What makes the US different...

[Odesio]

@pmwgreen

Budweiser became a top brand when it developed a beer that can be shipped all over the country without going off (more than it is, I suppose).

They didn’t develop a beer that could be shipped all over the country without going off. Anheuser-Bush created the St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company in the 1870s to take advantage of America’s railway system to distribute beer on a national level. Vertical integration is what made AB so successful not some innovative type of beer.

[fedman]

@Flyer

You’re conflating certain outward forms of racism with racism itself. France never had race-based slavery, but they’ve had AT LEAST as many problems with racism over the years as America has had.

Regarding your first point–surely you cannot be ignorant of the myriads of studies showing that the average American takes less vacation time than the average European?

So Haiti, a French colony–wasn’t a slave state?

[fedman]

@Machine_Elf

America may have its foundations in a group of people who just wanted the freedom to practice their religion without interference, but ever since, America has been famously billed as “the land of opportunity,” and opportunity attracts people who want to take advantage of said opportunity. In short, over the many decades, people who came to America were (and are) people who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to work: industrious, adventurous, and so on. Immigration is a filter that is biased toward the selection of people with a strong work ethic.

No doubt the US has its equivalent of the Japanese “salaryman,” for whom long hours at a desk convey the appearance of doing a lot of work. But the US is famous for “start-ups” in which the founder and his/her colleagues really do work insane hours, even to the point of compromising their health by getting inadequate sleep and eating an unhealthy-but-convenient-and-cheap diet, for a shot at potentially becoming obscenely wealthy. Amazon, Google, Apple, and countless other wildly successful companies did not become the juggernauts they are today because their founders sat around sharpening pencils for 15 hours a day.

to add on to your post, remember the early colonists were Puritans, who thought work/church (no pleasure) was be all-end all (they probably cited St Paul saying "if a man does not work he does not eat’)

[Treppenwitz]

@Mangosteen

What about the Irish (white) slaves? From 1641 to 1652, 300,000 Irish were sold as slaves.

African slaves were very expensive (due to “shipping” costs) during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling).

England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia.

The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

This may be a bit of a hijack, but am I the only one to think Wait - What? Have I been whooshed here?

Wikipedia page on the Irish Slaves Myth

Snopes article

Rationalwiki article

Irish Times article

New York Times article

I could go on.

j

[SanVito]

@doreen

I suspect there are few, if any, of these very small businesses in Canada. There are quite a few in the US - (something like 16% of all employees work at businesses with fewer than 20 employees) , but if I’m correct about Canada, it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg problem - are there few of these “micro-businesses” in Canada because the laws and business culture make it difficult or do the laws and business culture exist because there already were few of these micro-businesses?

I’ve been following this conversation with interest. Here in the UK, 21% of businesses are ‘micro’ (0-9 employees), so very small businesses are by no means a US phenomenon, yet we have similar laws to Canada. Probably as a result, we also have a large ‘gig-economy’ of temporary workers, something like 10% of all workers - partly out of choice, partly out of necessity. Finding temporary skilled contractors is normal business practice. I work for a design company, on any given day we have freelancers in, either for odd days, or on longer term contracts.

[Dinsdale]

@EinsteinsHund

From a European perspective, the greatest differences are: the prevalence of religion, gun culture, two party system and a blind faith in the “free market” (however that is defined).

I’m surprised the conversation seems to have become so narrowly focused on race and work ethic/job benefits, and that this comment spurred no comment.

When I see most depictions of most parts of Europe, I’m impressed at how people appear satisfied with “less” than Americans. Yes, a good part of that is likely due to America’s size - more room to spread, build newer, bigger roads, etc. But middle-upper class people seem perfectly content to live in connected homes and what Americans would consider small apartments. People generally appear content to drive more modest cars.

Meanwhile, Americans seem to feel entitled to a standard of living that is subsidized by the rest of the world. We consume far more than our share of energy, produce more pollution, … And we feel our military ought to boss other nations around to preserve our comfort.

Somewhat contradictorily, Americans seem to be fine with the poorest people being homeless and essentially dying on the streets. Yeah, there are some slums in Europe, but there are some basic safety nets available to most. Most European countries do far more than America in terms of refugees from other countries.

So in essence - Americans believe we are entitled to a greater share of the pie than others, yet believe that the other ought to pay for it (and be happy for the opportunity!)