
Stop Generalizing About Europe - jonascopenhagen
http://jonasbentzen.com/stop-generalizing-about-europe/
======
crazygringo
This post feels awfully pedantic. While it may not be clear to non-Americans,
when Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western
Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too. They almost certainly
aren't including Russia.

(Just like when Americans talk about Asia, they aren't usually thinking of
India.)

Of course, that's geographically inaccurate -- but it's what we usually mean.
The Europe that Americans refer to _does_ mostly use the Euro, have better-
distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, and ambivalent feelings toward
entrepreneurs in most of its parts.

Just because Europe is made up of lots of countries, and there are lots of
different ways to define it, doesn't mean you can't make statements about it.
Perhaps the main point of the post was, be aware that Eastern Europe exists?

~~~
john_flintstone
Sorry, but no.

I've been in discussions recently with a French company whose development team
is based in Dublin (Ireland for the geo-illiterate). Most of the tech staff in
Dublin were East European, and the company's HR department was in Romania - a
non-EU country.

This EU centric perception is a media perception, and bears no relationship to
the reality on the ground in Europe.

Company in question was owned by a a UK multi-national, and builds software
for banks all over the world. The 'Western EU' leaning is pure fantasy. I
understand why Americans like it - it's simple and straight forward, and
appeals to people from what is basically a simply and straight forward country
- but it's just not the reality on the ground.

!+": Romania: !+": Wasn't even aware of its EU status. Why? Because when you
think EU, it simply doesn't pop up. Which points vividly to the diversity of
the EU. Romania, even now, is no one's idea of a Western country. It simply
ain't. It ain't western; it ain't even that European. Tarring all of Europe
with some kind of EU white wash is simply foolish.

~~~
vladd
Romania is an EU country since 2007:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union)

------
Vivtek
Hmm. Perhaps you could stop generalizing about people generalizing about
Europe. Varsavsky has lived and built businesses in Madrid since 1995, so I
think that his _contrasts_ between the European market and the American market
from the entrepreneur's point of view are really pretty trustworthy.

Your points about European diversity are quite valid, although I think they're
beside the point. But your ad hominem "Oh my, another American is butting his
nose into Europe" framing is less than persuasive.

~~~
jacquesm
> his contrasts between the European market and the American market from the
> entrepreneur's point of view are really pretty trustworthy.

They're not. And I've run businesses in lots of different countries as well.
Martin is on the ball when it comes to comparing Spain the US, but his
contrasts between the European and the American market from the entrepreneurs
point of view are way off the mark.

He should have simply titled his post: "what it's like to be an entrepreneur
in Spain" and there would have been no issue at all.

Btw, Varsavsky isn't an American, he's had quite a few business dealings in
the UK and in Spain but as far as I know doesn't hold a stake in a company in
any of the other EU countries that he's writing about and I really don't
understand what it was that he was trying to achieve with his post.

If you don't believe me go visit Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Tampere, Paris,
Stockholm, Bucharest, Warsaw or a hundred other places and compare those
contrasts for yourself.

On the whole there are very few of Varsavsky's points that hold water, a
summary between the US business climate and the EU one from an entrepreneurs
pint of view could be made much shorter:

\- in the EU it is a lot harder to be a dick to your employees

\- in America you will (due to the larger and more homogeneous home market)
likely have a much better chance grow fast

\- in Europe you will have to think internationally from day 1

\- in Europe it is less dog-eat-dog and more cooperative

Those are from my own personal experience.

~~~
xradionut
"- in the EU it is a lot harder to be a dick to your employees"

Yes, but you can be a dick to the employees of your US subsidiaries. (Personal
experience with a few German corporations led to this observation...)

------
erebrus
It's amazing how many from the USA insist that the inner diversity in the USA
is comparable to the one in Europe. I've heard this many times, namely here in
HN. It is not comparable. PERIOD.

Even if the poster goes a bit to the extreme of bringing Russia in to the
conversation, even inside the EU, there is still no comparison on how how
diverse Europe is (e.g. Portugal to Norway, Greece to France, Spain to
Germany) compared to the USA. Some countries, like Austria and Germany do have
some similarities, but - to the untrained eye - Canada and the USA will seem
relatively similar also, when compared to Mexico!

~~~
artimaeis
Perhaps the diversity of the USA is not the extreme of Europe, but I would be
quick to point out that the regional differences in the US are quite notable
even to an outside observer.

There are 5 major regions of the US: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest,
and West. Each of these regions has noted differences in: dialect, culture,
food, general behavior, economy, and quality of life.

Now regardless of US or Europe we have to factor in the population density of
a location. It's no secret that urban culture is very different from rural
culture be it in Oregon or in France.

Granted: we mostly speak the same language, we all share a common currency,
and we all answer to the same federal body which represents us.

There is more diversity in Europe, that much I am sure of. But there is no
problem with a comparison of the two.

