Stop the “Hard Work” Obsession America!

One of the persistent myths in America is that success is primarily down to hard work. Yes, you cannot have success by lying on the sofa all day. But let us not kid ourselves, it is not primarily hard work that produces economic success.

Let me take a step back and build up an example to explain what I am talking about.

I live in one of the richest countries in the world, Norway. Each Norwegian produce value for about 8x times as much as that of a Chinese on average. Norwegian GDP per capita is about $77,975 while it is $10,098 in China. I could pick almost any country and we would beat them by a large margin, but I picked China for a particular reason.

Chinese people are not known to be lazy. They work hard. Real hard and for long hours. Norwegians in contrast have short work days and lots of vacation. Nor do Norwegians really work their ass of at work. So why are Norwegians so much richer than the Chinese if success is all about hard work?

How about another example? Why are Bangladeshi fishermen so much poorer than Norwegian fishermen? Are they just lazy? Are they not working as hard as Norwegian fishermen?

Of course not! The difference is that the Norwegian fisherman has a large modern fishing vessel with advance equipment and the training to use it. The Norwegian fisherman can fish more fish with less effort.

I pick Bangladesh as an example in particular because in the 1970s Norway tried to help Bangladeshi…