Europe converged rapidly on the United States before stagnating

48•tbs1980•2h ago

Comments

Mistletoe•1h ago

It always amazes me that some Europeans look to the USA as some goal to aspire to. As an American, all I’m trying to do is get rich enough to move to Europe someday. There are greater goals than growth at all costs. Things like respecting the humans that live there and putting their well-being above corporations. If that thwarts “growth”, so be it.

anovikov•1h ago

One problem about it is that without growth, there's no way European pension commitments will be paid. Growth was baked into these promises and we don't have any.

Andrex•1h ago

What kind of stupid idiots would ever design a system that assumed indefinite growth?

We get what we deserve...

jayess•1h ago

Democracy. Vote yourself money.

groundzeros2015•1h ago

What about a political outlook where nothing ever gets better in the future

tacker2000•1h ago

You have to go deeper than that, I think in the end our whole species’ goal is growth at all costs and this is subconsciously baked into every decision we make…

mongol•54m ago

The system is not designed, and it does not assume indefinite growth. But another way to capture your point is to say our society strives toward constant improvement, which I don't really see an obvious end to. It is always possible to improve, isn't it?

robtherobber•1h ago

Believe me, it amazes many of us Europeans too. We have a real life example of how those policies will eventually play out (and tens of years of research that confirm the immense disbenefits of such an approach), and yet here we are.

bilbo0s•47m ago

Problem is that there's also a "real life example of how those policies will eventually play out (and tens of years of research that confirm the immense [benefits to the billionaires] of such an approach)". Just as in the US, the billionaires wield enormous influence. Maybe not quite as much, but pretty close. So as long as there are benefits to the wealthy of these policies, I think the Europeans will pursue them. (At least until the French start doing that thing that the French do when things get too unfair in this regard. And then the cycle will start all over again.)

fijiaarone•29m ago

The American billionaire class absolutely controls Europe, and American politics dictates European policy. There is the illusion of European ascendance right now because the American soft power is being channeled through Europe because the faction of the US government (that still controls the majority of soft power) is out of power politically, so they project their values (and funnel their money) through Europeans.

When a Democrat returns to power in the USA, nobody will care what European vassal governments and corporations say or do anymore.

American projection through Europe has made Europe weaker and more subservient than ever.

siavosh•1h ago

I’m reading a book by a British author called Against the Machine which you may enjoy. It distills this pervasive unease so many have felt of this growth at all cost system that has been rapidly eating the world. The environmental, humanistic, moral, and spiritual costs of this “machine” is sometimes hard to see when it’s all we’ve known.

saubeidl•1h ago

On a very related note, I can recommend Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher. To quote Wiki:

> It explores Fisher's concept of "capitalist realism", which he describes as "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it."

> The book investigates what Fisher describes as the widespread effects of neoliberal ideology on popular culture, work, education, and mental health in contemporary society

siavosh•1h ago

Thanks added to my list. I do believe that with the inevitable obsolescence of most work the system will continue to destabilize and some alternative will arise (maybe not in my lifetime) although I’m not optimistic it won’t by dystopian.

xp84•5m ago

But haven’t many countries not only imagined but tried very different alternatives to capitalism? What have we learned from those countries?

It seems to always come back to the fact that people who get power always attempt to use that power to get more resources and power, violating all their supposed values and stealing resources from the public.

Personally, I am far from enamored with the apparent equilibrium state of capitalism, if that’s what we have in the US. However, when you compare how I feel about American capitalism to how I feel about North Korean totalitarianism, Venezuelan corrupt socialism, Soviet murderous communism, Cuban destructive communism, etc etc. suddenly I appear to be a booster for capitalism.

WillAdams•1h ago

Society as a whole needs to decide what is to be done with the additional resources generated by on-going technological efficiencies and how the societal aspects of such will be handled.

I wish that folks would consider reducing the work week, or universal basic income --- the total amount of human labour necessary to feed, clothe, house, and entertain humanity is decreasing --- how does society handle vast swathes of the population being not just unemployed, but unemployable, and to the wealthy, unnecessary?

