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I don't think there is any connection between lack of VC capital and whatever "social democracy" you have in mind. I think it is actually just culture. Europeans are risk averse, pessimistic and cynical. And society is still more elitist than in the new world. Because of these reasons a startup culture cannot flourish.

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In the sibling thread I made the argument that culture might be the biggest reason why it's true.

Elitism / classism might be part the reason why social democracy is possible- if you believe that there are simply a group of people who need help in society you might be more willing to give to them.

If everyone is completely equal it might seem like no one actually deserves anything "more" than anyone else.

It's not social democracy, otherwise Sweden and Finland wouldn't punch so much above their weight.

It's most likely an artifact of smaller, less liquid capital pools and the fact that the US is a really easy large market to tap into, leading to European startups investing into the US market in preference to their own.

In those cases it could be that a country needs to be small enough that it just makes sense to go into the USA market first than anywhere else.

If the country were any bigger the domestic market becomes the defacto, limiting growth....

Yeah, you see this a bunch in UK startups.

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