Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture • Hacker News Board

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#141

Post by yxhuvud » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

rhizome31 wrote: post #53

rsync wrote: post #13

In Europe, many, many people were essentially slaves. They were property of a small class of landed gentry who ruled over them with, at best, patriarchal indifference and at worst homicidal, spiteful authoritarianism. They were peasants. Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad…

Peasantry was different from slavery. The middle age has actually seen slavery disappearing from Europe, which is incidentally why slaves had to be taken from somewhere else to bring to the "new world". Class struggle that led to welfare and benefits wasn't against the gentry but against the bourgeoisie (factory owners). The same bourgeoisie who had chopped the gentry's heads before.

Peasantry wasn't slavery, but they were serfs, and in the end serfdom didn't end up being very different to slavery.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#142

Post by cantrevealname » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #8

This appears to be copy and pasted straight from http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-b... - this link should point there instead.

Not only that but they[1] didn't bother to copy and paste the author's name. It's seems extra obnoxious to copy the entire article but not the author's name and two sentence bio.

[1] https://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/living-i...

(I'm mentioning the original link--so this comment makes sense--in case the HN moderators later change the link to the real article on Vox.)

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#143

Post by alkonaut » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #130

JamesBarney wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they all are known as tax havens except for Norway which has half a million dollars of oil reserves per citizen :). But I do think the article is right in pointing out a lack of options in the U.S. if you want to live a lifestyle that doesn't center around work. I love writing software but 40 hours a week + 5 hours of commute + 6 hours of software practice + recovery time seems to me to not leave enough time for…

> And they all are known as tax havens except for Norway which has half a million dollars of oil reserves per citizen :). > But I do think the article is right in pointing out a lack of options in the U.S. if you want to live a lifestyle that doesn't center around work. This is the "option" of being both a very small and very rich state, which is simply not feasible. To put this into perspective, Norway is just over…

The oil doesnt' really make that much difference in Norway. They tend to keep most of the money in a state reserve to not create too much inflation.

Subsitute Norway for non-oil Sweden, a country with huge immigration. Sure it's a small and "rich" country, but the cultural things like good work/life balance applies anyway.

Edit: as was pointed out to me in another comment: this is using a loose definition of "life" which includes 23 hour nights at freezing temperatures. Not for everyone.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#144

Post by rsync » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #67

rsync wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would dispute or ignore that - of course that occurred to me when writing the original comment. I stand by my analysis since American slaves were (at the time) a small minority of the country that existed in a fraction of the geography and lasted for less than 90 years after 1776. No portion of americans were "systematically enslaved and disenfranchised for ... 2000 years" and no majority (or even large plural…

Sweden, Norway, and Finland did not have serfdom. If your analysis is correct, shouldn't there be a large difference in the social welfare systems between those them and the Nordic countries with serfdom-like systems; the Danish stavnsbånd, from 1733 to 1788, and the Icelandic vistarband, from 1490 until 1894?, or between the Nordic countries and, say, The Netherlands?

False.

Sweden, Norway and Finland all had monarchies, a landed gentry, and a peasant class. If you'd like to make a subtle (and perhaps useful) distinction between "peasant" and "serf" then I suppose that's worth talking about, but my generalizations about Europe include the nordic countries.

"The peasant proprietors, who, under the name of the "Lantmanna" party, formed a compact majority in the Second Chamber, pursued a consistent policy of class interests in the matter of the taxes and burdens that had, as they urged, so long oppressed the Swedish peasantry;"[1]

"Outside the political sphere, however, the peasants were considered at the bottom of the social order—just above vagabonds. The upper classes looked down on them as excessively prone to drunkenness and laziness, as clannish and untrustworthy, and especially as lacking honor and a sense of national spirit."[2]

"The difference from serfs elsewhere was that the farmer did not directly own the life and property of the homesteader (Husmann), but in most cases, he practically did."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_the_late_19th_ce...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland#Peasants

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_serfdom

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#145

Post by noja » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

> Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US.

You have to be kidding me. The average standard of living in the US is not the fourth best in the world. The US only got universal heathcare this century, it has a ludicrous work-life balance, the minimum wage in some states is very low (and sometimes includes tipping!), the infant mortality rate is lower than some third world countries, and maternity and paternity leave almost doesn't exist.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#146

Post by comrade1 » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

letitgo12345 wrote: post #83

sampo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to make comparison even more complicated, I assume in Switzerland you don't need to pay as much for health insurance, and put as much money aside for retirement, and people in US do. And I know college fees in Switzerland are around 1000 to 3000 per year, not 10 000 to 40 000 like in US. So if you have kids, you don't need to save for their college. (...But then you can only send them to European universities. I…

On the other hand you have to pay a lot more in taxes.

Switzerland has considerably lower taxes than the u.s. (I'm an american living in switzerland)

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#147

Post by lispm » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #97

While I agree with many of the sentiments in the article, I don't think a comparison of wages is entirely fair. Some small nations have an out-sized GDP per capita such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Singapore because of their large financial industries. These industries are possible because the countries attract wealth and the wealthy through very low taxes(like Singapore) or very strong banking secrecy laws. And w…

The US also has a skewed GDP per capita. Large financial industry, various economic bubbles (housing, stock market, ...), printing money, huge debt financed consumption, huge military expenses. The trillion dollar Iraq war costs are increasing the GDP.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#148

Post by WalterSear » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #93

rhino369 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. They have higher standards for the lower classes. America has a higher standard of living but is far more sink or swim.

The lower classes' standard of living is all that matters. If you're rich, you can live especially well even in 3rd world countries (where servants are cheap and anything can be paid for).

The world is not a dichotomy. There's a whole load of people between rich and poor who's standard of living can be poor, despite their relative wealth.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#149

Post by pepon » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #123

ohsnap wrote: post #110

Switzerland is the world's most successful parasite. So it's hard to recreate their 'success' unless you have lots of host countries to feed from https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Switzerland:_A_parasite_feeding_o...

The nordic countries have similar quality of life. Granted, a bit less purchasing power and much higher taxes, but even better work/life deal (longer holidays, more parental leave) etc. And apart from norway it's not oil. And none is a parasite I think.

I guess we all have different definitions of "quality of life". IMHO, the salary may be very high in the nordic countries, but with the weather the have, I wouldn't consider that a high quality of life.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

#150

Post by alkonaut » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #136

digi_owl wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil is a curse rather than a boon.

How? Oil is largely the reason Norway is better off than Denmark and Sweden. Norway seems to manage it's oil very well with an eye towards the long term.

From the perspective of swedes, we just notice the higher prices in norway. We don't consider Norway and the norwegians "rich" when we visit. The per-capita gdp doesn't translate to purchasning power.