One view on this is to be seen in Marshall Brain's novella "Manna":

https://marshallbrain.com/manna

onlyrealcuzzo•1h ago

> As an American, all I’m trying to do is get rich enough to move to Europe someday.

How do Europeans get rich enough to have that life you dream about in Europe once you're rich enough from making money in America to move there?

toomuchtodo•1h ago

They do not need to because their social systems are structured around public goods and services for humans instead of profits. Americans have to get rich to buy into a functional system, because they were unlucky enough to be born on the wrong soil.

My health insurance for a family of 4 in Spain is $2k/year. In the US, $20k+ (premiums, copays, etc). Why? Combined market cap of UHC and CVS as of this comment is $391B. (Just one example, there are many)

https://finviz.com/map.ashx

(am American who splits his time in Europe, and agrees with thread parent Europe > US; the US is an extraction engine, at its core)

BobbyTables2•52m ago

Yes, but can you eat out once a week without breaking the budget on a European salary?

toomuchtodo•42m ago

We are perhaps optimizing for different things. Eating out is not important to me versus affordable, accessible healthcare, for example.

trashb•11m ago

yes you can, there are European cultures where eating out more than once a week is common.

xp84•19m ago

I don’t know about Spain, but when I did some brief research it looks like senior software engineers in the UK make often substantially under £100,000. Away from London even £60,000. Most seniors at my company in the US make about £150,000. £50-70k of incremental salary pays for a hell of a lot of health insurance premiums and retirement contributions.

vatsachak•1h ago

Have you travelled Europe? Other than in some countries like Germany or Ireland the job situation is quite bleak. For example, look at average wages vs living costs in Madrid

HPsquared•1h ago

Living costs in Ireland are crazy though. Dublin is more expensive (on average) than London, I'd say.

dnissley•1h ago

That's why you need to get rich before moving to Europe

mothballed•1h ago

Or just live like a European? The cost of a Latvian investment visa is something like the price of an average new car. It's obtainable to most anyone gainfully employed in skilled labor in the USA. Virtually anyone here that wants one can get it and move there.

vatsachak•51m ago

Okay, besides being of Latvian descent, why would one want to move from the US to Latvia?

mothballed•50m ago

Homebase for smuggling French cheeses into Russia?

hexbin010•43m ago

Exactly. I think people think it means you get an EU passport immediately or something and can spend 364 days a year in any EU country?? You only get a Schengen visa and are restricted to 180 days total outside of Latvia, inside the Schengen. But you can do that without a Latvian residence permit...

AIUI it's 10 years to get an EU - sorry, Latvian - passport and for an individual year to count towards that you need 183+ days a year in Latvia

mothballed•8m ago

Other than years to citizenship, isn't that the same deal anywhere in EU?

The point is getting a residence permit in EU country is step 1, and step 1 is accessible to fairly average white collar US worker who wants to move to the EU.

xp84•15m ago

Especially given that odds are better than 50% that you will find yourself in a new, larger Russia at some point in the next 5-10 years. Not cheering the prospect, but it seems like Putin knows the US won’t get involved in Europe anymore, and therefore Russian expansion into all former Soviet territory, at minimum, just makes sense.

j1elo•52m ago

* Good "Base" salary: around €30,000-35.000 gross annually is considered a good base for a single person in Spain, including larger cities. From there, thech workers might be able to get a better salary. This is before taxes, of which there are plenty, so you can count that final effective take-home money is around 60-70% of that. VAT is 21% so that's another chunk that you'll contribute each time you purchase stuff.

* Median rent price in the city: one-bedroom apartment is around €1,000/month; 3-bedroom apartment around €1,500-€2,000.

BobbyTables2•50m ago

Always did find it curious that Spain seems to have few suburbs. Just apartment complexes up to the city’s edge and then farmland…

ReptileMan•1h ago

>There are greater goals than growth at all costs.

