I think you'd get very different graphs if you compared the incomes of the lower half of the population. Or even the lower 80%.
So to what extent is that high GDP actually benefitting the US as a whole? It's not a game where GDP is your high score.
No european politican in power is that altruistic. Ours are in no way less crazy or corrupt than the US ones.
Political systems are always eventually captured by the powerful and they prevent any real change because they benefit from the status quo. Europe has old corporations and the system is built to benefit them.
We also have very little VC money going around. The EU is technically a single market but in reality there are big barriers. Not anywhere close to what US or China has as a domestic market. Companies have a pretty damn tough time getting out of their country. Mostly because there is so little VC money to help them get out.
The reason for limited VC money is because there are few exit strategies. Going public in the US means getting way more money. The stock market in an EU country is not anywhere near what the US stock market is.
The reason the stock market is not as developed is simple, US dollar is the worlds reserve currency not the Euro.
I very much believe that Dutch politicians are less corrupt than U.S.A. politicians, in no small part due to the fundamental operations of the electoral system.
Donald Trump refused to yield power and flirted with a coup d'état after losing the election; around that time, the Dutch cabinet offered it's resignation peacefully to atone for a scandal it wasn't even directly responsible for, but took responsibility for as the ultimate executive. — it's quite a difference.
I find Dutch politicians very much far less self-absorbed and egocentric, and I believe this is due to the U.S.A. system being a winner-takes-all system that thereby selects upon narcissistic risk takers, for to obtain any public office in the U.S.A., one must have taken a risk where one stands to leave with nothing after considerable investment, — such is not the Dutch system, which is not a winner-takes-all system but one where victory is a matter of degrees.
Dutch politicians are generally quite down to earth rather than surrounded by pomp and grandeur. The prime minister goes to work by bike and has a part time job as a primary school teacher and lives in a normal apartment rather than a posh official residence, and this is because the system selects upon men who have power trusted upon them, not upon those who seek power.
> Political systems are always eventually captured by the powerful and they prevent any real change because they benefit from the status quo. Europe has old corporations and the system is built to benefit them.
In 1916, the Netherlands switched from a district-based system to a simple, proportional system. This change surely did not benefit the parties in power, but they did so anyway for the purpose of democracy, and probably because the voters wanted it.
I don't think that's true. Mark Rutte was prime minister during the escalation of the excessive fraud hunting, and has been directly involved with parts of it. He undeniably carries much of the real responsibility.
He's also not a great example of a politician taking that responsibility; he has a tendency to smile problems away.
That said, you're absolutely right that neither the Dutch not any other European country is anywhere near as corrupt as the US, where corruption seems to be baked deep into its political system.
What has the direct involvement been then beyond simply being the ultimate executive at the top of the chain of command?
> He's also not a great example of a politician taking that responsibility; he has a tendency to smile problems away.
Offering the resignation of one's cabinet is quite far from a mere smile.
> That said, you're absolutely right that neither the Dutch not any other European country is anywhere near as corrupt as the US, where corruption seems to be baked deep into its political system.
Any other? I daresay that there is greater corruption in many European nations.
It's not baked, it is rotten. It started with noble intentions and designs. European countries reformed mostly in the 20th century to become what they are. US has continued it's system since the funding of the republic and the rot has set in deep until now.
The so celebrated “founding fathers” were rich, white, male slaveowners that tried their hardest to keep as much power for the rich, white, male, and slaveowner at the expense of all others and transparently founded an elitocracy that favored the big man over the little man, and certainly succeeded.
That the U.S.A. electoral system gives disproportionate power to the elite already in power is not a fluke, but a deliberate design choice.
The big irony of the founding of the US is that the guy who believed it was "self-evident that all men are created equal", owned men as slaves. It's important to continue in the direction they pointed, and not stop simply at the point where they ended up in their time.
I believe corruption goes hand-in hand with two-party systems. This eventually results to partisan politics and loss of all accountability. The two-party system may be either de facto (e.g. USA) or emulated (e.g. Greece), but the result is still chronic corruption.
> In 1916, the Netherlands switched from a district-based system to a simple, proportional system. This change surely did not benefit the parties in power, but they did so anyway for the purpose of democracy, and probably because the voters wanted it.
Simple proportional systems all the way. The problem is that if you didn't do the switch early-on (like the Netherlands), then it's almost impossible to do later because of deeply vested interests. E.g. Greece attempted a switch to a simple proportional system in 2016, but the move was smeared with FUD articles by the mass-media. In the end, the current government restored the previous election system, which gives a ludicrous number of bonus parliament seats to the first party.