~~~
unconed
If you focus on 'diversity', you miss the bigger picture, because of course
every place is unique. The US has for example far more pronounced extremes of
urban vs rural (which many too forget). The real issue is distance, and how
Europeans and Americans in general have vastly different concepts of what's
far.

If you're in the US or Canada, driving for 10 hours means you're going to
visit your aunt. Doing the same anywhere in Europe means you're likely 2
countries over, and it becomes a 'huge trip' in people's heads. Heck, I know
several people who have driven more than halfway across Canada, in Europe no-
one who drove e.g. from Paris to Istanbul.

And while the European market is supposedly unified, in practice there are
significant variations in pricing and availability as soon as you cross a
border, simply because that's something few people do. And of course the
language difference means most local media is opaque to outsiders.

So I would say that the US is definitely diverse, but it's a gradual
diversity, that transitions smoothly from ultra-urban to no-one-for-miles
rural. It works on very large distances, and is mediated by a shared media,
politics and language. European countries meanwhile are much more homogenous
on the inside, but there are a lot of forces keeping each one unique.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
_Heck, I know several people who have driven more than halfway across Canada,
in Europe no-one who drove e.g. from Paris to Istanbul._

Abstract away the vast distances of road and think of it as nodes on a
directed graph. How many nodes (ie: _inhabited locations of distinct identity_
) did you pass through from source to destination? That's a kind sociocultural
or even ecological distance you traveled, and it can actually be larger on a
Paris-Istanbul trip than on a cross-Canadian trip.

~~~
unconed
Uh, how did you get "Paris-Instanbul is less diverse than cross-Canada" from
my comment? I think I said the exact opposite.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I was actually saying "Paris-Istanbul is _more_ diverse than cross-Canada".
North America has large distances between "significant nodes" on the map,
Europe/Asia has smaller distances.

~~~
unconed
So you replied in agreement with a tortured graph theory analogy devoid of
concrete ties to reality? I'm confused. Usually when people say "actually"
they are correcting someone.

------
nhebb
I think a lot of us need to admit that the author is right. I, for one, do
generalize about Europe. I think of social democracies with high taxes. I
think of arcane rules and regulations to start and run a business. And most of
all, I limit the term "Europe" to include about 20 of the 50 European
countries. I will never think of Russia as a European country. If I entered a
contest and won a vacation to "Europe" - and the destination turned out to be
Albania - I'd be thinking "Wat?!? That's not Europe."

From the outside, the term "Europe" is a confusing morass of distinctions.
There's Europe, the Eurozone, the EU. The UN also has a geoscheme that is
different than all three of those. Hell, half of Americans probably don't know
the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom.

~~~
alexchamberlain
Most British people would struggle to tell you the difference between Great
Britain and the UK.

~~~
crucialfelix
> Most English people would struggle to tell you the difference between Great
> Britain and the UK.

FTFY

~~~
lessnonymous
As most British people are English, if the percentage of unaware English
people is high enough, then most British people would be unaware :-D

~~~
crucialfelix
Drat, once again foiled by logic.

------
peteridah
I am an African currently living in Europe. When you think that my home
country ( just 1 out of 54 in Africa ) is made up of over 500 tribes which
were really separate and distinct nations pre-colonializiation by the British,
you come to realize that any generalization made of a continent is rarely (if
ever) a representation of the observed set.

------
saosebastiao
There is a small town very near to where I grew up where everybody speaks
Portuguese. The mayor and his councilmen speak Portuguese in their chambers.
There are Festas and bullfights, of which I have attended many, and even
played Baritone in an Azorian-tradition marching band. The local grocery
stores have food with labels in Portuguese (occasionally Spanish as a second
language). The most popular sports team in the entire city is Benfica, and the
most popular TV channel is RTP.

This town is called Gustine, and it is located in California.

If you are going to throw a fit about generalizations of Europe, at least have
the courtesy to do the same with your generalizations of the US. After having
lived in multiple corners of this country, I can honestly tell you that our
majority language and our TV stations are the lowest common denominators of
our culture...not defining aspects of it.

~~~
jonascopenhagen
I addressed all that in my post. I never claimed that Americans were one
homogenous group (and by the way, I've lived in California, too). I claimed
that US, despite being a melting pot, is an actual nation (which is not the
case with the EU) and that there are a least some common denominators - one of
them being the language which is spoken natively by more than 80% of the
population.

