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Originally Posted by Hayek On Europe, the people seem to have Made a choice that they would like to lead a reasonably comfortable life with leisure instead of trying to up their standard of living further. That’s a legitimate choice even if not one I would make. |
We need to be a bit careful of thinking of Europe as one entity. There are considerable difference in just about everything within Europe too.
Last time I checked I saw very little evidence in the USA that made me believe they are worried about the standard of living for society at large. The standard of living improves from those that already have it pretty good and deterioates for those that have not.
The fundamental choice most European countries have made is they favour a society that provide more equal chances for everybody. And recognises that not everybody gets those from birth, or during life. There are some basic things you need to get right:
- equality for all
- access for all to good medical care
- access for all to good education
Just as an example, we have all seen what happened with Obama-care. To date the Americans are still debating whether there should be some medical care program and if so what the role of the government would be. Funding or otherwise.
In Europe that choice has been made a long time ago. The government has a big role to play in how it is organised and funded. The discussion tends to be around some of the details on how the basic choice is made.
To my earlier point, the gap between Republican and Democrats tends to be a lot smaller than those outside the USA belief. On a European left-right wing scale your typical Democrat tends to be pretty much right wing if you really drill it down to content on how they would like to do things.
Most European countries I am familiar with all try to improve the standard of living (whatever definition). But they tend to pay special attention to those who have limited means, be in financial or otherwise.
The green agenda is a very hot topic across the political spectrum at a scale and breath the Americans will never understand. Breathing clean air, making sure you do not lumber your kids/next generation with the results from how you lead your life is part of standard of living too.
I am not saying which system is better or worse, but I do have a strong preference for a more caring society, then the each to its own USA style. We absolutely loved our time in the USA do not get me wrong. But as a society at large there was little we could admire. It only works for those that already got it. For those it works real well and it gets better.
Jeroen