You can't just make silly claims like this and not explain yourself. If you're just not familiar with recent US politics you're forgiven (although have you been living under a rock?), otherwise... huh?
It's not about personal altruism, it's about creating the right institutions that encourages politicians to do the right thing, and to hold them accountable when they don't. In the US, these systems don't work very well. I remember when Congress had an approval rating in the single digits, yet 90% of all incumbents got re-elected. That's a pretty clear sign that the very basis of your democracy doesn't work right.
> Political systems are always eventually captured by the powerful and they prevent any real change because they benefit from the status quo
And yet political systems change. Absolute rulers decide to share their power, write liberal constitutions and hold fair elections, politicians in district systems decide to change to proportional representation, men vote to allow women to vote.
Of course these changes often require protests by the people who used to be excluded, but those protests happened, and the people in power listened and changed the rules.
It's mostly the US where a large number of people insist that the rules of two and a half century ago are sacred and should never be changed. Few other countries hold to that sort of idiocy. (Though the UK might be as bad or worse than the US in that regard.)
> We also have very little VC money going around.
That is absolutely true. The US is great for money. It's great for rich people and for investors. And many European startups end up moving to the US.
But that doesn't change the fact that regular people aren't benefitting all that much from it. Warehouse workers for Amazon often work in atrocious circumstances that would not be allowed in the EU. How does their country's high GDP or Amazon's high market value benefit them if their job is destroying them?
I disagree. Politicians change when they are forced to. People in power listening and changing the rules is in my opinion a pipe dream. They only change when their positions are threatened (i.e. being voted out of office in the civilized case).
What the EU had is two world wars fought on its soil. The old systems were cleansed out with blood and fire. So while culturally European countries are old, politically they are generally not. The US has never had this, so the old system has been kept and unfortunately has rotten to its core and will collapse in our lifetimes in my opinion.
This is why I tried to make the point that politicians are no better over here. They are selfish cunts like all politicians are and they sure as hell don't give the slightest damn about making sure "wealth benefits everybody to some degree". They are just operating in a setting that is not a rotten corpse and act more civilized.
This is only true in some cases, not in all. The first Dutch king, Willem I, was originally made an absolute king and liked it that way, but later decided to have Thorbecke write a liberal constitution that would severely limit his power. Of course there were plenty calls in the country to do that, but he wasn't facing a revolution, and couldn't be voted out. Unless you count the Belgian independence from a couple of years earlier, but that had already happened and wasn't prevented by this decision.
There are plenty of other cases where people decided to do the right thing because they saw it was the reasonable thing to do without being forced to.
But the US refusing to change the broken electoral system from 250 years ago is also on the voters themselves, who keep voting for parties that don't want to improve the system. Keep voting out all incumbents until they fix the problem.
As for blaming voters, that is entirely useless and simplistic.
I strongly disagree on both points. There are politicians who take their responsibility seriously, and voters have a responsibility to vote for better politicians. Ultimately, voters get the government they choose, and if they choose corrupt politicians, that's what they get. The corrupt politicians aren't going to change as long as people keep voting for them. But better people exist, and it's up to voters to elect them.
Powerful interests can derail any threat to them. This is why things seldom change in any real way. Take US presidential candidates Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard. Completely reasonable politicians who had to deal with constant lies about them being spread by the media.
It's absolutely true that the US system is incredibly corrupt, and it may be hard to see a way out of that, but a lot of countries are different, and many countries have seen real change. The US could do that too, but the people have to want it.
Media has always been beholden to powerful interests. Especially now when their revenue streams are drying up. Saying many don't is naive. You just don't see it, because the corruption reveals itself about what they don't print. For that to be obvious you have to be aware what they are hiding from the public.
But in many other countries, journalists are more idealistic than that, and have editorial independence. And when the media owner threatens that independence, journalists cry foul and leave.
Arguing that media can only be corrupt, is basically arguing that there can not be any democratic accountability. Instead of arguing it cannot be improved, it would be more constructive to demand improvement, demand editorial independence, and follow and pay for those media that offer that.
France and Germany GDP per hour worked is only about 6% less than the US (while it was mostly the same until 2008) [1] [2].
Seems like most of the difference can be explained by stronger work-life balance policies chosen by European (sick days, holidays, earlier retirement and parental leave).
[1] https://i.imgur.com/zuZ4pYz.png [2] https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm
I think part of the explanation is that the finance and high-tech sectors are way overvalued in money, and they shift the balance massively. This "inflates" the GDP in the U.S. This has basically been a conscious policy in the U.S. - "quantitative easing".