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Comment by jonfw | Hacker News Reader

I feel that the successes in those countries result more from their cultures than their governments.

One of the common criticisms of those countries is the singular culture that creates social pressure. Social pressure can go a long way in these sorts of events.

Taking these tiny, mono-cultural, rich countries and comparing them to the world's leading superpower does not make a strong argument.

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> That's government work for you

> Here are some government's where it worked

> Those don't count because otherwise I'd have to retire my tired old screed from the 90's that the government can't do anything right. The government should be run like a business, dagnabit.

Did my summary miss anything?

Countries =/= governments. In fact, countries are primarily made up by non-government people and non-government organizations.

Sometimes the great things that a country accomplishes are due to it's great people.

Comparing a large multicultural richer country does seem weird.

Indeed a tiny 126 million soul tiny country can not be compared with a country of 330 million souls. Also the USA having 1.5x the GDP / Capita does make Japan the richer country.

These countries unlike the USA have more economically and socially interventionist governments. I do wonder if the culture of Germany is closer to Japan or USA. To tackle a pandemic do you need more leadership or culture?

I mean beyond national security where is USA leadership?

Japan has high population density but a small piece of land, and it is probably the most mono-cultural population of it's size in the world.

I agree that we need in America is stronger leadership. But we shouldn't be looking to the government for leadership. The government should follow the will of the people, not lead it.

Democratic governments act when they feel the people want them to act. The reason the US government didn't act early is because the majority of Americans were not yet concerned about the coronavirus until recently, and it would have been unpopular.

Japan would not have acted so strictly and so early if their culture and respect for community weren't strong. It would have been unpopular and ineffective.

What's needed for Americans to tackle these types of issues better is more trust in the community and stronger citizen leadership.

> the USA having 1.5x the GDP / Capita does make Japan the richer country.

???

I'd guess they made a mistake in thinking that because the population ratio is greater than 1.5 (it's 2.6), therefore the GDP / Capita ratio they reference is then favoring Japan. That of course would need to be run against actual national GDP, not per capita. US per capita GDP was about 60% higher than Japan as of the end of 2019.

No, I think it was intended as sarcasm; 126 million is also not much less than 330 million.

Singapore is anything but a mono-cultural country and is only recently rich. Basically through extreme government competence they made themselves rich and yes, their society definitely has Chinese at the top but unlike the US, the society is not completely riven by racial strife.

Singapore has been in the 'first-world' economic tier for at least 30 years. Their economic success is not recent. 30 years ago their GDP per capita was on par with Hong Kong and Spain, ahead of Greece, and far ahead of Portugal or South Korea (and it was nearly 40 times higher than China).

China is a legitimate story of recent economic success. China is only now at a stage of median development that Singapore reached in the 1970s and 1980s.

Singapore is basically run like a business though, isn't it? Also, it's more of a city-state than a nation, in my mind. Same for Taiwan and Hong Kong.

How do you explain the early government-enforced shutdowns, and expansive testing programs? I think the response from the general population has also been better in some of these countries, but there is a marked difference in the government responses.

In democracies, governments are lead by their people.

The government will generally do what its people want it to do. Americans did not give a damn about corona-virus for a long time.

If the people wanted shutdowns, they would have gotten them.

The social difference is only relevant in that it results in a different governing style. US style lock-downs have so far been very voluntary in nature compared to what several other countries are doing.

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