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Comment by whb07 | Hacker News Reader

What’s the state of freelance and entrepreneurship in countries where there is a socialized healthcare system? I think this would be easy to look up for places like Canada, UK, France etc?

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Looked it up for Canada. 54% of all private employers are companies of 1-4 people.

"Of the 1,167,978 employer businesses active in Canada, micro-enterprises (firms with 1 to 4 employees) constitute 54.1 percent of all private employers, which is the largest SME group."

https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_03018.html#table...

You're not wrong about the stat, but I'd also point out that we have a political system that isn't as easily manipulated by big companies, meaning there's less power/incentive to be a big company (such as there is in the US).

Canadians seem to distrust big companies more than Americans do.

I would point out the fragmentation of workers is multivariate far beyond just the single payer + single provider healthcare system .

I don't think it's as complicated as all that. I am in Canada and the truth is with 35 million people, you just aren't going to have giant companies with 10,000+ staff. Outside of a few companies in oil+gas, forestry, transport, telecom and banks, most companies can get by with a few hundred employees.

Of course, some of Canada's globally renowned companies have faded too. Blackberry used to employ 14,000 people in Canada as recently as 2011, but they're probably about 20% of that size today.

Looked it up for Germany (my home) and it is just 9,7% of the working population:

https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/38297/umfrage...

Even though we have universal health care it is not free and not paid from taxes but from individual direct fees. the minimum monthly rate is currently a whopping ~400€ (450$). They will decrease the minimum rate to 200€ next year.

As far as I understand the German system has lots of limitations on freelancing though, to protect the employees. For example, as a developer you can't freelance for one client only, as the client company could be in hook for employer payments. You need at least two customers.

Not a German national, so I'm happy to be corrected.

No, you're basically right. But it's more like a grey area: There are ways to circumvent this. But of course this introduces a lot of unfairness because rookies usually will be out of the know.

Kind of reminiscent of a lot of tax-scandals that come along regularly: Usually nothing illegal but because of well meant intentions created a complicated system, gaming the system benefits only those that are able to do so.

My understanding is that the German health care system still has disincentives for sporadic work, because you pay a higher rate under the philosophy that "you have to insure yourself first, and make up for the expected lulls in income" or something like that. I read stories on reddit about immigrants getting burned by that when they were self employed.

The biggest disincentive is the progressive tax-rate. But you stay on your public health-care plan as long as you don't reach a threshold of time spent per week. But of course, if you're an immigrant and never were covered by public healthcare then yes, you'll get burned.

Interestingly, those nations also have other regulations which protect labor, but may also make it slower and more difficult to hire/fire rapidly. So there's a range of factors beyond just universal healthcare at play.

As a supporting example: Israel ranks very highly on entrepreneurship metrics, and has a single-payer/multiple-provider socialized healthcare system.

I suppose we should also balance out how work is structured around those countries. Some governments prefer setting up and staffing their own agency for a given sector or situation rather than going full outsourcing. So people who would be working in the private sector still end up in public jobs even with a socialized healthcare system.

Usually in Europe/Japan/Australia/Canada there are fewer entrepreneurs. Maybe its because a wider safety net and narrower differences between rich and poor makes the leap to start a business less rewarding and worthwhile. Maybe people are less comfortable with taking risks.

Sweden is second only to Silicon Valley when it comes to unicorns. My friends there actually credit their safety net - it’s easier to take risks when you know if you fail you won’t end up sleeping in the street.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/why-does-sweden-produ...

makes it easier for companies to hire/fire people too

> Sweden is second only to Silicon Valley when it comes to unicorns

This is like saying the Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United States. Yeah, it's true, but...

Founder from Europe here. When I made my decision to go self-employed most people and relatives thought I was foolish. The more so, the lower your/their social class or status is.

I too relate this mindset to our safety net.

But: The upside of being employed is very little risk of anything and a lot of paperwork/bureaucracy is done for you (Healthcare, unemployment insurance, retirement, accidents, your taxes etc). You'll pay a hefty premium for being employed but then again most others do too. So going self-employed is not just a bad deal in terms of risk it is also bad in terms of non-income related extra-work you have to take on.

Or maybe the investors don't have the same appetite for risk in Europe.

Maybe. It just isn't obvious to me the correlation OP talked about is real.

I'm not talking about countries that have a more socialized, or social democratic, or even outright socialist system. I'm imagining the U.S. in its free enterprise self-made glory with stronger social safety nets, at least for the net most pressingly attached to employment status.

Social democracies are pretty much capitalist economies with better social safety nets and somewhat higher taxes than the US -- and you can't get a better safety net without increasing taxes to pay for it.

Despite the word "socialism", most socialist and social-democratic political parties in Europe are not trying to replace the market economy with socialized ownership of the means of production.

Free enterprise coupled with a decent safety net is exactly what those countries you Americans deem Socialist are like. On top, they rank higher than the US in terms of economic freedoms, while some got more self made billionaires per capita than the US.

Freelancing? It varies greatly country by country. Easy and cheap in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia. Difficult and expensive in Germany. Moderate in Sweden and Canada.

Freelancing population is growing globally.

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