~~~
saosebastiao
So how exactly is it imprudent or offensive for Americans to point out some of
the common denominators of Europe?

~~~
Xylakant
Not at all - as long as you're at least generally right. If you're grossly
misrepresenting things that apply to one country as "common denominator of
Europe" it's offensive. It's offensive to pretend all germans wear lederhosen
or probably a couple of americans were annoyed if I'd say that all americans
wear cowboy boots and hats, have a winchester on their back and a colt on
their belt and speak the worst texan dialect ever.

------
gudukassa
I am from Africa - a continent of more than a billion people speaking around
two thousand languages. In Africa, you find one of the first Christian nations
in the word as well as communities practicing ancient forms of traditional
belief systems. Climate ranges from scorching heat and arid desert to tropical
rain forests. You find the very wealthy elite monopolizing all the resources
as well as mass poverty. I could go on.

To make matters worse, borders between countries are artificially drawn by
colonialists. That results in frequent conflicts and makes effective
governance or business extremely difficult. Yet, almost everyone refers to
Africa as one homogeneous (dark) unit.

Schadenfreude from your African fellow.

~~~
_pferreir_
Well, it's not uncommon to hear the expression "Sub-saharan Africa". That's
better than nothing.

At least in Europe, we usually differentiate between
Mediterranean/Maghreb/Islamic Africa and "everything below".

Actually, I believe most southern Europeans refer to "Africa" in the loosest
sense of the word as being the sub-Saharan part, since the northern countries
are seen as Mediterranean and are just too close to home to be thought of as
in another continent. Likewise, no-one will refer to the Near East as being
"Asia".

------
mbell
I could make an almost identical argument about the usage of terms like
"Americans". The states and even cities themselves are all very different.

~~~
Xylakant
Yes, indeed they are. But they all share a common language. It's a bit like
Germany, Switzerland and Austria or even the german states themselves. We all
share a common language so it we've seen the same movies, read the same media,
etc. Certainly it's on a larger scale than the german states, but it's on a
smaller scale than europe. If I travel 200 km to the east I'm in Poland. My GF
comes from a village close to the belarussian border. I can pick the car,
drive there in 6 hours or so and while it's Europe and even still EU, I can't
even begin to talk to her parents or pretty much any other person in the
village. I don't understand a single word they say, I have very little clue
about how their life was and still is. If I drive 1000 km to the south I
crossed at least 4 borders and heard at least as many languages on the way. So
the proper comparison would be to compare texas to mexico or any middle
american state.

~~~
outside1234
"But they all share a common language"

Ha! You haven't been to Watsonville, California or just about anywhere along
the border with Mexico, have you?

~~~
rmc
Right, so that's 2 languages (English & Spanish). There are currently 23
offical working languages in the EU.

And I'm sure if you live in Watsonville, California, you can get your tax
forms in English, right? This is definitly not the case within the whole of
the EU and the EU offical languages. (e.g. someone in Ireland could not get
their tax forms in Swedish).

~~~
xradionut
There's way more than two languages:
<http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/>

If you live in a larger urban area in the US, odds are that you can encounter
several dozen languages in a day.

~~~
rmc
Yes, clearly there are many different languages spoken in a large, populous
country like the USA.

However that's not at all like the European Union which has to publish all EU
Directives in 23 languages, and each country has 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 official
languages for their region. In the USA, English is the lingua franca, and
official stuff can be done in English. There is no language that you can use
all over the EU that will work in all (or sometimes any) official capacity.

------
cllns
I was curious so here are some population figures (from wikipedia)

    
    
        Eurozone: 332,839,084
    
        EU: 503,492,041
    
        Europe: 739,165,030
    

So 45% of Europeans (66% of EU citizens) are in the Eurozone.

~~~
personlurking
Here's a great lil' venn diagram of all the European bodies

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Supranati...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Supranational_European_Bodies.png)

~~~
ColinWright
One of my bugbears, but to be completely accurate this is an Euler Diagram,
not a Venn Diagram. Technically, a Venn Diagram has to have all possible
intersections represented.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_diagram>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram>

<http://blog.stevemould.com/venn-vs-euler-diagrams/>

------
elomarns
As a brazilian, I completely understand this feeling. A lot of people think
Buenos Aires is Brazil's capital, when it's actually Argentina's capital. And
small parts of our culture are taken as national main interest, as carnival.

But it's ok to me. In the end, there's no much to do besides correcting
people. It's not worth to be upset with this behaviour. People will always
generalize and will always state things about places they don't even know with
total confidence.

