Saturday, April 07, 2007

Europe and America

Interesting post from Marginal Revolution.
Europe is better at producing (many) public goods through the public sector. Europe has more homogeneous nations with more urbanization, higher levels of social cohesion, and a more even distribution of ability. America is better at resource mobility, private sector innovation and catering to elites.

Because European government works better, Europeans demand more of it and get more of it. American liberals look at Europe and see (sometimes) better results per dollar spent. They then conclude that America should be more like Europe, whereas in reality America would end up spending more to get more bad American government. They also conclude that defenders of the American market-based order simply ignore the evidence before their eyes, evidence which supposedly shows the superiority of social democracy.
I don't think one system of government is better than another - what we've got works for who we are.

Still .. does anyone really believe that Burt Rutan could have built SS1 in France or Germany? That Scaled could have sent three private astronauts to space if they were based in Boscombe Down?

I'm as blinded by my own context as anyone but I like a system where that kind of thing is possible.

Via.
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