i know you have to pay a lot of taxes but a lot of good comes out of it like free education and health care. I want a opinion from a European that lives in one and I want details and please tell me if it could work in america if not why. If you don't like this question then please don't answer.
Politics - 10 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Pure socialism doesn't work. Pure capitalism doesn't work. The countries with the strongest societies are social Democracies that are hybrids between the two. There's a great deal of private enterprise and private ownership, and there's a lot of public ownership in the areas where public ownership makes sense...health care, insurance, utilities, etc. And where you find public ownership, it's often competing with private ownership.
2 :
They are having trouble financially. There is no such thing as free education and free health care. You pay for it with your taxes. America has more disposable income than France or Sweden. A higher percentage of our population owns cars, boats and homes. We live much more comfortably. We have more materialistically than those nations.
3 :
The Reich Wing likes to lie to us. Someone said there is no such thing as free education and free healthcare. I agree. Interstate highways aren't free but they are free for us to use. We all pay for it and society as a whole benefits from it. It's called civilization.
4 :
Don't forget about Canada. USA is to greedy, to much money would be lost.
5 :
They were in economic ruin before the recent turmoil ensued because they have taxed their people so heavily that no one prospers.
6 :
I think socialism is a great idea. I can stay at home and play warcraft while my rich uncle sam takes care of my family. Why didn't some one think of this sooner?
7 :
All of these countries have heavy privatization, the workers do not own the means of production, and there is no dictatorship of the proletariat. A "socialist" society cannot exist without a planned economy, and these countries are all capitalistic [i.e. they follow they anarchic method of capitalism] just with trends of "progressivism," and welfare states. I know many Europeans and they laugh when people refer to their countries as socialist, whether it's an insult or not is irrelevant, its just wrong to do so.
8 :
Opposition in the US is from a part of the wealthy who do not want their taxes increased to provide services they don't benefit from. They have been fighting any element of "socialism" since the 1920's. If it was up to these people, they would have troops shoot starving people in the streets rather than ask a rich man to pay taxes to provide services like unemployment insurance.
9 :
@ katmandu Thats not true. They have as much disposable income as americans do. In fact, they also have more vacations days, higher min wages, higher avg wages...reason being = no huge corporations like in america. Most industry and business is still local and small...yea, there are big businesses...but nothing like here in america...
10 :
Socialism isn't doing very good in Europe. I live in Czech Republic. If you pay attention to the news, you've probably heard the word austerity in recent months. The weight of the social system is crushing any growth in the economy. It's too high a tax burden already, and taxes are going up again. France has announced austerity measures, but the system was already collapsing before the recent economic problems. France has been trying to perfect a socialist system for over 150 years, and it's bankrupted the country many times. It would work in America about as good as it works in Europe. The biggest problem with letting people rely on government is that when the government collapses, everybody starves. Self reliant people (19th century America) need never fear a collapse in government.
