~$200+ billion of medical debt is in active collections
~$38K = Avg cost of health insurance through an employer (family w/ PPO coverage) PER YEAR
The math isn't that complicated. Our "lower taxes" just means our wages are intentionally depressed so that we can pay for-profit corporations a premium for the privilege of going broke - and then crowdfunding our cancer treatments.
Scott—your "F1 engine in a Volvo wagon" line applies even more forcefully to the country sitting right on America's border. The usual American dodge on Sweden is "sure, but they're small and homogeneous—can't scale here." Canada kills that excuse. Continental, immigrant-built, federal, resource-and-market-driven, economically fused with the US at the hip. Same model as America almost everywhere—except the safety net.
And the result? Universal healthcare at 11.3% of GDP (the US burns 16.7% for shorter lives), life expectancy of 81.7 years, 33 unicorns, and in Shopify a homegrown ~$200B company. Hardly a stagnant welfare state.
But your real thesis is trust, and that's where it lands hardest: Canadians trust their federal government at 49% against an OECD average of 39%, and trust each other at 66%. The US, as you note, scrapes the bottom on both. Canada isn't some far-off Nordic experiment Americans can wave away. It's the same continent, the same neighbourhood, the same capitalist engine—and it still chose to build the seatbelts. The variable isn't geography or scale. It's whether people trust each other enough to ride together. Canada does. That's the whole story.
I believe progress towards the goals you outline in the USA starts with Universal Healthcare
I support a Nationwide Universal Healthcare system in the United States similar to what France has in place as the first step to a better United States at 250 years.
While other challenges exist, I am confident providing all citizens with basic healthcare, (similar to what government employees enjoy), would be the starting point allowing for greater job mobility and entrepreneurship, along with greater home ownership and more couples having children.
Knowing you will not be left without basic healthcare if you get laid off, leave a job, or start a company, brings a different level of peace of mind and ability to make long term decisions, (mortgage/kids)
I am confident that Universal Healthcare in the USA would boost the overall economy and I am willing to pay higher taxes toward this goal.
(This is coming from a lifelong right of center conservative)
As always, I sign off encouraging you to run for public office.
Having spent some time in the EU in a sales role I would point out that there's a fundamental difference between the EU and the US that affects their economies - the Tort system in the EU is largely "Loser Pays" whereas in the US there is no concept of "Loser Pays" except in rare circumstances. There is very little risk if you file a lawsuit here in the US unlike the EU where filing a lawsuit creates an immediate economic risk to the entity filing the suit. In my experience this slows down the sales cycle considerably.
The load-bearing beam is the trust-as-infrastructure claim, and it’s the least supported one in the piece. Everything routes through it — capitalism + welfare coexist because of trust — but he establishes it with an anecdote (Spotify founders) and a correlation (OECD rankings), never a causal mechanism. It’s a values essay wearing a data jacket.
There’s also a selection problem he half-admits: he picks Sweden and the Netherlands — two of the strongest-performing EU economies — to represent “the Europe I’ve encountered,” while conceding elsewhere the continent is stagnating. That’s choosing the winners and calling them the rule. And the winners’ stories partly undercut his model: ASML’s dominance is path-dependent and near-accidental (Philips spinout, a contrarian EUV bet that almost failed), not an obvious output of welfare-state design. Sweden’s deficit-financed defense ramp and housing/private-debt risk, which he mentions in passing, cut against the tidy “F1 engine in a Volvo” framing.
The “follow the Netherlands and halve our healthcare spending” line is the weakest analytical move — it treats a system as portable while ignoring US wage structure, demographics, pharma pricing, and litigation. You can’t lift managed competition into a different cost base and assume the output transfers.
The closing Weimar section is straight polemic, not analysis. The comparison between modern America and the late Weimar Republic is extremely weak. Weimar Germany had:
* hyperinflation
* mass unemployment
* political assassinations
* paramilitary street warfare
* recent military defeat
* collapse of democratic legitimacy
The U.S. has polarization and declining trust.
Those are real concerns. But they’re not remotely equivalent conditions.
The analogy generates emotional force, but it doesn’t generate analytical clarity. Hat trick Claude and CHTGPT
The challenge is that the operating system that is driving capitalism is scarcity and the nation state that figures out the new rules for trust, abundance and a new social contract, will redefine what’s next.
Is that what’s missing from Mark Carney’s ‘middle powers’ conversation (of which Europe is the poster child and anchor tenant )?
I think it is, and this essay, @Scott Galloway , hints at it clearly.
A report by UK MP Rupert Lowe says that around 250,000 girls may have been sexually abused over several decades in so-called grooming gangs in the UK.
The report claims that in many convicted cases, most of the offenders were Pakistani men, and that the victims were mainly white girls, including some as young as 11.
~1/3 GoFundMe listings are medically related
~27 million Americans are uninsured
~60-70 million Americans are underinsured
~$200+ billion of medical debt is in active collections
~$38K = Avg cost of health insurance through an employer (family w/ PPO coverage) PER YEAR
The math isn't that complicated. Our "lower taxes" just means our wages are intentionally depressed so that we can pay for-profit corporations a premium for the privilege of going broke - and then crowdfunding our cancer treatments.
