Comment by AlisdairO | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlisdairO | Hacker News Reader

Overall I found this article disappointingly full of worthless generalisations.

There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots, in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue.

I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that the US is superior in every way is ridiculous.

Europe, on the whole, balances lower individual buying power and higher unemployment against taking substantially better care of its citizens, and much better class mobility. It's certainly arguable that the average citizen experiences a higher overall quality of life in (western) Europe than in the US. I can absolutely see how that style of life is not for everyone, so it's great that countries like the US exist, but personally, I prefer to live in a european model.

As for the value of a degree, when I went into my programme I was a decent enough (for my age) coder, with a serious weight problem and very limited social skills, and when I left I was a better coder with some good fundamental background knowledge, fit, and socially confident. My degree program did me the world of good - it's fine that it's not the route for everyone, but pretending that all degrees are worthless makes you look silly.

edit: It appears that my infrequent reading of The Economist has resulted in an unnecessary rant on my part. My apologies to the author!

>I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that the US is superior in every way is ridiculous.

I think you're misreading him. He's making fun of the reporting in the Economist which is alternately, "is Europe going to collapse?" "Is America going to become Europe and then collapse?" and "OMG scary Chinese." The Economist has a fairly particular world view, and he was skeptical that someone who reads it regularly can come out with a different one.

Ahh, I see. Thank you for the correction :-)

I think it's actually meant to be a comment on the editorial slant of The Economist, which is generally not in favor of the choices that are made by European states.

(They give reasons though, which makes it an interesting read even though I frequently disagree with them.)

"Europe, on the whole, balances lower individual buying power and higher unemployment against taking substantially better care of its citizens,"

"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money.

Right now, the unemployment rate in most European countries is almost the same as it is in the US:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&...

>>"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money.

Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem.

See Mancur Olson's "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups"

"Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem."

When you are taxed, that money may or may not go toward something you want to purchase (and many times, the people in the middle and upper classes are paying for programs that they will never use). That money is gone and you have that much less to spend, save, or invest.

You also don't really have a say in where it's spent.

That's an interesting way to see taxation: as a possibility for a group of people to purchase something that otherwise would go unpurchased.

"sharing the value of common resources through taxation and public expenditure" is a related article: http://www.feasta.org/documents/feastareview/robertson.htm

"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money

Yes, I know. I prefer to lose some of that freedom, because I believe the society I live in is better for it. I'm not someone who believes in individual freedom above all - I just think a high level of individual freedom is important.

Good data on the unemployment figures, although I believe (I may be wrong) that in the past Europe's unemployment has been worse than the US.

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