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That is not what socialism used to mean. European countries are capitalist with a welfare state. This was first set up in Germany by Bismarck, and the socialist
by jules 9y ago
That is not what socialism used to mean. European countries are capitalist with a welfare state. This was first set up in Germany by Bismarck, and the socialists were opposed to it. Socialism used to mean that the means of production were in the hands of the government, and by that standard Europe is certainly not socialist. The capital is privately owned and the decisions about how to use that capital are made by those owners. The wealth that is redistributed in Europe is created by capitalism. Europe does not differ significantly from the US in this regard; the government expenditure as a percentage of GDP in "socialist" Europe is not very different than "capitalist" United States. The US spends 42% whereas France and Sweden (usually considered the two most socialist countries in Europe) it is 56% and 51%, respectively. In Germany it's 45% and in Switzerland 35%.
- huac 9y agoWhat is the percentage of non-defense GDP spending? I'd guess that the delta is larger.
- jules 9y agoThe US spends 3.3% of GDP on military whereas France spends 2.3%, so while excluding this makes the delta larger, it won't make a significant dent.
- curun1r 9y agoIIRC, that 3.3% is just for the 5 branches of the military and doesn't include intelligence spending (~$80b/yr) or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which are around $2.4 trillion dollars thus far over ~14 years. A more honest number is probably above 4%.
- huac 9y agoFair, though France's military spending is the highest in Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...). My understanding is that US spending is relatively 'inefficient' compared to European countries, esp for healthcare. We spend more for comparatively worse outcomes (this is definitely true when compared to UK NHS, probably for France too).