What is it about the United States that gives them the ability to generate talent and success in any new field?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Recipe for Success
Look at the biggest and best known Internet based enterprises: Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Groupon, Google, Linkedin... etc. They are all worth billions and have one thing in common- they are all American. If you go back to the previous 'new thing' ie computers, the story is the same (IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Oracle and Intel). Go further back to the early days of aeroplanes or the motor car and the story is similar.
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Aeroplanes? I think not!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse
Don in NZ.
They are a bloody big country.
A company in the US can easily sell to the entire US and so grow and become a world power.
Something made in France (for example) will have free access to France, but have trouble selling to the rest of Europe because of different countries import laws and tax so won't be able to grow as fast.
IMO, a combination of can-do culture, generous laws on bankruptcy and low taxes.
1: America was (generally) settled by people who decided 'there has to be a better way to do things' and who had the gumption to move half a world away to achieve that.
2: Thanks to how American bankruptcy and homesteading laws work it's easy to get a new start in America. Unlike in most of Europe a business that fails won't destroy your life entirely; you can just walk away from the wreckage and try again. This encourages people who have 'better mousetrap' ideas to give it a go.
3: Unlike a lot of European countries America low taxes and a general attitude that you should keep what you earn. That in itself is a massive incentive to work. The wisest Americans often decide to plough their fortunes back into the country that made them rich (eg: Carnegie, Buffett, Gates).
Add to that the sheer size and variety of the American internal market (as AnonyRob said above)...
Yes to size, yes to low taxes. Add to the above:
* They speak English, so they can easily take advantage of advances in knowledge from across the world, scientific, technical, as well as political.
* The are friendly to talented incomers. It takes 3 years to become an American. So good people from around the world gravitate to America. Lots of people go there to work and never leave.
Ben, it's 5 years, not 3.
There is one other reason - They are cohesive . The vast majority of citizens , White , Black , Asian , Oriental . Christian , Muslim , Hindi . Spanish , English , Chinese , German speaking . All consider themselves to be - American
Capitalism. Capitalism unconstrained (except for rules against force and fraud) for most of the nation's history. Capitalism still far less constrained than in the socialist European welfare states. The ratchet effect which locks in incremental socialist reforms will remove this advantage in time.
I think one advantage we have is that despite the left's relentless efforts to generate class envy and hatred, it's not really a feature of American culture. Most mega-rich people here made their own money rather than inherited it, and the relatively few inherited fortunes rarely go back more than a generation or two. Americans of modest means generally don't have hostility to rich people. I guess it's because we have the feeling (realistic or not) that anyone can, with a lot of work and some luck, become rich. There are enough "rags to riches" stories, especially with immigrants, that it seems likely. Also, as previous posters have mentioned, the country is enormous. If you don't like conditions in one part of the U.S., you can always move to some place warmer-colder-more-urban-more rural-less expensive-more liberal-more conservative-more of whatever kind of people you prefer, so you don't feel "trapped".
"What is it about the United States that gives them the ability to generate talent and success in any new field?"
Their welfare state differs WILDLY from ours.
Go figure...as they say.
You're not seriously implying that US state schools are any better than ours, are you? :P
At least we don't have weekly massacres...
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