I can’t comment completley right now but I disagree (not with the fact that those country are less socialist than it appears that is very true, Netherlands has something like 6 political parties with seats for 15 million people, while the US has well 2 for 300 million - seems like they have much more political power).
Let me just give 1 example. If you watched the daily show a couple days ago, you saw that apparantly the biggest pop star in Sweden, lives in an appartment that an average family can afford with a smaller TV than I have. Could you EVER imagine that happening in the united states. Could you imagine 50 cent going yeah like I don’t mind people taxing me to death, its for the national good???
Also I am not saying that the culture or social values were changed. I am saying that from the beginning they were much more egalitarian. In fact the only recent complaints I have heard about the welfare states from my dutch friends, have always had atleast a slightly racists undertone. “most of those immigrants are just on welfware while we work” (and these are not nationalistic people at all)
How about this from a theoretical point of view. If everyone in a nation has the exact same goals, a govermenmt can operate much more easily since they are simply combining the efforts of all people for those same goals. They will waste much less money than when each groups tries to take a little bit for themselves (as in affirmative action or w.e)
What don’t you buy exactly, the fact that the English are brutish? The British are a thuggish, uncivilized, state worshipping, high time preference, politically correct people. I say this full well understanding that England was at one time the height of civilization, moreover, I say this as a person who currently has a British passport, I also study there and happen to have been born there.
Now, from other places I’ve live(d) I can tell you the US is better in all those regards, Europeans tend not to give a damn about the state whenever they don’t have to, using it for their own advantage occasionally, but besides that doing their best to ignore it . Most people from Western Europe would far rather live their lives around their family and God than the state, appreciating good food, drink and the company of their friends and family. Rather than going out getting drunk off their faces as the English tend to do. Look at the general clothing of an adult anywhere in Europe and you’ll see they dress smarter, use less bad language and are generally far more civil, polite and friendly than the English.
But the rest of Europe (barring one or two) happen also to be (even) more socialist than the UK and in worse ways, with worse attitudes. Britain’s economy may be attacked at every turn by big government - but compare it to France’s, or Italy’s!
You’re sort of right, in the sense that what may appear like severe state intrusions to Americans (public schooling, welfare programs, insane taxation on everything that’s remotely fun) has become part of the natural course of things to many Europeans.
So while American and, I guess, British liberals are constantly crying for more state rape, average Europreans have just accommodated to the feeling. Not much better at all.
You would win. I would also say that you experience bias because you lack the perspective of someone who has lived and traveled throughout the Americas.
Europeans seem to care a lot about their government, because they are constantly protesting it, and Europe is the leading edge of state tyranny vis-a-vis the surveillance/police state. Not China. Not Africa, not even America. Europe.
This is not to condemn Euros, I like you guys. You’re funny with your fish and chips, dark beers and boulangeries. But Niccolo would make these silly arguments about how Italians were libertarian and they resisted the state as open agorists, and the whole thing was ridiculous on it’s face.
Very few Europeans that I have met have the expectations of liberty that Americans (and to a lesser degree Canadians) have. And it’s similar in other commonwealth colonies like New Zealand where I lived for a couple years.
That’s quite an assumption there, also an incorrect one.
where in Europe are you talking about? In England you’d be absolutely correct, for the rest of Europe you’re very, very wrong.
Niccolo was correct to some extent, I’m not saying the Italians are agorists but it’s got a far better chance of being successful in Italy than in the states, and especially the UK. (As for dark beer, European beer is a million times better than American or UK beer).
They also care far less about the state, they’re more concerned with being with family and friends or going to church.
