[Scalestein]

I think there really is something in American culture that fuels entrepreneurship. Maybe it's the puritan and "prosperity gospel" roots.

It would be interesting to see a comparison of entrepreneurship between US and Canada in the early 1900s before health care and especially job sponsored health care were so common.

[selectodude]

>Maybe it's the puritan and "prosperity gospel" roots.

No, the puritans (and Europeans in general) considered bankruptcy a moral failing and it was punished with societal banishment and prison.

The United States invented modern bankruptcy law. States have taken it a step further and protected most major assets from being seized in a bankruptcy (house, car, certain amounts of cash), so the absolute worst case from failing is that you dust yourself off, wait a few years and try again. It's just part of the culture now.

[908B64B197]

There's also the fact that, in America anyone/any family can make it and even become president/senator. It's by the American people and for the American people. Just look at the Kennedys.

In Canada, you look at the country's history and even its current head of state and... it's a foreign non-elected monarch. The other head of state is non-elected as well and is supposed to be a representative of the crown. Same thing for their senate, all nominated. Even until recently, the highest court of the country was... in London! That would simply be unthinkable in America.

This kind of things permeate aspects of life; there is this notion that there is a natural order of things and that people are born into certain roles. And it also seems true in the business world; Banking and Telecom, for instance, are fiercely protected and have an almost impossible moat to surmount for a competitor to come and disrupt the market.