superstructure were interdependent to some degree. Thanks for reading!
The 'why we should care' is I think because having a high concentration of the most powerful and successful corporations outside of Europe is material both economically and politically (see last years' reports that 50% of Nvidia employees are worth more than $25m).
Comparative advantage - sure - but when one sector is so important for the global economy it's hard to be happy about focusing on handbags.
I don't find that Europeans are culturally meaningfully less entrepreneurial, but it is harder to scale. To me that seems to mostly be about availability of capital and knowhow and ultimately the strength of public markets. Amazon and Uber seem to have negotiated our internal barriers pretty well.