~~~
jonascopenhagen
What worries me is that some American entrepreneurs may be deterred from
starting businesses in Europe based on untrue generalizations, whether
positive or negative. There are huge possibilities in Europe, but in order to
plan your business strategy you need facts.

~~~
elomarns
I agree. What I was trying to say is that it doesn't worth to be upset with
any misunderstanding about the place you born, wherever it is. Instead, you
can correct people, so they have a more realistic view of your country.

But I also believe that any entrepreneur considering to start a company in
Europe must research deeply, in a way that he find facts, and not only
opinions from people from Internet.

------
corwinstephen
True, you're generalizing when you say "Europeans are...", but you would also
be generalizing if you said "Americans are...", "San Franciscans are...",
"Rich people are...", "Programmers are...", and so on and so forth for any
group of people you can think of. Talking about a group of people is
generalizing, and generalizing is a necessary part of life, because despite
the fact that doing so may cause untrue things to be said about certain
people, it is also true that generalizations are true about more people than
they are untrue about. That's why they're called generalizations.

People say "vc's in the bay area understand startups." Is this universally
true? Of course not. But am I ignorant for saying so? Not in the slightest,
because in more cases than not, it is true.

So yeah, the guy's statements might not be holistically accurate, but who's
are? He's offering guidlines, and I believe that's fair.

Disclosure: I have not yet had the pleasure of visiting Europe. It is possible
that my opinions might change after experiencing life there firsthand.

------
Kynlyn
Reverse "Europeans" with "Americans" and this post is equally good advice for
Europeans who say "Oh Americans are...".

Stereotypes aren't just an American thing. They exist worldwide.

------
aufreak3
I would love to write a similar post titled "Americans and Europeans, stop
generalizing about India". As much as I cringe every time I hear someone do an
"Indian accent" (it differs _vastly_ from state to state), drawing simple
boundaries is the way we make sense of the world around us. As experience
grows, we learn to make finer distinctions and the texture of life around us
grows from monochrome to technicolour.

Please feel free to draw these simple boundaries around anything of importance
to you as long as those generalizations are adequate for your life and those
around you. Don't however think that your generalizations are absolutely real.
They're real for you and may not be for others. This is what is ultimately so
beautiful about the world.

------
conradfr
If you think of it, pop culture shared amongst Europeans have a greater chance
to be American than European.

~~~
VeejayRampay
As a French dude, I've always dreamt of a more unified European culture. As in
producing movies, TV shows with European money, catering to a European
audience. England already produces some more-than-decent TV shows as it is.

We should also make English the official language, that would help us all move
forward.

~~~
wolfgke
> We should also make English the official language, that would help us all
> move forward.

We should better create an entirely new artificial official language so that
nobody feels discriminated.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Nah. English is an easy language, taught in a vast majority of high schools in
Europe, the Northerners already all speak it perfectly, it has Latin roots and
Germanic roots, it's fairly neutral, used by the US and Canada and is so far
the de facto language of business. We should invest in English.

I've wanted English to be a mandatory second language after your native one in
all of Europe for a while.

Also creating languages never works, see Esperanto and all those ridiculous
lab-synthetized languages that pretend to solve all the problems and all end
up showing the very same bias it was trying to avoid in the first place
(Esperanto for example is WAY easier for a romance-family speaker than for say
a dude from Poland).

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Please no. The world's languages are already being killed-off by English a
little too quickly.

~~~
klausjensen
Good thing. Inability to communicate in a common language is a huge barrier
for development, peace and understanding global issues.

------
polskibus
I was taught at my (European-based) business negotiation course that such
generalizations as the ones mentioned in the article, are a basic American
negotiation strategy to undermine European confidence. I was told that
Americans are aware (most of the time) that their behaviour is received as
ignorant and rude. After reading the article, I'm back to wondering whether my
business negotiation professor was just prejudiced or is there a grain of
truth in what he told me?

------
adventured
The comedy to this is the extreme generalizing that goes on globally when
talking about America / Americans.

We're all cowboy surfer rednecks that love our guns and religion, are all
broke with maxed out credit cards and overweight with a nasty case of
diabetes.

~~~
erebrus
Yes, that's a silly generalization, but it's not comparable to the one
mentioned in the OP. If you want to compare thinking of all Americans as
rednecks, you can compare it to thinking of of all french as sweet talking
wine lovers, spaniards as lazy and always sleeping the siesta, or germans as
rigid uptight and rude; and so on an so forth.

~~~
Xylakant
We are rigid uptight and rude. Call me, I'll prove that to you.

------
kmfrk
A good and bad article all in one.

It's good, because it addresses some _common misconceptions_.

It's bad, because it implies that you can't generalize about anything nor
anyone. Obviously, there are - broadly - common traits in Europe. The point is
fine, to the extent that the broader generalizations you make, the more people
will be described incorrectly - and you cite some great numbers to emphasize
that.