Scott—your "F1 engine in a Volvo wagon" line applies even more forcefully to the country sitting right on America's border. The usual American dodge on Sweden is "sure, but they're small and homogeneous—can't scale here." Canada kills that excuse. Continental, immigrant-built, federal, resource-and-market-driven, economically fused with the US at the hip. Same model as America almost everywhere—except the safety net.
And the result? Universal healthcare at 11.3% of GDP (the US burns 16.7% for shorter lives), life expectancy of 81.7 years, 33 unicorns, and in Shopify a homegrown ~$200B company. Hardly a stagnant welfare state.
But your real thesis is trust, and that's where it lands hardest: Canadians trust their federal government at 49% against an OECD average of 39%, and trust each other at 66%. The US, as you note, scrapes the bottom on both. Canada isn't some far-off Nordic experiment Americans can wave away. It's the same continent, the same neighbourhood, the same capitalist engine—and it still chose to build the seatbelts. The variable isn't geography or scale. It's whether people trust each other enough to ride together. Canada does. That's the whole story.
Nice article, thank you.
I believe progress towards the goals you outline in the USA starts with Universal Healthcare
I support a Nationwide Universal Healthcare system in the United States similar to what France has in place as the first step to a better United States at 250 years.
While other challenges exist, I am confident providing all citizens with basic healthcare, (similar to what government employees enjoy), would be the starting point allowing for greater job mobility and entrepreneurship, along with greater home ownership and more couples having children.
Knowing you will not be left without basic healthcare if you get laid off, leave a job, or start a company, brings a different level of peace of mind and ability to make long term decisions, (mortgage/kids)
I am confident that Universal Healthcare in the USA would boost the overall economy and I am willing to pay higher taxes toward this goal.
(This is coming from a lifelong right of center conservative)
As always, I sign off encouraging you to run for public office.
;-)
Having spent some time in the EU in a sales role I would point out that there's a fundamental difference between the EU and the US that affects their economies - the Tort system in the EU is largely "Loser Pays" whereas in the US there is no concept of "Loser Pays" except in rare circumstances. There is very little risk if you file a lawsuit here in the US unlike the EU where filing a lawsuit creates an immediate economic risk to the entity filing the suit. In my experience this slows down the sales cycle considerably.
Good work- Strong essay.
Note the following-
The load-bearing beam is the trust-as-infrastructure claim, and it’s the least supported one in the piece. Everything routes through it — capitalism + welfare coexist because of trust — but he establishes it with an anecdote (Spotify founders) and a correlation (OECD rankings), never a causal mechanism. It’s a values essay wearing a data jacket.
There’s also a selection problem he half-admits: he picks Sweden and the Netherlands — two of the strongest-performing EU economies — to represent “the Europe I’ve encountered,” while conceding elsewhere the continent is stagnating. That’s choosing the winners and calling them the rule. And the winners’ stories partly undercut his model: ASML’s dominance is path-dependent and near-accidental (Philips spinout, a contrarian EUV bet that almost failed), not an obvious output of welfare-state design. Sweden’s deficit-financed defense ramp and housing/private-debt risk, which he mentions in passing, cut against the tidy “F1 engine in a Volvo” framing.
The “follow the Netherlands and halve our healthcare spending” line is the weakest analytical move — it treats a system as portable while ignoring US wage structure, demographics, pharma pricing, and litigation. You can’t lift managed competition into a different cost base and assume the output transfers.
The closing Weimar section is straight polemic, not analysis. The comparison between modern America and the late Weimar Republic is extremely weak. Weimar Germany had:
* hyperinflation
* mass unemployment
* political assassinations
* paramilitary street warfare
* recent military defeat
* collapse of democratic legitimacy
The U.S. has polarization and declining trust.
Those are real concerns. But they’re not remotely equivalent conditions.
The analogy generates emotional force, but it doesn’t generate analytical clarity. Hat trick Claude and CHTGPT
Doesn’t make any of it wrong.
The challenge is that the operating system that is driving capitalism is scarcity and the nation state that figures out the new rules for trust, abundance and a new social contract, will redefine what’s next.
Is that what’s missing from Mark Carney’s ‘middle powers’ conversation (of which Europe is the poster child and anchor tenant )?
I think it is, and this essay, @Scott Galloway , hints at it clearly.
solid work, sir.
Thanks for this.
“The demonization of immigrants “
Yeah, tell that to Henry Nowak
Thank you for the picture(s). They make me reflect on the choices we make, and the experiences that grow out of those choices.
“The demonization of immigrants “
A report by UK MP Rupert Lowe says that around 250,000 girls may have been sexually abused over several decades in so-called grooming gangs in the UK.
The report claims that in many convicted cases, most of the offenders were Pakistani men, and that the victims were mainly white girls, including some as young as 11.
Here’s to hoping you have a speaking engagement in the Netherlands so that I can attend. 🥂
THAT was fucking beautiful... I still don't trust you. But Thank you