
Ask HN: What is so different between EU and US govt? - perpetualcrayon
I only have my own experience and understanding of the world to go by as evidence for this presumption, but I&#x27;ll ask the question anyways:<p>What is so different about EU vs US that the EU govt tends to lean toward protecting its citizens and US govt tends to lean toward protecting its corporations?<p>EDIT:  I&#x27;m mostly looking at this not to define the types of government in each region.  I&#x27;m more looking at this from the human nature perspective.  Why is one group of people more interested in protecting citizens and the other more interested in protecting corporations?<p>Obviously neither government is exactly the same now as it was when it was started.  How did one group of people evolve their government to be more interested in protecting people, and the other evolved to be more interested in protecting corporations?
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mars4rp
The US has a president, most EU countries don't have most of the power
concentrated in one person! as a side effect, US presidency is winner take
all, that forces 2 party system. parliamentary systems don't have that side
effect.

Add money contribution system of US to the mix and voila you are going to get
the same system no matter where on earth it is located!

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mindcrash
The United States is a representative republic (e.g. voters get to choose
whoever represents them in the House and Senate, their local governments and
their President) while the EU as it is today can be best described as a
Oligarchy.

Let me explain.

Citizens in the EU can only vote for the European Parlement (EP) which takes
place every five years. However, the European Parlement only exists to make it
look like citizens have any influence in European politics which is not the
case.

The true power of European politics lies within the European Commission (EC)
which is NOT elected by the people but are politicians within the EU chosen by
politicians within the EU. The EC doubles as both the executive _and_
legislative branch of the EU.

However, Citizens within the EU have no influence on execution or legislation
by the EC whatsoever (they would like to pretend that the people do have this
influence, because the pretence of "democracy").

Many HN members residing in the US are currently quite angry that they have
Donald Trump as their president. But actually they have to be glad, because in
about four years his first term has ended and you, as citizens of the US, at
least have the ability to choose a better president (if the majority agrees,
ofcourse). In Europe, unless European law and government will be seriously
reformed, we will never have that opportunity. We are stuck with a unchosen
and thus undemocratic legislative and executive branch who have total control
over the democratically chosen local leaders and governments.

Still think the EU is so awesome? I hope you will reconsider.

PS: Source being me, I live in the EU and know pretty much all you would ever
need to know about local and European politics around these parts.

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BjoernKW
I don't think that such a clear-cut distinction based on motivation or general
intent can be made. There are political factions in the US whose goals are
quite similar to those of more left-leaning factions in the EU.

In general, you could probably say that the EU is more left-leaning than the
US because two of its major powers - France and Germany - tend to be more
left-leaning as well as Scandinavian countries, which from a US perspective
are sometimes considered almost socialist (though that's not exactly true).

While more left-leaning factions in general seem to favour the rights of the
average citizen over those of corporations this isn't unanimously good or a
clear distinction either. In some ways, the EU is a good example of the road
to hell that's paved with good intentions. Its regulations often are so
complex that - intentionally or not - they favour big corporations because
they're too difficult to implement for smaller companies. Being an
entrepreneur for instance is - very broadly speaking - more difficult and
unusual than in the US, simply because employment in a big corporation pretty
much is the assumed default model in the EU. Anything that deviates from that
is more difficult to accommodate in the existing legal framework.

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abhiminator
The United States is generally considered to be a free-market hegemony (and
has been at the helm of the pecking order since the early 1900s), and the
system was set-up (at least when it was originally conceived) in a manner so
as to cause minimal Big Government interference in day-to-day affairs of the
people and the states of the Union. Freedom is something folks in the United
States take very seriously, and this includes freedom to trade and open-up
businesses freely, with minimal regulation and taxation -- heck the American
Revolution itself was triggered because of tiff over taxation, extending more
broadly to tyranny. [0]

Now, contemporary EU on the other hand has a vastly different and divergent
history from that of the U.S. and Europeans, generally speaking, aren't as
skeptical of their government as Americans are. Also, EU leans more to the
left (generally speaking) relative to the United States, most "right-wing"
parties in the EU would be considered to be slightly left-of-center if they
were based in the U.S. [1]

Now, with that out of the way, to address your question -- both places have
vastly different history and the divergent histories has given birth to vastly
different cultures, helped by the fact that they're separated by the second-
biggest body of water on the planet, making it even harder for inter-culture
interaction. Right-leaning countries, like the U.S. for example, generally
advocate for more free trade, less regulation and less taxation which is
directly antithetical to the core principles of left-leaning countries, like
the EU-bloc for example. [2]

[0] [http://www.tep-online.info/laku/usa/rights.htm](http://www.tep-
online.info/laku/usa/rights.htm) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum)
[2] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/5-ways-
ameri...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/5-ways-americans-
and-europeans-are-different/)

~~~
perpetualcrayon
Thank you for the feedback. Interesting info. I definitely think my question
was not as precise as I was looking for.

I definitely get the "right leaning" vs "left leaning" dichotomy. I'm
wondering more about the human nature element. What's so different about
people in EU vs US that one would find more value in protecting citizens and
the other would find more value in protecting corporations?

~~~
abhiminator
Generally speaking, Americans tend to prioritize individual liberty, while
Europeans tend to value the role of the state to ensure no one in society is
in need, and thus individual liberty by extension extends over to the property
the individual owns, like businesses and corporations, for example.