The post makes it sound as if there is some scientific constant for maximum
population size you can generalize about.

~~~
arctic
Broadly common traits such as breathing and eating.

------
brightsize
I think there's a lot of truth to this essay. As am American, I've certainly
been guilty of these kinds of generalizations. To Americans (colloquially
meaning U.S. citizens here), I think the phenomenon can be attributed mainly
to two causes. The first is that Americans don't travel much, only a small
minority hold passports. And who can travel with a meagre two contiguous weeks
of holiday per year, and with real incomes of the 99% declining for the past
30 years? The second is that the political propaganda machine in the States
explicitly lumps all the nations of Europe into the "un-American, thus wrong-
thinking" category. You need look no further than our last presidential
election for evidence of this: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16583813> .
There's probably a third force at work that just occurred to me: I think that
in American schools, kids are not taught anything meaningful about Europe
other than perhaps a vague bit about the World Wars. Namely who was "good",
and who was "evil", black & white just like modern American politics. My
apartment here in Berlin has a Berlin-raised caretaker who I've had a few
extended conversations with. I'm astounded by how much he knows about American
history, to the point of even forming opinions (historical ones, not politico-
propaganda-influenced ones as far as I can tell) on individual events such as
the battle of Little Bighorn. He's in his late 40s, speaks English fluently,
and knows more about American history than most Americans I've met. I'm not
sure that I entirely know what to make of this, but it certainly leaves me
with the impression that there's an element of learning and sheer curiosity
about the world that's largely absent in the States.

~~~
mkr-hn
This is a byproduct of the world being so far away for so long. The distance
had an impact in both directions. I ran into people from other countries
making ridiculous generalizations about the US when I first stepped on to the
Internet in the '90s.

Now I know hundreds of people from other countries, and there's very little
generalizing going on in either direction. But this is mostly people in their
20s and 30s, not people who grew up without a direct link to the world.

------
RivieraKid
From the outside, Europe may seem more united than it is. I think that the
difference between two randomly selected European states is the same as the
difference between a random European state and the US.

Also I disagree, that there is a need for a stronger union. Free trade union
yes, but other than that, every state should be sovereign.

------
kafkaesque
I came to this party rather late, but here are my $0.02.

I don't pretend to be a super well-traveled individual, but I have traveled a
bit.

I feel both Jonas Bentzen and the article he refutes are wrong to some degree,
though Mr Bentzen seems to be making a less severe generalisation.

What I see occurring here is a classic example of metonymy and cosmopolitan
and metropolitan cities vs. perceived 'real culture'.

Metonymy: A country seems to be defined by its major city or cities--to the
outsider, the fewer cities represent it, the better.

Cosmopolitan cities: The problem is these major cities tend to be cosmopolitan
cities. Think Alpha-, Alpha, Alpha+ and Alpha++. These types of cities tend to
strive towards homogeneity. I had a history prof (who leaned towards
socialism) lay out and explain how, historically, the bigger a city gets, the
less unique and further away from its ancestors and traditions it culturally
becomes. Cultural hegemony.

Metropolitan cities: Then there are 'medium-size' cities, or 'second major
cities' that fight to keep some traditions and cultures from their respective
countries. Some metropolitan cities strive to be more cosmopolitan, and have
that sensation; I'm thinking of a few (very few) Beta-, Beta, and Beta+ cities
here.

During the French Revolution, there were two major schools of thought in
Spain. One went like this: Bonaparte wants to modernise countries and wage war
on 'tradition'; let's join the French movement and abolish our backward
traditions. These people, in Spain, were called 'afrancesados'
('Frenchifieds', pro-French), pejoratively. They were found in major Spanish
cities.

Here is the really important part: people outside of major Spanish cities
thought they were protecting the 'real' Spanish culture; they were often of
humble birth, people that had given rise to what people outside of Spain
thought was 'very Spanish' (flamenco, cante jondo, running of the bulls,
gypsies, etc.) from a cultural perspective. They had traditions; old
traditions. They were superstitious, street-smart, but they were also deceived
by kings and, to use a modern term, their governments.

I don't see much has changed with regard to cultural representation.

The government projects/sells an image of their country to foreigners. Some
people buy into it. The reality is that not only is each country vastly
different, each region and city is.

We should be comparing cities with cities, not countries with countries.

------
grego
As a European myself, I think it is fine to generalize* about Europe. Many
points in Varsavsky's blog post were correct and it raised awareness of some
things to consider. Sure, it had its omissions and errors, but also remember
it was a blog post, not an article in a peer reviewed journal. Reading the
article + the ensuing hacker news discussion one is already much better
informed.

What is naive is to expect some blog post to give you an overarching view of a
very complex subject. Kind of like reading a wikipedia article something and
expecting to be expert on the subject matter after that.

