61–70 of 125 posts
They help each other out, you can use my van to pick things up, you can use the corner of my store to start your own store, etc.
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Investment climate is also important. Perhaps in Europe, people are less inclined to borrow large sums of money?
That’s also conditioned by how hard it is to escape debt. In my country if you can’t pay back what you owe you turn into an indentured servant for life. No matter where you hide and what job you pick, the state will come and take most of your pay leaving you with just enough to get by.
In the last few years I had the chance to live in Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Perth, Sofia and Tel Aviv From all of those cities Amsterdam and Tel Aviv a lot more innovative and the number of entrepreneurs was high (at least felt like it) I think that there are few criterions that a city need to have to become a tech hub - Relatively small city - Society who worship startups and entrepreneurs - Many Programmers and engi…
IDF is a great Israel’s advantage. This high quality manpower is not only highly qualified, but also understands hierarchy and is not afraid to take responsibility when needed. The same is valid for Switzerland and their mandatory military service. University cannot replace army.
It's about a balance in stability. Look at state capitals in the US as compared to commercial cities as an example. In general, big populations of people with high security (ie. .gov workers) and contractors to the same equal stable, but boring places.
It's just a culture thing. My neighbors are Lebanese, almost everyone in the family either owns a store, or works for one of the other people in their store. Only a few of them have 9 to 5 jobs not related to the family. They help each other out, you can use my van to pick things up, you can use the corner of my store to start your own store, etc.
I suspect this is how it is across most of the world though. If you can't rely on 'society' and particularly the government or legal system, you find ways to rely on each other instead. In the 'developed world' those social bonding muscles have atrophied away.
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Interesting! Anecdotally I'm an Israeli who moved to Europe (first Austria then Germany) and at least from my layman's perspective both of these countries seem both a lot less entrepreneurial than Israel and a lot less corrupt... So I wonder if something unusual is going on or if one or more of my perceptions are wrong.
Typically, in a corrupt country, the 'take' of corrupt institutions and actors critically diminishes available (finite) Capital and distorts the distribution of what remains. What is unusual is that Israel is the recipient of largess of the American tax payers and enjoys continual replenishment of available Capital. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I say this from experience, was living in both over bureaucratised country with such complex regulations that even bureaucrats could not follow. In such country your business relies on mood/honesty of public servant who handles you. I was also living in the country where I have not heard from state for 7 years while I was running my business there. I was paying my fair share of taxes and state was not throwing roadblocks under my legs.
After a bit of thinking I'd also stress out how important juridical system is. If you have to wait 10 years for ruling you will be definitely more risk averse.
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Are there any failed nations without a relatively recent (<100 years) history of economic or political exploitation by a contemporary superpower?
A more helpful way to look at it is how countries like South Korea, Vietnam, and Japan grew so rapidly in the 20th century despite active intervention by superpowers. South Korea in 1960 was poorer than Congo, Ivory Coast, Senegal, etc. About the same as Bangladesh. Today South Korea is as rich as France.
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Interesting! Anecdotally I'm an Israeli who moved to Europe (first Austria then Germany) and at least from my layman's perspective both of these countries seem both a lot less entrepreneurial than Israel and a lot less corrupt... So I wonder if something unusual is going on or if one or more of my perceptions are wrong.
Typically, in a corrupt country, the 'take' of corrupt institutions and actors critically diminishes available (finite) Capital and distorts the distribution of what remains. What is unusual is that Israel is the recipient of largess of the American tax payers and enjoys continual replenishment of available Capital. Enjoy it while it lasts.
There's a good book on this called "Why Nations Fail," [1] they posit that extractive economic policies (corrupted governments) essentially de-incentivize entrepreneurial businesses, while inclusive policies cause them to thrive. They use this argument to counter "Guns, Germs, and Steel" [2] to explain dramatic economic differences across country borders in similar environments. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/sho…