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How Europe crushes innovation

economist.com

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Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#41

Post by jstummbillig »

bojan wrote: post #32
jstummbillig wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really? Or do you actually want to sustain your standard of living as safely as you can? Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together? I don'…

> Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? It's quite an assumption that it's unaffordable. In the last decades efficiency has been only increasing, but working hours per week aren't significantly going down nor are the salaries noticeab…

It's absolutely fantastic for the people, as long as you get companies to agree with you. Looking at the EU market: Does it work? Is that your reading?

I am sure there are ways to try and force companies, but I would suspect it's fairly complicated politically, given that that's usually not how that goes.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#42

Post by analog31 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #20
knowledge-clay wrote: post #10

I'd rather live in a society with strong labor protections than one that is "more innovative", whatever that means.

Do you really? Or do you actually want to sustain your standard of living as safely as you can? Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together? I don'…

I think it depends on the industry. If it's printed circuit boards, then it's China. If it's software and financial services, then the US. If it's health and science research, then probably Europe.

In fact, where industries are built is even more granular: Shenzen and the Bay Area. Even within the US, big cities have tried building their own tech hubs, and failed. Economic policy may have played a minor role in building NYC or SFO.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#45

Post by flipgimble »

The “American boss” can also over-staff and then fire as they see fit and call it innovation. They hire way more people than they can employ long term, especially during another hype-driven tech bubble. They can get a few billion extra when they sell a company with 1000s of employees instead of 100s. Right after acquisition it’s time for mass layoffs because of “market conditions”. So employees work lives become another asset in speculator’s spreadsheets.

When hackers hear “innovation” they probably think of solving an existing valuable problem better. It seems economists and CEOs think of innovation as finding a better way to extract maximum mental labor for the cheapest price. Then use that to maximize the value of their own equity, at the expense of society if necessary. If you’re building a heavily isolated bunker in Hawaii or New Zealand, you’re not exactly signaling you care about the rest of humanity’s well being.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#46

Post by bojan »

cc81 wrote: post #33

Sweden is relatively good at creating innovative companies but is pretty friendly towards small companies especially. Europe does lag behind though for many different reasons. One big is that the single market of EU is on paper large but in practice it is a lot of different countries with very different cultures and languages.

> Europe does lag behind though for many different reasons. One big is that the single market of EU is on paper large but in practice it is a lot of different countries with very different cultures and languages.

This is the biggest one. The single market is not really "done", and all attempts to deepen it face enormous resistance by national electorates that is now at the point to vote against anything that comes out of the EU.

For example, in order to sell a product in the Netherlands you have to have a sticker in Dutch, even though >90% of population understands English. That's a tiny thing, but makes a supply chain that much more complex.

For digital services it's even worse, the laws still differ significantly per country. Where I work we want to expand, but we still have to do it per country...

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#47

Post by onraglanroad »

Muromec wrote: post #18

It is indeed pretty impossible to fire people who don't want to be fired. It's still possible to spin up a subsidiary and hire people into it and if doesn't work out, well, it didn't work out. Is it even the most commons reason why companies do layoffs? Sounds like a propaganda piece to suppress both wages and rights here.

> It is indeed pretty impossible to fire people

It isn't really. In fact, it's usually very easy: you just have to follow the exact procedure that is written down for you.

Every example I've seen when people have claimed differently, they haven't followed that procedure. Literally every time.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#48

Post by oklahomasports »

latexr wrote: post #28
oklahomasports wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to reference the USA? Makes it seem like your politics are based on resentment and not a dispassionate discussion of tradeoffs

The entire point of the article is to compare Europe to the USA. Even the illustration at the top makes that point immediately obvious and unambiguous.

The comment I replied to is clearly emotionally engaged by that aspect of it

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#49

Post by otikik »

jstummbillig wrote: post #20
knowledge-clay wrote: post #10

I'd rather live in a society with strong labor protections than one that is "more innovative", whatever that means.

Do you really? Or do you actually want to sustain your standard of living as safely as you can? Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together? I don'…

> destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable?

As opposed to what has happened in the US, where everything is happy and everything is affordable. Innovation!

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#50

Post by brabel »

jstummbillig wrote: post #20
knowledge-clay wrote: post #10

I'd rather live in a society with strong labor protections than one that is "more innovative", whatever that means.

Do you really? Or do you actually want to sustain your standard of living as safely as you can? Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together? I don'…

The EU has been like this for a long time. If it was going to become unaffordable to sustain it that would have happened years ago. Of course in the longer term anything could happen but I find it hard to believe it would happen because of the EU labor laws.
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