The new TIME also includes an interesting article from Megan McArdle on the importance of failure within our system of free enterprise and entrepreneurship:
America allows its citizens room to fail ? and if they don’t succeed, to try, try again. Somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of all Americans report that they have considered starting their own business, whereas in Europe that number is only 40%. While the E.U. publishes documents on “overcoming the stigma of business failure,” executives in Silicon Valley proudly make their bygone start-ups the centerpieces of their r?sum?s. And when those start-ups shut down, America stands ready with corporate and personal bankruptcy systems that are the most generous in the world.
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[F]ailure is one of the most economically important tools we have. The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate failure; it should be to build a system resilient enough to withstand it. Our bankruptcy system’s generosity, for instance, has been convincingly linked to higher rates of entrepreneurship.
