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>Europe's taxes are so high because Hitler preyed on the uncared-for poor to rise to power and begin his reign of terror I feel like my north american centric

>Europe's taxes are so high because Hitler preyed on the uncared-for poor to rise to power and begin his reign of terror I feel like my north american centric education is showing here because I've never seen it framed like this before. It's always been portrayed as "Europe so enlightened" and "guilletine goes brr" but that last one never explained the other countries. Also seems like it's losing effectiveness. The far right is rising in Europe and no amount of vacation days or social safety net is stopping it.

alephnerd 2y ago
> I've never seen it framed like this before Because it's wrong. Welfarism has always had strong support from the right and the left in Europe. Bismarck himself co-opted the term "Socialism" to build the German welfare state while undermining his political opponents, and the Catholic Church supported Christian Democracy movement was always a major proponent for welfare support.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    They aren't, but in late 19th and early 20th century Europe, Conservative politicians adopted and co-opted the welfare model because of risks of insurrection. Furthermore, the Catholic Church and Christian parties in Europe always supported a welfare driven model that was also hesitant about capitalism. "Right" in Europe has historically included "business/capital oriented", "traditionalist", and "nationalist" parties/factions that historically didn't see eye-to-eye with each other.
MrMcCall 2y ago
> no amount of vacation days or social safety net is stopping it Yeah, there's only one way to deal with people who want to violently oppress others, no matter their ilk (religious, political, ethnic, ...). > Europe so enlightened Yeah, if you talked with my GOP-aligned family, your appraisal of Europe would reach new dizzying heights. They're so stupid I feel bad for the word "stupid", as it's clearly inadequate as a description.
- engineer_22 2y ago
  Please remember, when your limbic system is activated, you're probably being manipulated.
  - morkalork 2y ago
    Sorry, I seem to have made everyone upset judging by all the greyed out replies. I come off as flippant but I am serious when I say that north americans have a knowledge for western europe from post WW2 to present day. You will learn about the cold war and Russia in school but its very surface level. My teachers had more to say about the east german swim team using steroids and how the government was evil for forcing it upon them.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    I know fascist salutes when I see them, and I don't truck with that. My history education is broad and deep enough to understand that kind of ugly as well as one can without having been through it oneself.
    - engineer_22 2y ago
      I've read enough propaganda to know you've read enough propaganda.
      - MrMcCall 2y ago
        Well, now you know you're confident about an utter falsehood. Every day our beloved, but flawed country, is descending into further ruinous idiocy, depredation, and cruelty. Callous fools voted in by callous fools, callous to the cruelty they cause, without compassion, empathy, or kindness, therefore: completely without humanity. Lying wolves in sheep's clothing, corralling manipulatible useful idiots to achieve their nefarious, selfish, destructive plans. On this topic, you're a Dunning-Kruger low achiever who rates themself far, far too highly. And that's because you haven't done the work to understand that you're ridiculously overconfident about your perspective on life on Earth with our fellow human beings. "Know thyself." --Aye Forget "The Way goes in." --Rumi
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
Because there's been significant neoliberal policy capture which has reduced worker wealth and security. Meanwhile anti-immigration narratives are being heavily propagandised by mainstream and social media as a wedge issue. It's very hard to compare like for like with taxation. For example health care costs in the US are effectively privatised taxation. So are the wildly inflated utility prices that the UK has developed. Newspaper articles debate proposed tax changes worth a couple of hundred pounds a year, while electricity costs have gone up by thousands.
- engineer_22 2y ago
  >It's very hard to compare like for like with taxation. For example health care costs in the US are effectively privatised taxation. So are the wildly inflated utility prices that the UK has developed. I'll quibble with you here. I think you're correctly identifying a problem, but I would argue inflated utility or healthcare costs are the effect of bloated monopolies. In the USA in the early 20th century certain monopolies were successfully combatted with federal legal power. The time may come again that abusive or inefficient industries in Western countries are significantly restructured. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the wheels of government turn slowly.
  - immibis 2y ago
    They're also privatized taxation. The two are compatible.
tpm 2y ago
In a bit more nuanced view, the pre-war (WW1) and inter-war (WW1 to WW2) both liberal and conservative parties didn't really care about either social or nationalist stuff and because of that got nearly wiped out by nationalist and socialist parties. To survive, they had to heavily borrow from both. Which they duly did after WW2 in the spectre of Hitler and Stalin. In an even more nuanced view, Hitler was also supported by many rich people and high taxes and nationalisations served to cut their power. And in most countries, the means of propaganda was also nationalized and/or heavily regulated. So it was about much more than just the poor masses.
matthewmacleod 2y ago
I agree those shallow analysis are pointless. We can observe that the far right is also rising in the US, which isn’t too hot on vacation days or a social safety net! I guess I’d just say that people don’t like when everything is shitty and you keep telling them it’s great, and when that happens they turn to the person who says “everything is shitty and I’ll make it great again” even though they won’t - because what have you got to lose, really?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Aurornis 2y ago
> It's always been portrayed as "Europe so enlightened" and "guilletine goes brr" There is a deeply sad irony in watching someone mock the left for historically inaccurate takes while simultaneously falling hook, line, and sinker for a very historically incorrect alt-right talking point about Hitler. I don’t think you realize that you have become the very thing you mock, just on the other side of the political spectrum: Someone who accepts edgy, historically inaccurate propaganda as ground truth as long as it reinforces what you want to believe.
- engineer_22 2y ago
  As someone with an American education, I can attest that European social safety net is not attributed as a reaction to Hitler. I can understand how that line gets drawn, but that's not what is taught to our young people.
pjc50 2y ago
The welfare state works when there is a clearly defined "us". When people think of "European welfare state", they tend to mean one of Germany, France, the UK, or the Nordic states. At the time of peak support for the welfare state, immediately after the war, these were pretty much mono-ethnic states. The modern erosion of social cohesion is because there's enough non-white people around to be visible, and this makes some people really mad. As it does in America. > The far right is rising in Europe and no amount of vacation days or social safety net is stopping it. Same reason as last time: people want to do some ethnic cleansing. The missing link between material conditions and overt racism is probably housing. It consumes a huge fraction of income in places where the good jobs are, which makes people feel very in competition with those getting social housing for free. (the meaning of "welfare state" varies a lot depending where you are: old age pensions were usually the first part to be implemented, from Bismarck onwards. Health benefit systems vary and usually include some elements of insurance and co-pays, the UK single monolithic free-at-point-of-use provider is actually very unusual)

