[throwaway_9168]

"If you define winning solely as “who has the greater growth”, you’ve already lost. If you dismiss the standard of living enjoyed in Europe – one without medical bankruptcies, crushing college debts, or falling life expectancies – as a “retirement society”, you’re the one who deserves to be dismissed."

I agree with DHH's overall viewpoint. And Jason's portrayal of this issue as a "us Vs them" is idiotic.

But it is hard to overlook one point - if you were to choose to incorporate in one country today, the de facto choice is the US. When was the last time you heard someone who wasn't born in those countries say "Yeah! Lets incorporate in Denmark (where DHH was born) or Spain (where he currently resides, according to Wikipedia)"? And Basecamp itself is apparently incorporated in the US. There is probably a reason why Stripe Atlas doesn't take your money and decide they will open up an office for you in Switzerland.

Europe does seem to enjoy an excellent standard of living - good for them. But no one wants to immigrate to European countries because they think it is a "land of opportunity", at least not in the sense they do (or used to before Trump) when they immigrate to the US. The CEOs of some of the tech giants are first generation immigrants from developing countries. I don't see that happening in any European country in the near future. The success of these CEOs, by many accounts, is also directly related to their workaholic tendencies. And I am not sure if they are really exceptions (in the sense that other migrants who became CEOs at a much smaller scale can just afford to be bumming around). The success of these CEOs are signs of the same ambition and growth too.

Besides, there are some who think the issues pointed out by DHH as America's failing is actually because America wants to have its cake (high living standards) and eat it too (high growth powered by capitalist ventures) and turned into a confused mess. Well, clearly that doesn't seem possible in today's world for whatever reasons, but it isn't as if any country in Europe has managed to pull off both either.

[brianpgordon]

At some point we need to decide which we value more: attractiveness to CEOs or the happiness and healthiness of hundreds of millions of regular, everyday people. I think it's reasonable to give up any pretensions at capturing the former if it ultimately benefits the latter. It's OK to not be the bestest country evar for business if it means people are housed and fed and have access to education and healthcare.

[davidivadavid]

Why does it have to be an either/or?

[piva00]

Because a lot of times one side's interests will be completely against the other.

[luckylion]

> But no one wants to immigrate to European countries because they think it is a "land of opportunity"

At least no one with a high market value, yeah. I agree in general, Europe's model is very different from that of the US, it's much more stable, less flexible, much slower moving, more regulated, with higher taxes. You don't rise quite as high, you don't fall quite as low. It's "move fast and break things" vs "don't break things, move at an appropriate speed".

[lightbritefight]

More like "move fast and break people" vs " dont break people, move at an appropriate speed."

[luckylion]

They don't have people ... they have "human resources" ;(

Though European companies (and states) have been quite happy to go break people, too. They're just not breaking them in large numbers at once, yet.