I will try. I live in the Netherlands. The schools here don't teach us that capitalism is bad. It is true however that they teach us that capitalism does not solve all problems and that capitalism completely without government control can go wrong (e.g. monopolies, Microsoft). They teach us that capitalism is good if everyone gets the same opportunities. So this means that all children should be able to get good education, even if your parents cannot pay for it. It also means that if you are handicapped and you cannot get a job then the government will give you enough money for food and a place to live. They also teach us that communism is good in theory but cannot work in practice (i.e. will lead to totalitarian regimes) (compare with "SCARY! FEAR! ANGST!"). To me this sounds like a balanced view.

I don't know about France (note to the author: Europe is not one country and not eveyone has the same opinions), but similar quotes could be obtained from dutch books:

> Peter says:

> [insert quote here]

> Exercise 5: Do you agree with Peter? Why or why not?

I agree. Europe is not one country and it's pretty irksome when it is referred to like it is.

I can understand why it is though and for the same reasons it's sometimes easy to think of Africa as being one big homogeneous entity, which of course it isn't.

Of course even individual countries contain huge disparities especially in their adherence to the capitalist ideal. Take the UK for instance. It has the largest financial hub in the world, London. The UK also probably has the largest monument to socialism outside of a communist country, the National Health Service.

So trying to label a single country's political/economic stance with a single label is likely to fail and more to the point trying to summarize an entire continent's stance is worse than ridiculous.

I grew up in Kansas, and say what you want about our science education, but these are pretty much the exact points we got in sociology/economics/politics classes, even up to University level.

Communism IS a dirty word here, but no one under the age of 30 is foaming at the mouth about it.

You need facts to make an argument too. The article doesn't provide any of those in support of its quite slanted assertions about "welfare states". Given that empirical evidence seems to suggest greater hacker activity in Europe than the United States, this guy is running uphill.

What 'empirical evidence' are you referring to?

(If the eurohackers you think of now work for or sold out to US firms, that tends to support, rather than refute, the article's argument.)

There is quite a hacking scene in Europe, but the people that have ambitions and want to create something big all move to the US. Tim Berners Lee, Bjarne Stoustrup, DHH, etc.

I kind of agree with the article, but would be more likely to dismiss it on the grounds of it being a bit too political for yc news.

To dismiss it, yes. To ignore it, no.

Few of us have the luxury of thoroughly examining every article. If it looks bad in the first sentence, that's as far as we're likely to get.