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Comment by Pet_Ant | Hacker News Reader

I think the lack of social safety net in the US is a gun to the head of American workers that gets more productivity out of them (at the cost of well-being which isn't accounted for). The billionaires are necessary as aspirational opiate that allows those same people to work themselves to death with the balm that they too will soon join the ranks of the billionaires. Let's not even start on how the American economy depends on undocumented immigrants which function as disposable citizens. They function economically as citizens but don't consume resources and can be sent away as needed if they happen to be inconvenient.

I do not think there is an ethical way to challenge the American economy. It'd be like trying to beat the costs of Dubai's construction industry without enslaving Asians.

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"I do not think there is an ethical way to challenge the American economy"

I think Europe could do much better without destroying safety nets. Starting a business should be easier and hiring people should be easier too. And in general a little more ambition couldn't hurt.

> undocumented immigrants which function as disposable citizens

I am afraid that is not a problem exclusive to the United States. Perhaps it is more prevalent there, I don't have the numbers, but it also happens in Europe. What we don't usually have is a "backdoor" for slavery in the form of penal labor enshrined in our Constitutions.

> I do not think there is an ethical way to challenge the American economy.

Supporting a negligent leader so that he gets elected can undermine it.

Not that I think that is ethical, either. But it is more "efficient", in terms of resources spent.

> What we don't usually have is a "backdoor" for slavery in the form of penal labor enshrined in our Constitutions.

I don't know if you meant to exclude this using the word "usually", but Germany has a backdoor for slavery in the form of penal labor enshrined in its constitution [1]. And it's not just enshrined in the constitution, it is actually active law [2].

[1] In the German constitution, Article 12 (3), it says:

> Zwangsarbeit ist nur bei einer gerichtlich angeordneten Freiheitsentziehung zulässig.

[2] In the StVollzG, Section 41 (1), it says:

> Der Gefangene ist verpflichtet, eine ihm zugewiesene, seinen körperlichen Fähigkeiten angemessene Arbeit, arbeitstherapeutische oder sonstige Beschäftigung auszuüben, zu deren Verrichtung er auf Grund seines körperlichen Zustandes in der Lage ist.

I meant “most European countries don’t”. I confess I didn’t know about Germany in particular.

Less than 0.0001% of economic output in the USA is performed by penal labor, mostly by non-incarcerated people (e.g. court mandated community service such as road cleanup as penalty for traffic violations).

The people who are offended by the practice of prison labor will never let that issue go, even though it’s opt-in — you have to commit felonies in order to go to prison.

Or people who have incentives to put you in prison will find the felonies for you

The US actually has a series of social safety nets. There are massive government programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security which provide real, measurable safety nets to the most vulnerable in society. There are also hundreds of thousands of charities, churches, and non-profit organizations that donate time, money, and resources to assist families going through hard times. There is also the US Military, which serves as a government-backed career path for millions of high-school graduates.

I think you're thinking that the US got ahead through exploiting labor. You missed the biggest piece of it though - the US welcomes (or at least until recently used to welcome) massive amounts of highly-educated immigrants from all over the world, and crucially has built a culture and society where those people can feel "American" fairly quickly in a way that they would never if they moved to Switzerland or France.

Being able to brain-drain the entire world and then smartly arm those people with unlimited capital to build their companies and dreams is the "unfair" American advantage. It isn't unethical, it's just not something European society supports. That, and the 30-year mortgage.

1) It's subsidised through cheap labor. The start-up whose founder live and work in buildings built by undocumented labor. Eat food grown by that labor, and served from food trucks run by undocumented labor. It's innovation subsidised by misery.

2) the brain-drain is unethical because it takes subsidised education of individuals without returning anything in return. Emmigrants should get a bill of the cost of their upbringing. It's really free-loading, especially for a country with such a poor public education system as the US.

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