*Making generalizations is a wonderful property of the human brain. Without that we'd all be lost in the fractal complexity of everyday detail.

~~~
jonascopenhagen
> Making generalizations is a wonderful property of the human brain. Without
> that we'd all be lost in the fractal complexity of everyday detail.

Sure - the problem is when the generalizations are so broad as to become
complete falsehoods. If I went to Upper East Side in New York and concluded
that Americans are extremely wealthy persons who live in townhouses, I would
be incorrect.

~~~
grego
In my opinion Varsavsky's blog post was ok. Sure it mostly covered Spain and
France, but that's where he's worked at. It conveyed actual experience from
one person's perspective.

Some responsibility always lies with the reader:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_reading>

~~~
jonascopenhagen
That's like saying that it's alright if I write a blog post about how all
Americans drive Chevrolets, and then it's up to the reader to figure out the
truth by applying critical reading.

While the reader should apply critical reading, the writer should certainly
make sure his facts are straight.

------
digitalWestie
I agree with everything said here - maybe apart from the points about
demographics. We know Varsavsky was referring to Western Europe. In any case,
I don't think it's such a bad thing to ignore differences for a moment and do
a bit of generalizing.

We end up making preconceptions and assumptions about what will and won't work
in other countries. Cultural and linguistic barriers are almost being used as
an excuse. This is a massive mistake we are making in Europe. There are plenty
of products and/or ideas which all of Europe has had an appetite for.

Naturally, appetite for ideas/services may exist in one country more than the
others. That's where you'll find your early adopters but it's not the bigger
picture!

------
dimitar
Stereotypes and generalizations are so common because they are useful, not
because Americans are ignorant. Not just because no one cannot remember every
detail about everything - generalizations are models, simplifications of
reality, which help you make an informant decision confidently. For example:
are you willing to adhere to workplace regulations? If its a low priority
maybe you should skip Europe.

I'm from an EU country that in my opinion was 150 degrees (180-30) from what
Martin Varsavsky described, but I still appreciated his article. I know it
meant Western Europe and I learned that US entrepreneurs are a lot different.
Generally.

------
charlescearl
What's a harder climb -- getting Americans to stop generalizing about Europe
or Africa? Wait -- if they could get to the point of realizing that Africa is
a continent and not a country, that in itself would be a giant leap forward.

------
jacoblyles
Isn't it true that the Western European economies are high-tax, high-
regulation economies with high degrees of risk-aversion (both public and
private) compared to America? Where does that stereotype fail?

From what I know, it's hard to fire underperformers in most of Western Europe.
Many traditional industries are protected (like French book stores). Taxes are
high. Anti-market sentiment is strong. It's not a place where I would want to
start a company to do what has never been done before.

I'd like to be wrong. I hear Europe is a nice place to live, otherwise. But it
is called the "old world" for a reason.

~~~
laut
In Monaco there's no income tax. And it's not the only country in Europe
without income tax. In Estonia the marginal tax rate is 21%. In the US it's
35%+ ?

> From what I know, it's hard to fire underperformers in most of Western
> Europe.

That's typical in places like France, Spain, Italy. But as my fellow Dane
tries to say in his article: don't generalize and think it's the same
everywhere :)

------
TeMPOraL
And for the similar reasons I think it would be in the interest of fruitful
discussion to try and not generalize India and China into... well, India and
China, respectively. Yes, they are both single countries, but every one of
them has a population greater than America and Europe combined. At this scale
I'd expect that those countries have cultural substructures corresponding to
european nation-states in size and diversity.

------
jusben1369
Ok. Then what? Try and imagine an article written for US based entrepreneurs
that didn't generalize about Europe to some degree? It would be awfully
confusing (if written at all) So better to gently chide some of the more
extreme generalizations than worry about stopping the practise entirely.

~~~
zalew
what about calling countries by their name? let's say, when you're talking
about Germany, you say "Germany" instead of "Europe"?

------
fahadkhan
I think you are pedantic about other people's semantics and not your own. E.G.
when you say American, do you mean US citizens or people from the two
continents of America? I think you mean the former. Just like they most likely
mean Western Europe.

~~~
jordinl
So when Americans say American do they mean US Citizen or someone from
North/South America? ...

~~~
rmah
They mean residents of the USA. Note that there are two nations that are
"United States of _____" in the western hemisphere.

------
vixen99
A trifle off-topic but it's interesting to read that the author believes in a
'strong European union' with 27 unelected commissioners and an unelected
president following a constitution that has never been put to the peoples of
the EU countries.

------
bitteralmond
This guy seriously doesn't understand that "Europe" to most us westerners
basically means "All European countries with a coastline, down to Italy."

------
robinwauters
Martin is from Argentina, not American, and he has built and invested in
businesses in both Europe and the US. He knows what he's talking about.

------
anigbrowl
I'm European and think this article is bunk. Hardly anyone (in western Europe
at least) considers Russia to be a part of Europe.