Those greater goals are easier to achieve when you are the biggest economy of the world.

saubeidl•1h ago

That is true and the EU benefited greatly from that status pre-Brexit. However, it still has more than enough leverage to pursue said goals.

The key insight here, however, is that being the biggest economy in the world or growth is not a goal in itself. It is an enabler of all sorts of quality of life goals, but don't make the mistake of sacrificing the end for the means.

hurrrr•1h ago

Yes, but this only works as long as the economy remains competitive. Europe is rapidly squandering the human and economic capital it has accumulated over centuries, while the US and Asia continue to grow. Welfare exists as long as someone pays for it.

otikik•57m ago

In the US and Asia, wealth is concentrating in a few individuals. Those don't pay welfare anyway and pay less taxes than me.

hartator•1h ago

> As an American, all I’m trying to do is get rich enough to move to Europe someday.

Why not directly work in the EU?

harimau777•52m ago

Personally, I'd love to do that. Good luck actually getting one of those jobs though; particularly if living in a city is important to you.

mono442•1h ago

Are you ready to live in a 300 sq feet shoebox apartment instead of a normal single family house?

dminor•59m ago

You don't have to be rich to move to Europe. The cost of living in most European countries is less than the USA (which you would expect, given their lower salaries).

harimau777•53m ago

The need to be rich comes from the need to get a visa, language training, and rebuild your social structure. Also, the cost of living is nothing to sneeze at if you are a city person.

otikik•58m ago

I was like that when I was growing up.

The cultural influence that the US exercises outwards with Hollywood, music, etc cannot be understaded.

mrtksn•56m ago

There are some aspect of the US culture that are truly fascinating and IMHO most Europeans are jealous of but the rest is a cautionary tale about how you can be very rich(as a number on the bank UI) and have horrible life. The next iteration of the Christmas Carol could be one where they take a European aspiring to be American to US to show him the consequences of greed and isolation.

Honestly, US is currently in a stage that Europe was long time ago. Greed, nationalism, military might, fast paces unchecked advancements in tech, rampant religious fundamentalism and sectarianism etc. All those thing are stuff Europeans went through.

That's why the Charles Dickens stories fit nicely.

BobbyTables2•55m ago

I don’t understand how expensive Europe is yet income is proportionately low. I don’t mean to live a life of luxury — just basic survival.

Sure restaurant prices are about the same … for 1/3rd the amount of food.

fijiaarone•37m ago

Vacation every day, right?

mothballed•1h ago

"Output per head" is total population? If so the slight downward trajectory likely reflects the aging population of europe.

fijiaarone•58m ago

The average age of the population of Europe has gotten significantly lower over the last decade.

input_sh•54m ago

No it hasn't? At all?

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

ncruces•53m ago

Do you have data to back that?

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age?country=USA~GB...

toomuchtodo•25m ago

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-median-age-in-ev...

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf

Pet_Ant•1h ago

I think the lack of social safety net in the US is a gun to the head of American workers that gets more productivity out of them (at the cost of well-being which isn't accounted for). The billionaires are necessary as aspirational opiate that allows those same people to work themselves to death with the balm that they too will soon join the ranks of the billionaires. Let's not even start on how the American economy depends on undocumented immigrants which function as disposable citizens. They function economically as citizens but don't consume resources and can be sent away as needed if they happen to be inconvenient.

I do not think there is an ethical way to challenge the American economy. It'd be like trying to beat the costs of Dubai's construction industry without enslaving Asians.

otikik•1h ago

> undocumented immigrants which function as disposable citizens

I am afraid that is not a problem exclusive to the United States. Perhaps it is more prevalent there, I don't have the numbers, but it also happens in Europe. What we don't usually have is a "backdoor" for slavery in the form of penal labor enshrined in our Constitutions.

> I do not think there is an ethical way to challenge the American economy.

Supporting a negligent leader so that he gets elected can undermine it.

Not that I think that is ethical, either. But it is more "efficient", in terms of resources spent.

aniviacat•41m ago

> What we don't usually have is a "backdoor" for slavery in the form of penal labor enshrined in our Constitutions.

