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Comment by pmorici | Hacker News Reader

This doesn’t appear to breakout by country. This isn’t surprising for more socialist countries like in the EU where it is harder to start and build businesses (wealth) in general. I’d be surprised if it was the same in the US where studies have shown that the majority of wealth is not inherited.

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This is a common sentiment, but surprisingly it's quite easy to start a business in a country with a more developed social net because the failure consequences are much less severe.

It’s not a sentiment it’s statistics. Look at the number of successful businesses that result in wealth creation.

Feel free to show statistics.

Here's one that shows that Sweden has indeed been more entrepreneurial then the US (2019), see sources at the bottom: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/how-sweden-became-more-entrep...

That's how it looks in theory, but in reality, the countries with lesser social safety nets are where people start businesses most (look at the US compared to Europe).

I think it has more to do with a culture that encourages and glorifies entrepreneurship than the safety net.

Which is why the FAANG and Microsoft and all the tech really comes from France right?

"Easy to start a business" does not mean "produce FAANG level".

You got it wrong. It is easier to start a business in the "socialist" scandinavian countries than it is in the US.

https://archive.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings

Your link shows the United States out ranking Norway, Sweden, and Finland on their ease of doing business score which appears subjective compared or hard numbers of successful businesses. Are you sure you read that page right?

The discussion was about "starting a business" which is also a metric on that site.

The US ranks 55th in that category.

It was about building wealth through starting a business.

>It is easier to start a business in the "socialist" scandinavian countries than it is in the US.

If you can't keep track of your own words, there is no reason to pester other with them.

Socialist is really not the word I would use. "Less egalitarian", "more classist" are better descriptors. Access to capital is more restricted in countries like Germany compared to the US. This is both due to more conservative financial regulations, but also because the wealthy classes who own the capital are more of an insular group who are less keen to invest in members who are not already part of the club.

Economic class mobility is higher in most of those socialist countries. Maybe new business wealth specifically is more difficult, but I'd rather people have multiple routes to building wealth and more success overall than to solely focus on risky entrepreneurship.

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