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Stop Generalizing About Europe

jonasbentzen.com

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Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#351

Post by white_devil »

davedx wrote: post #292
white_devil wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think of social democracies with high taxes. I think of arcane rules and regulations to start and run a business. .. Aaand you'd be right about France, Germany, Spain, England, The Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Italy (and Norway, Sweden, Finland). In other words, you'd be right about "the countries that matter" (and some that don't).

"Arcane rules and regulations to start and run a business": Please explain what you mean by this for the Netherlands? (I say this as an expat Brit with his own business in the NL)

Fine, let's assume the Netherlands has none of those. I was mostly concerned with high taxes.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#352

Post by Typhon »

euphemize wrote: post #347
Typhon wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as if the U.S. is a homogenous culture Compared to Europe, it certainly is. From a merely linguistic viewpoint, in North America there's English and Spanish (Ok, and native american languages, but they're really not much spoken). In Western and Northern Europe, there's French, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish. The thing is, identity is a matter of contrast. See this : http://squid314.li…

Did you forget that 7 million people speak French in Québec? And because a language is not much spoken, it doesn't count?

Oh, right. It doesn't change the fact that the US is very culturally homogenous.

because a language is not much spoken, it doesn't count?

A langage that isn't much spoken is one you're much less likely to encounter.

I neglected them because they're numerically negligible, and because if I had cited all native languages in the United State, I should then, too, have procedeed to cite all minority languages from Western Europe, which are more widely spoken.

There are, for instance, 13 million native speakers of Bavarian. By comparison, there's less than 3 millions native americans in the United States.

I could have been more pedantic, but for brevity's sake, I decided not to go too much into details.

My point stands.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#353

Post by laut »

jacoblyles wrote: post #264

Isn't it true that the Western European economies are high-tax, high-regulation economies with high degrees of risk-aversion (both public and private) compared to America? Where does that stereotype fail? From what I know, it's hard to fire underperformers in most of Western Europe. Many traditional industries are protected (like French book stores). Taxes are high. Anti-market sentiment is strong. It's not a place w…

In Monaco there's no income tax. And it's not the only country in Europe without income tax. In Estonia the marginal tax rate is 21%. In the US it's 35%+ ?

> From what I know, it's hard to fire underperformers in most of Western Europe.

That's typical in places like France, Spain, Italy. But as my fellow Dane tries to say in his article: don't generalize and think it's the same everywhere :)

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#354

Post by aeonsky »

dgudkov wrote: post #342
aeonsky wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Russian and will argue that most of the eastern Europe has very similar culture. Just because you rotate your head to say yes and nod to say no, does not make it vastly culturally different. The culture curtain ends somewhere around Czech Republic. Yes, I am even willing to say Ukraine is about 99% culturally similar, and that should stand for something since many know how much Russians despise being associated w…

>Ukraine is about 99% culturally similar That's very ignorant. It's exactly the same as saying that Germany and Austria are 99% culturally similar.

While I am not a researcher by any means into cultural history, I have lived 20 years in Russia, 3 years in Ukraine. I also have a deep Polish background. The differences in the cultures between these 3 is relatively minor.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#355

Post by unconed »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #285
unconed wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you focus on 'diversity', you miss the bigger picture, because of course every place is unique. The US has for example far more pronounced extremes of urban vs rural (which many too forget). The real issue is distance, and how Europeans and Americans in general have vastly different concepts of what's far. If you're in the US or Canada, driving for 10 hours means you're going to visit your aunt. Doing the same any…

Heck, I know several people who have driven more than halfway across Canada, in Europe no-one who drove e.g. from Paris to Istanbul. Abstract away the vast distances of road and think of it as nodes on a directed graph. How many nodes (ie: inhabited locations of distinct identity ) did you pass through from source to destination? That's a kind sociocultural or even ecological distance you traveled, and it can actuall…

Uh, how did you get "Paris-Instanbul is less diverse than cross-Canada" from my comment? I think I said the exact opposite.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#356

Post by jballanc »

moultano wrote: post #334
jballanc wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how they are at all related. For one thing, I can pretty much guarantee you that the difference in GDP growth between the fastest growing European economy and the slowest is leaps and bounds larger than the same difference between states. For another thing, for many businesses in the US, it's fairly trivial to relocate should things go south. Not so for moving between countries in Europe.

I don't think you are correct. There are some deeply poor regions of the US that have been that way for 100 years. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_povert... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031102640.ht... Between states it ranges from 5% to 20%. Between countries in Europe it ranges from 10% to 20%. I'm sure the figures aren't directly comparable, but it at least suggests that th…

Heh...wow! I think your statistics don't mean at all what you think they mean. When I mentioned growth, I was talking about year-over-year growth (or decline) in national GDP. According to that statistic, Europe contains some of the fastest growing (Turkey, Estonia, Lithuania) and slowest growing (Greece, Italy, Spain) countries in the world.

Your statistic shows poverty rate. The fact that there is greater variation between states in the US than between countries in Europe just shows what many of us have known for years: even if your economy sucks, the worst-off do better in Europe than in the US. In other words, the US is a great place to be if you are wealthy and successful. Europe is a much better place to be if you are anyone else.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#357

Post by daliusd »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #209
loxs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct regarding the reasons and wrong regarding the current situation. You will be much more spot-on if you divide between the "former USSR" and "rest of Europe". Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA. "The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but…

> Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture You are a bit wrong there. Consider the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Culturally, genetically and linguistically they have almost nothing in common with their USSR neighbours. And pretty much the only thing share by the three states are the geographic location, some common lineage, and the fact that they…

Let's push it even more. Russia itself is not single language and culture country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Russia

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#358

Post by oxide »

vacri wrote: post #207
gyardley wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they do. I wasn't suggesting the contrary.

You were implying that CA and LA have more varied internal culture than do Bulgaria and Romania, else you wouldn't have made the comparison - it would have been redundant to what loxs had said.

Thats what youve taken from his post. not what was implied.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#359

Post by eli_gottlieb »

unconed wrote: post #355
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck, I know several people who have driven more than halfway across Canada, in Europe no-one who drove e.g. from Paris to Istanbul. Abstract away the vast distances of road and think of it as nodes on a directed graph. How many nodes (ie: inhabited locations of distinct identity ) did you pass through from source to destination? That's a kind sociocultural or even ecological distance you traveled, and it can actuall…

Uh, how did you get "Paris-Instanbul is less diverse than cross-Canada" from my comment? I think I said the exact opposite.

I was actually saying "Paris-Istanbul is more diverse than cross-Canada". North America has large distances between "significant nodes" on the map, Europe/Asia has smaller distances.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#360

Post by unconed »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #359
unconed wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, how did you get "Paris-Instanbul is less diverse than cross-Canada" from my comment? I think I said the exact opposite.

I was actually saying "Paris-Istanbul is more diverse than cross-Canada". North America has large distances between "significant nodes" on the map, Europe/Asia has smaller distances.

So you replied in agreement with a tortured graph theory analogy devoid of concrete ties to reality? I'm confused. Usually when people say "actually" they are correcting someone.
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