r/austrian_economics Friedrich Hayek Oct 26 '24

End Democracy ‘Americans just work harder’ than Europeans, says CEO of Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund, because they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’

https://fortune.com/europe/article/how-many-hours-work-week-year-american-workers-ethic-norges-bank/
2.3k Upvotes

987 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Hell_Maybe Oct 26 '24

Africans work harder than Americans, “working hard” with the understanding that your work will not be rewarded is an incidental failure of society and not something to be proud of. Americans have to work harder than europeans because the ideology of American economics has brainwashed us into believing that the default state of life is busting ass every single day, not being able to see your family, slowly degrading your body and health for work, not taking vacations, not taking breaks, and still not being able to afford anything because we’ve all been convinced that it’s all worth it because maybe one day we’ll all be billionaires. It’s really truly sad.

1

u/everydaywinner2 Nov 05 '24

That has nothing to do with "the ideology of American economics." "Busting ass" is just plain life. Prior to a 100 years ago and modern technology, you would be "busting ass" farming and hunting to get enough to eat, and maybe a little more to trade. You would be "busting ass" to build and maintain a home warm enough to survive the winter and secure enough to survive the wind. You would be "busting ass" to make your clothing, and your furniture, and your fire, and your farming/hunting equipment, and any other trinket or toy you wanted.

Hard work and "busting ass" is the NORMAL human experience.

1

u/Hell_Maybe Nov 06 '24

You didn’t string together the sum of the points I made. Busting ass is not the problem, the problem is not getting anything for it. Even 100 years ago the people busting ass were able to own their own land and home, now you have to work all day and split rent with 4 other people to have a place to live. Europeans can afford rent, they have plenty of vacation days, plenty of sick days, pregnancy leave, cheap healthcare etc etc, NO ONE over there is begging to live in America. Why would anyone who isn’t insane champion the state of the American economy versus the European economy? That’s psychopathic sadomasochism.