I don't know if you meant to exclude this using the word "usually", but Germany has a backdoor for slavery in the form of penal labor enshrined in its constitution [1]. And it's not just enshrined in the constitution, it is actually active law [2].

[1] In the German constitution, Article 12 (3), it says:

> Zwangsarbeit ist nur bei einer gerichtlich angeordneten Freiheitsentziehung zulässig.

[2] In the StVollzG, Section 41 (1), it says:

> Der Gefangene ist verpflichtet, eine ihm zugewiesene, seinen körperlichen Fähigkeiten angemessene Arbeit, arbeitstherapeutische oder sonstige Beschäftigung auszuüben, zu deren Verrichtung er auf Grund seines körperlichen Zustandes in der Lage ist.

otikik•18m ago

I meant “most European countries don’t”. I confess I didn’t know about Germany in particular.

fijiaarone•40m ago

Less than 0.0001% of economic output in the USA is performed by penal labor, mostly by non-incarcerated people (e.g. court mandated community service such as road cleanup as penalty for traffic violations).

xp84•26m ago

The people who are offended by the practice of prison labor will never let that issue go, even though it’s opt-in — you have to commit felonies in order to go to prison.

otikik•17m ago

Or people who have incentives to put you in prison will find the felonies for you

vjvjvjvjghv•1h ago

"I do not think there is an ethical way to challenge the American economy"

I think Europe could do much better without destroying safety nets. Starting a business should be easier and hiring people should be easier too. And in general a little more ambition couldn't hurt.

mothballed•53m ago

US social safety net requires you to pop out a baby or three to ramp up your benefits, so even if it doesn't encourage unemployed to work it encourages producing more young workers.

And if you don't have kids the USA will actually tax you back into poverty, at some income bands.

boc•49m ago

The US actually has a series of social safety nets. There are massive government programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security which provide real, measurable safety nets to the most vulnerable in society. There are also hundreds of thousands of charities, churches, and non-profit organizations that donate time, money, and resources to assist families going through hard times. There is also the US Military, which serves as a government-backed career path for millions of high-school graduates.

I think you're thinking that the US got ahead through exploiting labor. You missed the biggest piece of it though - the US welcomes (or at least until recently used to welcome) massive amounts of highly-educated immigrants from all over the world, and crucially has built a culture and society where those people can feel "American" fairly quickly in a way that they would never if they moved to Switzerland or France.

Being able to brain-drain the entire world and then smartly arm those people with unlimited capital to build their companies and dreams is the "unfair" American advantage. It isn't unethical, it's just not something European society supports. That, and the 30-year mortgage.

Pet_Ant•30m ago

1) It's subsidised through cheap labor. The start-up whose founder live and work in buildings built by undocumented labor. Eat food grown by that labor, and served from food trucks run by undocumented labor. It's innovation subsidised by misery.

2) the brain-drain is unethical because it takes subsidised education of individuals without returning anything in return. Emmigrants should get a bill of the cost of their upbringing. It's really free-loading, especially for a country with such a poor public education system as the US.

groundzeros2015•1h ago

Japan had a similar turn in the 80s, but unlike Europe they seem to have more of an alternative view of society and future.

Europe seems to effectively follow American culture and practices with a dampener. Being America with healthcare and college funds has not been much of a vision for the future.

onlyrealcuzzo•58m ago

Japan just took out 300% of debt to GDP.

There wasn't anything special.

It was just debt.

thiago_fm•45m ago

If you look at US' debt trajectory, it's on its way there -- and it will be quick!

stego-tech•1h ago

I hate these hit pieces against the EU, but I’ll give OP credit that theirs actually has a mixture of credulous proposals (Federal preemption, ending directives, commercial court) alongside the usual pro-billionaire insanity (a 28th regime just for business? Removing regulations on product standards? Are you fucking kidding me here?).