~~~
jeltz
I am Swedish and I believe most Swedes consider Russia to be part of Europe.
Making generalizations about Europe or even Western Europe (something which
did not exist before the cold war) is dangerous.

------
Kim_Bruning
Can we agree on the colloquial: "American"=USAian , "European"=EUian ? (And
specify otherwise if otherwise?)

~~~
Locke1689
American is the proper demonym in the English language for a citizen of the
United States of America.

------
readme
I'm going to take this a step further and just say "Stop Generalizing"
(Wait... was that a generalization?)

------
jballanc
I'd wager $100 that 99% of HN readers can't even name the fastest growing
economy in Europe...

~~~
carbocation
I'd wager that they also can't name the fastest growing economy in the United
States. What of it?

~~~
erebrus
I can name the fastest growing national economy in the USA. It's easy...there
is only one nation. In Europe, there are 50... how hard to get can this be?

~~~
carbocation
That's trivial, and obviously not the point of this offshoot thread. While the
federal government regulates interstate commerce, each state is free to set up
its own tax structure, create different incentives for businesses to open up
shop, etc. And each state has its own set of natural resources and hazards.

The question of which US state has the fastest growing economy is equally
interesting as the GP's question about European economies.

~~~
jballanc
I don't see how they are at all related. For one thing, I can pretty much
guarantee you that the difference in GDP growth between the fastest growing
European economy and the slowest is leaps and bounds larger than the same
difference between states. For another thing, for many businesses in the US,
it's fairly trivial to relocate should things go south. Not so for moving
between countries in Europe.

~~~
moultano
I don't think you are correct. There are some deeply poor regions of the US
that have been that way for 100 years.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_povert...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate)
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031102640.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031102640.htm)
Between states it ranges from 5% to 20%. Between countries in Europe it ranges
from 10% to 20%. I'm sure the figures aren't directly comparable, but it at
least suggests that there's a similar level of economic diversity.

~~~
jballanc
Heh...wow! I think your statistics don't mean at all what you think they mean.
When I mentioned growth, I was talking about year-over-year growth (or
decline) in national GDP. According to that statistic, Europe contains some of
the fastest growing (Turkey, Estonia, Lithuania) and slowest growing (Greece,
Italy, Spain) countries in the world.

Your statistic shows poverty rate. The fact that there is greater variation
between states in the US than between countries in Europe just shows what many
of us have known for years: even if your economy sucks, the worst-off do
better in Europe than in the US. In other words, the US is a great place to be
if you are wealthy and successful. Europe is a _much_ better place to be if
you are anyone else.

------
roboneal
To sum up the comments: Stop generalizing about my generalizing.

------
mmaunder
OP: Stop generalizing about Americans.

------
jpeg_hero
Wow, there is so much euro-hurt over that Varsavsky post that people are
resorting to random nit-picking on the definition of Europe.

------
vanhalt
America is a continent. No matter how much the people from the US call
themselves "Americans" You are generalizing when you say "Americans".

Thanks

~~~
rmah
America is NOT a continent. North America and South America are the two
continents.

Further, there are more than one United States. Ever consider how the people
of the United States of Mexico feel when you ignore them like that?

------
pretoriusB
Well, I'm a European myself, but the corrections sounds a little on the
pedantic side:

> _"Most of Europe has the euro as a common currency" -- Only 17 of Europe's
> 50 countries use the Euro._

Yes. Only some of the LARGEST countries, for a total of 332 million people.
Not to mention that he did say "most".

> _"Europe is great for an American tech entrepreneur because wealth is better
> distributed" The difference between the Scandinavian countries and, say,
> Russia is enourmous when it comes to wealth distribution._

That's one of the reasons most people don't include Russia when they talk
about Europe. Not to mention that it can even refer only to the EU countries.

> _"More consumers can buy your products and services" Certainly depends on
> whether you're selling to Swiss or Romanians._

The same point keeps repeated.

It's as if someone talked about investing in the US, and someone felt obliged
to blog about the differences between Illinois and New York and rural Idaho,
Mississippi, Alabama and South Dakota.

