A Spanish View Of America.

http://watchingamerica.com/News/125768/is-steve-jobs-just-an-american-product/

The link above takes us to a translated article written by Antonio Cano entitled, ‘Is Steve Jobs Just an American Product?’ and gives us a Spanish view of entrepreneurs and inventors in America.

The Article looks at the Apple co-founder Steve Job’s successfulness and states that it would not be possible to achieve this in any country but the United States. It is believed to be a shared view supported by numerous comments by other people mentioned by the writer for example, Jordi Sevilla a Spanish politician wrote on Twitter, ‘a success such as the one had by Steve Jobs would be impossible in Spain, since in Spain it is forbidden to make computers in a garage, and no one would have lent the money that he needed for his company to him’.

The article outlines his opinion on how America stands different from other countries making reference to ‘the American dream’. ‘[The United States] has always been the land of opportunities, and if every day thousands of people are still crossing the borner illegally, it is because one keeps believing it is.’. There is no hint of bitterness, it has mainly a positive tone, recognizing America’s ‘brilliance’ through praising comments such as ‘perseverance and optimism are the main distinctive factors of this country’ and being critical of his own country ‘Frequently in our societies, good contacts have priority over good ideas’.

However, the article ends with a negative tone ‘However worse that that is the fatalism that sentences some countries to a timeless secondary role’, indicating that the Spanish public may feel as if America has overtaken the rest of the world and other countries are beneth it. Although there are some slight criticisms ‘Maybe nowadays, Americans do not have the level of ambition that their ancestors had; nor do they have their spirit of shared sacrifice.’, it manages to uphold a fairly positive tone.

I think it is a fairly valid opinion as it is true that most of the successful inventors and entrepreneurs do seem to originate from America. A Lot of the biggest corporations come from America, Forbes (Business Magazine) recently compiled a list of 2000 of the worlds biggest companies and found that the rankings spanned 62 countries with the US, (515 members) followed by Japan (210 members) dominating the list. The writer backs most of his points up with facts and although provides evidence of people who agree we cannot say that he represents the spanish opinion as a whole.