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Comment by bsaul | Hacker News Reader

everytime i hear someone talk about redistribution i wonder if they're asking to have more money, or if they'd be happy if the redistribution made them poorer.

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Neither. More like: if you are sick, you can go to a doc for free, he is paid for by the public. Want to become a doc? Get that education for free, including some monthly money to live during studying. Those teachers? Same thing, paid for by the public.

Or you can travel with great public transport, for free. It’s not that I want more money, taken away from the rich, but the realization that everyone including me is much better off of everyone around also is taken care of. Strong public services are key.

Ontop of that, even more radical, companies should be run by the people working in it instead of shareholders siphoning out profits. Workers would never fire each other for more profits, or evade taxes that fund their neighborhood, or offshore their own jobs. Currently that might not be legal, that’s why it would need forceful redistribution.

Even on the simplest level: if you have free access to education/healthcare/… imagine how many brilliant people can try to become entrepreneurs or researchers instead of having to suffer two service jobs to provide their family. It’s statistics, that 60%+ of the population might include the next Einsteins, but are unnoticed and their potential wasted.

Interestingly, becoming an enterpreneur is really uncommon in Europe, where all you said was free. I think it actually has an inverse effect.

There several reasons for that, but one key thing is that people do not, in general, desperatly dream of the „get rich quick“ to escape their life situation. A big share is simply well off, taken care of if there are problems, and live their live in good conditions.

I am fine with not every useless thing to exist and waste resources on that.

Lots of people in the US that start companies are well-off, too, and they don't "desperately dream" of escaping their life situation. They just have a very different risk profile, and are happy to risk failing for a better chance at success.

It’s more than a desire for money too. The SV culture simply assigns a lot of respect to founders — definitely to the successful and also somewhat to those who try and fail. The founders I know do this not to get rich but to access that prestige. In fact, most know it will be a financially difficult task. Consider eg the lore of the Airbnb founders having to max out a binder full of credit cards…

For sure, when I said I was an enterpreneur in the US, Hungary and Spain, I got three different reactions. In the US, people think you're a cool kid, in Hungary they think you're a crook and in Spain they think you are poor.

I don't think that's true, it's hard finding comparative figures that aren't out of date (one below is mostly ~2004), but it indicates European countries generally have more SMEs per 1000 people than the US, and a couple of more recent articles say the UK still has more.

Anecdotally, I live in Europe and know plenty of entrepreneurs, albeit mostly either in the tech space or as incorporated side gigs.

Source: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Micr...

What definition of enterpreneur are you using?

According to [1] 14.5% of all EU workers are self-employed (i.e.: they have their own business, as small as it may be) whereas only 6.6% are in the USA.

[1] https://data.oecd.org/emp/self-employment-rate.htm

I'd say "self-employed" is essentially being a contractor or owner-operator, with no or very few employees and focused on facilitating the work for themselves (and possibly their immediate family), not growth & scaling & expansion.

Entrepreneurs start companies that are meant to grow beyond themselves and aren't just a legal framework to provide their work.

Not to disparage anyone who's self-employed. I am too, but I wouldn't consider me an entrepreneur. I might become one, but that would mean changing my work setup.

Interestingly that's a popular myth. Much of Europe - especially Scandinavia - is much friendlier to startups than the US. The proof is the much higher social mobility.

What the EU lacks is the Ivy->Startup pipeline and insider/investor networks with access to old and old-ish money. And also the relentlessly aggressive branding and self-promotion (and tolerance of scamming and grifting) that defines US hustle culture.

If you're not in or around those networks already your chances of success in the US are pretty slim.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ...

The EU also lacks the equity compensation pop that makes people millionaires overnight after 10 years of hard work. It's largely cultural rather than regulation related, but for example Spotify IPO'd but minted few millionaires relative to if it had been a silicon valley startup like AirBNB or Dropbox or Slack.

Yes this is exactly it!

America is a great place to be rich. In Europe they tax you. But why should a millionaire care about healthcare for the poor or homeless shelters?

The recent discussion on Slack's stock options showed how few SV startups make employees millionaires these days. It's as rare in SV as it is in Europe now.

My income is way above average. I'd be happy to be poorer if, in exchange, I was assured that my children and their children etc. will be treated decently by society no matter what happens.

then europe is made for you

Europe of the 1980s and 1990s, maybe. But that was a pretty short period that may not return.

Rich socialist here. I make a shitload of money. I also give a shitload to charity. I would expect that redistribution systems would take a lot of my income and wealth. Okay. It isn’t like I work ten times harder than my brother in law, despite getting paid ten times as much.

I’d like people to not go bankrupt paying for medical bills. I’d like everybody to be confident they can afford their next meal.

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