From The Economist, Sept 8, 2012:
This gives a whole new meaning to the scary world of “European Socialism” that we’re threatened with here in America.
I don’t know how the Germans get away with this submissive attitude and still maintain a comparatively strong economy. Suggesting that the government has a right to dip into your pocket as it pleases, while it bothers the 1 percenters, is actually quite acceptable to the general public. Perhaps this happens when generations upon generations are told that success, satisfaction and happiness are limited to a middle-class lifestyle and a sufficient retirement salary – as long as life comes with 6 week vacations in July and August:
- Panem et circenses (Latin)
- Brot und Spiele (German)
- Bread and circuses (English)
This would never work in America, and that’s what America is all about. Americans need more than bread and circuses. That’s why I am here doing what I am doing, and not in Germany (or France, or England, or Switzerland….)
Let’s watch the slippery slope of redistribution, since it sucks the life out of the people, slowly, surely until their most motivated leave for more prosperous and exciting shores. These shores were in America for more than a century.
I, for one, would like to keep it that way.
Socialism and redistribution of wealth are the current bugaboo terms used by the 1% to represent a dystopic society on it’s way to collapse. But it really is a matter of degree more than an absolute measurement. Since the Industrial Revolution most first world countries practice these techniques to one degree or another. We all have public highway systems, education systems, organized and internally funded defense systems, fire, police, etc. The issues we face in the future like global warming, international banking and managing risk and debt, space exploration are beyond the means of single or even small groups of individuals to conquer.
I have to disagree that government financing of such projects is detrimental to society or the cause of a decline in human productivity. I do think that if we are convinced that large government is the problem and not a solution, it is immoral to employ a ‘Starve the Beast’ Karl Rovian strategy to deal with it.
Yeah, I don’t buy trying to use “redistribution” as a scaaary word either. We elect people to redistribute resources, so we don’t have to make each spending decision by nationally voting on it, which would be impossible to manage. Besides what the previous commenter mentioned, with which I agree, there’s also the military, protecting the rest of us by redistribution of risk from the general population to those who volunteer to perform this service.