Comment by tinthedev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tinthedev | Hacker News Reader

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> almost entirely grassroots/bottom-up

Exactly.

I feel it's simply put:

Europe is just further on the left of the `labour - capital` divide. As a region with insane inherited capital (all the old money), this makes perfect sense.

A lot of US media laments the corporatism of the US, and in the next article lambaste EU regulations... not understanding the irony of their position.

The EU took its tradeoffs seriously, and committed to them. Whether it's a good position... I can't tell, really. Can't see the future. But it's a very visible and understood tradeoff:

Pressure the top 5% to provide for the bottom 95%. You can't get laid off and stress about food - because a failure includes paying all the laid off employees a severance. It's bad for starting a business... but is it bad for the people and the society at large? Call me a socialist, but I think people shouldn't have their livelihoods depend on the 2-week cycle of salary.

Should there be a framework for a more risk-hungry sector? Probably, something to mimic the US, but the avenues for abuse are exploited the moment loopholes open.

TLDR: Europe, and Europeans, do not _want_ the trillion dollar companies.

The EU is just as capitalist. When von den Leyen gets lobbied in Brussels, it's not from worker parties or unions. If you want a spectrum I would say that the EU is more paternalistic. Less freedom, lower salaries and higher taxes and in return a slightly better social safety net. But this is pure consolation for anyone who wants growth and opportunity. And it is not sustainable anyway. Austerity will soon start eating away at that social safety net.

Not sure if tax supported medical coverage, tax supported college level education, guaranteed vacation, sick time and maternity leave are a “slightly better” social safety net. Just to name a few.

The U.S. culture is so accustomed to the brutality and constant anxiety of not having any of these things that we don’t have the felt sense of actually having safety. Which makes it easy to dismiss - especially when fed the illusion that we are a step from being wealthy, a prerequisite of actually having this safety and more.

Why not allow for everyone to have it? It isn’t because we can’t afford it. We are just used to siphoning all of society’s wealth to a few selected people - and made to believe that we can join them.

Freedom to exploit a lot of people without accountability is different from freedom to live one’s life based on one’s calling and choices. Using the same word for both meanings leads to confusion.

In the U.S., the priorities are aligned behind the freedom to exploit, extract, and socialize all externalities. As individuals this comes at the expense of our own freedoms. I only have the “freedom” to operate in an increasingly adversarial environment.

A lot of the employee protections in practice make is just super hard to hire employees and super hard to fire low performers. It's good for seniors and bad for juniors and let me tell you, in the EU we do so much for old farts already. I have no appetite for more policies targeted towards them. That's another problem that I neglected to mention.

Those old farts paid in for 40-50 years. Why sell them out so quickly?

I can't help but think there is an alternative to this dichotomy. If, for example, US were to institute a high-percentage income tax bracket for the wealthy (maybe 65% over $1m) and used that to pay for national healthcare, would that really impact start-up culture? Maybe it affects some business at large, but it means the average joe can get laid off and not stress about hospital bills, while still encouraging a "risk-hungry sector".

Tl;Dr: Europe could have trillion dollar companies and still lean heavily towards labor, just like we could

If you live in New York you are already paying 56%.

There are 500,000 households making over a million if you divide that number into a single person making a million or more that would drop more.

That 9% of such a low base won't cover costs.

> maybe 65% over $1m

Here in California, my marginal tax rate (if making over 1M) is already about 53%. In return, there is medi-cal (which is shitty[1]), 6 weeks of parental leave at 65% salary, crappy schools on average but excellent if one has a special needs kid etc. So not so great safety net.

Ironically, through a big tech job (which is supposed to be a rapacious corp with zero regards to employee wellness), I get far better protections - amazing insurance(s), 4 months of parental leave at full pay (including RSUs), all sorts of benefits etc etc.

The trade-off is clear to me. I want more of those trillion dollar corporations around me and have very little faith in Federal and California governments to improve their safety nets even if they jack up my marginal tax rate from 53 to 65%.

[1] but again, my Canadian and UK families have horror stories about their healthcare systems as well so there is that

> Europe, and Europeans, do not _want_ the trillion dollar companies.

And that’s why I will say ‘fuck you too’ rather than ‘goodbye’ when my O-1 is finally approved.

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