Europeans on the other hand are more 'collectivist' RELATIVE to the United
States, which I assert might be due to the bad hangover from earlier empires;
U.S. has been a pretty stable Democratic Republic for close to 250 years now.

~~~
perpetualcrayon
Maybe it's the wrong thing to get from this, but I'm imagining that in this
scenario, in the US, one man's property is in most cases more valuable than
another man's existence?

~~~
maxerickson
This is literally expressed in some state laws, search "Castle Doctrine".
Stand your ground laws are also somewhat related.

~~~
Tomte
And self-defense law in Germany has is much more robust than all those castle
doctrine laws.

Here, proportionality of response explicitly doesn‘t come into the balancing
test, only erforderlich (necessary), geeignet (useful) and least forceful
method that leads to guaranteed success.

~~~
maxerickson
What do you mean by robust?

Most US laws related to Castle doctrine pretty much allow the use of maximum
force for forced entry. No evaluation of whether lethal force was necessary,
no evaluation of whether less force would have sufficed.

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BartBoch
I think it goes like that:

-US government is a capitalist one semi-controlled by corporations (corporations control the funds, but the public is the one to vote - thanks to a duopoly, the latter have limited options and the former decides which one to support).

-EU "government" is a social one semi-controlled by social organizations (basically a lobbying body, mostly socialist that can create a short-term momentum to push their agendas. The main power that matter is Germany, but there is a possibility for a coalition of a mixed majority of other top 6 countries to outweigh their decisions both vote-wise and politically).

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xstartup
If you want to truly understand the difference. You'll have to travel far back
in history.

America did not exist yet and Europe was a poor place. India and China were
rich and had a huge trade surplus, they were getting richer and Europe was
getting poorer. And they were not interested in invading other countries.

Europeans invaded and robbed India and Africa from where they got most of
their wealth.

This wealth helped Europe industrialize.

During this time someone looking to travel to India accidentally discovered
America.

I'll leave rest on you to research.

Fast forward today, American companies (facebook, google) have succeeded in
extracting huge value from the European continent. Partly due to their
economic policies and immigration of talented labor from other countries.

Europeans do not welcome immigration, considering the fact they are the
nations who've robbed developing nations.

And Europeans do not like it because they've rapidly aging population, they
are not in a position to compete with America and rising nations (India/China
etc...)

Europe is now in wealth preservation mode. They want to stop wealth from
leaving their shores.

As Europeans come together to protect the wealth and they've somehow made a
case for the welfare state.

Today, Europeans ride their moral high horse and advocate for high standards,
but why should anyone give them any creditability when their roots are
imperialism / plundering poor nations.

GDPR is yet another unreasonable and difficult to comply with policy coming
out of Europe. It's their wealth preservation plan.

~~~
xstartup
As a European, it might hurt your feelings but you should blame it on your
ancestors.

Europeans have never been apologetic towards the nations they've robbed during
Imperiasic Era.

Until they correct their mistake. Only nation who we should trust the ones who
have never robbed other nations.

I would love to know how Europeans can defend their actions of past.

~~~
olivierduval
Quite funny: you're more describing the US than Europe. Maybe because you're
only interested by US and not by Europe..? ;-)

~~~
xstartup
No, I am describing Europe only.

Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations
of South Asia and Africa.

Winners write history, but still, it's damn too hard to make elephant in the
room disappear.

~~~
badpun
> Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations
> of South Asia and Africa.

Do you have some data to back it up? Because there are some quite prominent
examples that seem to contradict this claim. Take Poland, which was one of the
major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and
which never ventured outside Europe.

~~~
xstartup
If Poland did perfect industrial processes where did it got the natural
resources from if not from rest of Europe which were brought into Europe
through imperialism? Becoming an Industrial power is not possible without
importing resources.

>> Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe
(around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe.

It seems to support my claim perfectly. Poland was only able to become a major
power because it did not have an excess of those resources, partly because it
did not venture outside Europe. It had no option but to polish its industrial
strength in order to compete with rest of Europe.

There was literally no incentive for other European countries of that time to
become a major industrial power, they were awash with wealth and resources.

~~~
badpun
Poland was a major player in the pre-industrial era (the period that you
referred to in your original comment, I am not saying anything about the
industrialization period). It accomplished it without any ventures to Asia or
Africa. Your original claim still looks invalid to me.

~~~
xstartup
Polish per capita GDP that the county already lagged behind Western Europe in
economic development at the end of the Middle Ages

Polish living standards in the sixteenth century were below those of Italy and
The Netherlands but on par with those of England. The author demonstrated that
the Polish series began to also lag behind the English values in the
seventeenth century due to growth in the latter series. According to a study
of GDP made by Wójtowicz and Wójtowicz (2009), people living in Poland enjoyed
only around 70 % of the goods and services available to the inhabitants of
Western Europe in the sixteenth century. This value declined to around 40 % in
the late eighteenth century

source:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-016-0154-5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-016-0154-5)

~~~
badpun
Interesting. Do you have data on the various Germanic states from that period?
As far as I know, they've only joined the colonization/exploitation game in
the late XIX century, and yet I think they did ok before that?