Yes, we got it already. It's not like someone will go to invest blindly to the
_geographic region_ that is Europe. He will most likely go to what is called
Western Europe, or the EU.

~~~
jonascopenhagen
> Only some of the LARGEST countries, for a total of 332 million people. Not
> to mention that he did say "most".

332 million is less than half of Europe's population. That's not "most of
Europe" by any stretch.

> It's not like someone will go to invest blindly to the _geographic region_
> that is Europe. He will most likely go to what is called Western Europe, or
> the EU.

Even Western Europe has huge differences in buying power (contrast Germany
with Spain, e.g.). You mention the EU... The EU includes Eastern European
countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia,
Slovakia, etc.

Point is, facts matter - especially if you're building a business.

~~~
VeejayRampay
If you're going to base all your thing on a totally unrealistic vision of
Europe then yeah, your points stand.

But so we're clear, all the points the original article was making was about
Europe as a an economic entity, most likely not including the likes of Ruasia
and Kazakhstan (which you're obviously not afraid to do to reach that quite
ludicrous and irrelevant figure of 750+ million people).

At this rate you might as well include all of Africa and Asia in Europe too.

~~~
arethuza
Russia and Kazakhstan (and also Turkey) are transcontinental countries with
parts in Europe:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transcontinental_countr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transcontinental_countries)

The population of Europe is 739 million and going by the number of Russians I
meet here in Scotland and on holiday in France and the Med they seem to be
joining in pretty well with the European cultural milieu...

I suspect people from outside of Europe don't appreciate how much things have
changed in the last 25 years - all for the better as far as I can see:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe>

------
PoliticsJunkie
Created an account just to state this: tech people please don't go into
discussing politics / economics. Brits want to exit EU because of wars in the
past? This is ridiculous!

What about the real reasons: 1\. Britain has 70% of its laws created by the EU
by burocrats who were never voted into the office and can't be voted out of
the office: Barroso (President of the European Commission) and Von Rumpoy
(whatever his name - never elected President of the UE). 70% of British laws
are created by unelected foreigners who definitely don't share their anglo-
saxon heritage, focusing more on Germany-centered economic views.

Germany has always been goods producer. UK has always been a trading nation.
You say forcing UK to obey Teutonian laws will prevent future wars and
upheaval and I'm telling you it may as well cause them (look at another
country not consistent with German economic policies: Greece)

Not to mention other things: UK is banned from entering into trade treaties
with Canada, Australia, India, and the US - their historical partners - EU has
to do it for them! They have to accept EU imposed anti-British customs with
India, Australia and Canada because by the EU law they have to trade openly
with EU and mustn't with Anglo-Saxon world. And economically - this is killing
them. EU exports into UK much more than UK into EU. Why bother? It's not like
they will loose business once outside of the block.

And other things - newly passed EU laws that will basically kill London's
stock exchange and investment banks to keep German tax payers happy.

THIS and not history of wars is the cause of 2 in 3 Britons being in favor of
EU exit. It's just bad business for them and their economy and nobody in the
EU seem to care. As long as the Chancellor is happy.

~~~
lispm
> Germany has always been goods producer. UK has always been a trading nation

Yeah, why has the UK then stopped trading?

Btw., I live in a German Hansestadt, which for centuries has been trading with
all the known world. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League>

The UK can't trade with the US? Haha, what a joke.

Let's face it: the UK has focused on its financial 'industry' and has sold
products of questionable quality.

~~~
sbmassey
The Hanseatic league stretched from England to Novgorod, and highlights the
strong need for small independent sovereign city states, rather than top-heavy
bureaucracies like the EU.

The EU is an attempt by the European political classes to copy all the worst
parts of the US political system, while ignoring the traditions of political
liberty that (used to) make the US actually work.

Having said that, I am hopeful that once the EU finally collapses, Europe will
be blessed with a lot of small independent competing nation states, so there
will be some hope for liberty if the US continues along the path of becoming a
modern Byzantium.

~~~
lispm
> The Hanseatic league stretched from England to Novgorod

The Hansa Teutonica had its capital in Lübeck.

One possible future of the EU is a union of regions, not nations. The EU will
take over much of what the current nations think they are.

> I am hopeful that once the EU finally collapses

Neither you nor I will see the EU collapse. Just the opposite. It might even
expand.

------
paulhauggis
Then stop comparing things like healthcare in a country of less than 10
million to one with 300 million+

------
JohnFromBuffalo
My 2c, is stop trying to be one nation then. The EU zone is something of a
fiasco and its really killing the entire zone with countries like Turkey and
Greece. Don't blame us .. blame your governing body for making it difficult to
operate in Europe.

~~~
arethuza
Turkey isn't in the EU.

~~~
kmfrk
They've been struggling to become a part of the EU, though. Could be what he
meant.

~~~
erebrus
Seemed more that he was giving an example of how Turkey was a country that was
pulling the Eurozone down from within... illustrating the depth of his
understanding of the geography and economy of the region...

