Elon Musk thinks the American work ethic is alive and well in China (opens in new tab)

The us now is like england was before the First World War - it’s business is money and trade, having shed manufacturing to less developed countries. Asia did the same as fist Japan and then Korea took over ship manufacture and have now graduated to electronics.

This is HN. Nobody’s interested in sweat and callouses when they can bring in vc. And there’s not much vc out of China vs. SV.

He is probably right, too.

Intergenerational wealth has made America soft. Why work as hard as you can if you can have a pretty good and easy life without.

In China, the ability to improve your situation in life by working harder is a sufficiently recent development that there are huge numbers of people willing to do it that haven't built the intergenerational wealth yet.