@Biggie62
@RustyShackleford
@Colombia
@Rexanglorum
@ninjahood
In a socialist U.S., would it be possible for a young entrepreneur to get rich and not be burdened by incredibly high taxes or policies that would impede the entrepreneurial spirit?
I don't think pure socialism would work, period. Unbridled anything generally doesn't seem to go very well.
I do support a social democracy, though I don't think I'm qualified to give a good answer to your question because I don't live in the US and am not well versed in its economics.
Belgium is commonly described as a social democracy. Though not on the level of the scandinavian countries.
As a whole, our country has quite a lot of flaws, mostly due to our extremely complex political system, but we do excell in some areas.
A fundamental difference between us and the US is that we see low-cost education as a basic human right, every politician agrees on that, even the far right wing. Anyone can go to any higher education institution they want, which creates more equal opportunities in my opinion.
Some kids may have had a troubled youth and didn't perform very well in highschool, but they can still go to the best university in the country if they want to. Mistakes in your youth shouldn't affect your future education opportunities as much as in the US. From what I understand you can only apply to certain collleges based on your hs grades, correct?
I have a pretty good memory and was extremely lazy in hs because I noticed that I could score my class' average grades without studying.
My studying for finals routine consisted of reading over my notes once or twice right before going to sleep on the day before the exam.
Needless to say, that didn't always work so well. I failed maths several times because I never really bothered doing exercises at home.
But at the end of the year I'd always just hire a tutor and score an 85/100 instead of a 30/100. My total average hs grades always hovered around the 65-70% mark, which is considered average. 75-80 is good, 80-85 is extremely good and 85+ is genius territory. Even the kids at my school winning national math and chess competitions never scored higher than 86 as their total.
Obviously with my grades I wouldn't have much further opportunities in the US. Here, I signed up for the top nursing school, stepped up my game and became the #2 in my class with great overall grades. I think that's one of the major positives of our education system, trying to provide more equal opportunities and second chances.
As for tuition rates, the maximum tuition at the top university here is €890. A partial scholarship can reduce that to 440 and a full scholarship can reduce that to €105 a year. These scholarships are awarded based on financial situations, not grades. In some financial cases you can also receive a student stimulus package, usually amounting to around €1500 to use on your education.
Generally you won't need a loan for your higher education, and I think not having the weight of massive student debt on your shoulders provides a better opportunity for entrepreneurship.
Of course college isn't for everyone, so our high school system is divided in 3 kinds of education. I'll call them A, B and C levels for the sake of simplicity. A lelels focuses on preparing the student for a higher education. When you graduate in A levels, your hs diploma is essentially worthless as you're supposed to go to college after graduation. A levels are pretty much entirely theoretical classes and generally at a more difficult level than B or C levels.
C levels is the polar opposite of A levels. The study material is made easy for the students as they focus on specific manual trades such as construction, gardening, hairdressing, ... and lots of practice in the job market.
It preps the students to go straight to work in the trade they've been taught after graduation. College is strongly advised against for C level graduates because the theoretical aspects of their hs education are far less difficult than A or B levels and are insufficient in preparing you for the difficulty of college.
C levels students are also taught all about starting their own business and when they graduate, they are all given a business license and a certificate of their trade. This allows them to jump right in the job market or start their own business right after graduation.
B levels is kind of a hybrid of the two. It's a mix of theoretical aspects and practical experience and internships.
You also graduate with a business license and a certificate of your trade here but the theoretical aspect is also sufficient enough to go to college.
In other words, it doesn't specifically gear you towards higher education, but if you want to you'll have enough knowledge to not lag behind too far.
Starting from the 7th grade, you get to pick a "subject" here, which is kind of like a major in the US. Each subject has a general set of classes and a few classes tied specifically to the subject you picked. The choice you make in the 7th grade goes for the 8th grade as well. After 8th grade you can then pick a subject again, which will be your final choice lasting until graduation. You can't transfer to other subjects in the same level (A, B, C), only downwards. So if you're in A levels, you can only drop to B or C levels, not transfer to a different subject in the same category unless it's an extremely similar subject, which I'll explain below in a bit.
For the 7th or 8th grade the subjects you can pick are all pretty generalized and there's less variety than the choice you make in the 9th grade.
In 7th and 8th grade, I took Latin as my subject. Others in A levels were modern languages and math.
B levels in my hs had 3 subjects as well in 7th and 8th grade though I can't recall all of them. Examples are trade/commerce, retail management, ...
C levels subjects are permanent, what you pick in the 7th grade is what you'll be doing until you graduate. Some example subjects are cooking, hairdressing, gardening, construction, bricklaying, ...
Those of us in A and B levels get to choose a more specific subject in the 9th grade, which will be our final choice until graduation.
There's a lot more variety of subjects at that point. A levels for example has Greek-Latin, Latin-6h/week math, 8h/week math, human sciences (this is what I took), modern languages, 6h/w math, engineering, ... You can transfer in the same category here but only from 8h/week math to 6h/week math for example.
I don't recall all of the B level options but some examples are trade/commerce, elderly care (basically nursing assistant), retail management, accounting, ...
I hope I haven't made it too complicated. There are of course a lot more options out there depending on the school you go to.
We also have many vocational training schools for example, schools that are specialized in training students in a particular trade such as cooking, chemistry, ... If your dream is to become a chef you can simply sign up at a chef school after elementary start working towards your dream.
I think our system does well in providing equal opportunities for as many people as possible and giving students a wide variety of options.
If you can graduate highschool as a fully licensed mechanic, construction worker, ... and have your business training and license, that's a great start for a potential entrepreneur. Especially since you don't have any student loans to worry about and can go right to work in your field to gain experience and start saving for your own business.
I'm not entirely sure if this is an answer to your question at all but I hope it was informative and not too all over the place.
I think the way our education system is set up contributes more to entrepreneurship than any sort of tax breaks.
The problem with our low entrepreneurship rates lies more with our overly complex governmental system and a large excess of regulations that hinder startups and maintaining a business. Our political system is one big mess and because there's so many different jurisdictions and a continuous conflict between the north and south, over the years it has resulted in tons of conflicting regulations. There's the city legislation, the provincial legislation, the Flanders legislation (the north is called Flanders and we speak Dutch as our native language, the south is called Wallonia and their native language is French. Generally they don't learn Dutch over there, so you can already see how this results in a political mess), Brussels legislation, Wallonian legislation, ...
With so many different and often conflicting regulations, I believe this is what's killing our entrepreneurial spirit.
Unbelievable.
:x
