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Comment by johnnycerberus | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand this German "efficiency" and "productivity" myth. As an Eastern European (Ukraine) that worked and lived in Italy, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, by far Italy and Germany had the most bureaucratic processes I have ever seen, UK being the most straightforward and Netherlands as a runner-up.

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I'm familiar with a few countries you've mentioned.

If we define burocracy say, in the simplest possible terms, that is, amount of paperwork to do, possibly Italy and Germany are both bureaucratic, however, at the end of the day, what matters is how much is done.

An example is the mean time to a court hearing: 10 years in Italy, 6 months in Germany.

Ultimately, efficient and bureaucratic are not in conflict - a country may be ultimately efficient and bureaucratic because the processes are completed efficiently.

If they manage regular production levels despite the ridiculous bureaucracy, I guess it's fair to call them more efficient / productive :P

People have different experiences, I worked in the services industry (cloud computing), not manufacturing. After a time spent there I understood why Germany can't have a Google, Facebook, Microsoft or any other platform that sells services. There's a higher chance for a European unicorn coming out of Poland or Romania rather than Germany.

Could you elaborate?

Emerging economy, massive for growth. Low enforcement of white collar crimes/business regulations. Somewhat corrupt but not too corrupt. Just enough to grease the wheels and take advantage of EU rule arbitrage.

Efficiency is something like output per unit of time. Bureaucracy can be a process involved in producing the output. It can harm or help, although mostly it is viewed as harming. But it can equally well make things work more orderly. In any case, it is not opposed to efficiency.

The US Government is so bad at bureaucracy, we make private companies to handle it for us.

I agree; having lived in all three places, I discovered that the German reputation for efficiency is much better applied to the Swiss. Germany is heavily bureaucratic and things work as slowly and badly as in the UK - yet with even more paperwork.

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