Europe has its fair share of issues, but a lot of them can still be traced back to unresolved wealth pumps and neoliberal policies weakening the state and labor force in favor of business and billionaire interests. There’s also unresolved questions about how much of America’s economic growth is tangible versus theoretical, given the dilapidated state of America’s infrastructure and ballooning national debt problem. Neutering what makes Europeans so much happier than their American peers just for the sake of “productivity” comes off as gallingly tone deaf to the practical realities on the ground.

riffraff•56m ago

the 28th regime is a proposal from the former head[0] of the largest Italian left wing party.

It may be insane, but it's not something dreamed up by billionaires.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Letta

FredPret•44m ago

> “Europeans… so much happier than… Americans”

Citation needed, and not to a Facebook Quiz-tier “how happy are you on a scale of ten” questionnaire.

My experience is obviously anecdotal, but it is quite varied, and the exact opposite.

xp84•23m ago

> Europe…issues… can still be traced back to unresolved wealth pumps and neoliberal policies weakening the state and labor force in favor of business and billionaire interests

Is it your position that Europe just hasn’t done socialism hard enough? Can you point to an example of a country who has successfully done what you’d like to see?

tschellenbach•50m ago

I'm Dutch, the media narrative is a major problem. It's not being honest about the level of relative decline between USA & NL. 20 years of diverging growth rates has had a massive impact. This trend will continue, since NL missed most of the internet, mobile, social and AI startups.

Here in Colorado even people at entry level jobs can afford a nice home. Salaries are way lower in NL, and housing is incredibly expensive.

But the media just doesn't report on it. You don't notice it unless you live in both places. Still a beautiful country though and USA has it's own problems as well.

blfr•41m ago

A lot of Polish media outlets seem to have completely forgone reporting from abroad. I don't even think it's propaganda, they just lost viewership to the Internet and found that there are cheaper ways to fill the airwaves than news from faraway countries requiring expensive local crews/reporters.

But yes, even many policy wonks / talking heads don't seem to realize the divergence between EU15 and the US since 2007.

bryanlarsen•30m ago

It's stagnation in the headline, not decline. There's a massive difference. European GDP per capita has been roughly 75% of America's for the last 50 years.

Over that same period, American GDP per capita has more than doubled, even after adjusting for inflation.

Which means that European GDP per capita has also more than doubled. 75% of an increasing number is also an increasing number.

thiago_fm•47m ago

The measure of "output" is the problem. Output can be increased by more expenditures, not a real tangible benefit for the society.

The US had 6.3% GDP deficit in 2024, meanwhile it's 3% in the EU. The US is growing on debt, and on its way to become Japan.

Even on EU's worst debt crisis times, it didn't run such a big deficit as the US.

Add in the fact that the EU has accepted the Meta/Google tax in advertising, among other US' interests businesses. Which it can change its mind and get such businesses in trouble.

Not to forget about shale oil. The US became the biggest oil producer BY A WIDE MARGIN.

But it's all based on a $60 barrel, if the oil barrel goes back to $40, you'd see most of those companies filing bankrupcy and trillions disappearing. Here's another industry that the US government will need subsidize further with more US debt and taxpayers money.

There's a lot of risk attached to the US' recent growth, people would be naive to not consider them. We'd have to see if that trend lives for longer, and what are the tradeoffs.

The EU could decide to also destroy its country, feed people a lot of corn syrup and diabetes, and provide them GLP-1 drugs to increase its GDP.

Or just make the european believe that big cars are great, and they need a 5 bedroom house for 3 people.

All this would push that holy productivity number UP, but does it make rational sense to do that? Nope.

spwa4•12m ago

What is never mentioned in articles like this is that the post-war period was a truly exceptional period in one respect: literally almost everything was supply-limited. A bit less so in the US than in Europe.

Now it's the opposite: almost everything is demand-limited. If you asked a good economist "what factory needs building?", the answer would be none. Or the answer would be something like "the EU is about to outlaw calculator imports from China, build that factory".

One of these environments makes it much, much harder to grow.

Obviously this is a general trend, not a rule.

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