Comment by gaadd33

Yes if your goal was to simply start a business on paper, you can form one online pretty quickly. But that's an incredibly naive way of looking at it.

Starting a business for many people who aren't already wealthy is a massive risk in so many ways that aren't just monetary.

For example, let's consider healthcare.

I have to think about healthcare before I plunge into starting a new business. How do I take care of myself and my family? "Then don't do it if you can't afford to take care of yourself" you say. Sure. I won't do it then. But that's one less attempt at a new enterprise in America.

In the UK, it is a different story. If I fall deathly ill, I know that at some basic human level - I will be cared for. So I can go ahead and start that business. That's one more attempt at a new enterprise in the UK.

Now tell me which is better for the world - a world which is quickly being automated at all levels.

Small businesses are one of the only remaining ways in which people can build something great for themselves while leveraging the automation in this brave new world for their benefit (think Shopify, AWS, etc).

In the UK, you have a very high baseline level of education for your kids and excellent health care.

My family has 2 cancer survivors in it. We can't get health care without some collective bargaining.

Unlike a lot of folks here, I've actually done a startup from scratch. I used COBRA to cover the spread until we could set up a company plan. It was a major expense, and I was lucky we had access to a lot more capital than is typical for a company with 0 folks.

I had a ton of fortunate scenarios that lined up to make it so for a brief 2 year period I could imagine trying an early stage startup. Most people won't have those.