alephnerd 2y ago

> I've never seen it framed like this before Because it's wrong. Welfarism has always had strong support from the right and the left in Europe. Bismarck himself co-opted the term "Socialism" to build the German welfare state while undermining his political opponents, and the Catholic Church supported Christian Democracy movement was always a major proponent for welfare support.

MrMcCall 2y ago
[flagged]
- alephnerd 2y ago
  They aren't, but in late 19th and early 20th century Europe, Conservative politicians adopted and co-opted the welfare model because of risks of insurrection. Furthermore, the Catholic Church and Christian parties in Europe always supported a welfare driven model that was also hesitant about capitalism. "Right" in Europe has historically included "business/capital oriented", "traditionalist", and "nationalist" parties/factions that historically didn't see eye-to-eye with each other.

MrMcCall 2y ago

> no amount of vacation days or social safety net is stopping it Yeah, there's only one way to deal with people who want to violently oppress others, no matter their ilk (religious, political, ethnic, ...). > Europe so enlightened Yeah, if you talked with my GOP-aligned family, your appraisal of Europe would reach new dizzying heights. They're so stupid I feel bad for the word "stupid", as it's clearly inadequate as a description.

engineer_22 2y ago
Please remember, when your limbic system is activated, you're probably being manipulated.
- morkalork 2y ago
  Sorry, I seem to have made everyone upset judging by all the greyed out replies. I come off as flippant but I am serious when I say that north americans have a knowledge for western europe from post WW2 to present day. You will learn about the cold war and Russia in school but its very surface level. My teachers had more to say about the east german swim team using steroids and how the government was evil for forcing it upon them.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  I know fascist salutes when I see them, and I don't truck with that. My history education is broad and deep enough to understand that kind of ugly as well as one can without having been through it oneself.
  - engineer_22 2y ago
    I've read enough propaganda to know you've read enough propaganda.
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      Well, now you know you're confident about an utter falsehood. Every day our beloved, but flawed country, is descending into further ruinous idiocy, depredation, and cruelty. Callous fools voted in by callous fools, callous to the cruelty they cause, without compassion, empathy, or kindness, therefore: completely without humanity. Lying wolves in sheep's clothing, corralling manipulatible useful idiots to achieve their nefarious, selfish, destructive plans. On this topic, you're a Dunning-Kruger low achiever who rates themself far, far too highly. And that's because you haven't done the work to understand that you're ridiculously overconfident about your perspective on life on Earth with our fellow human beings. "Know thyself." --Aye Forget "The Way goes in." --Rumi

TheOtherHobbes 2y ago

Because there's been significant neoliberal policy capture which has reduced worker wealth and security. Meanwhile anti-immigration narratives are being heavily propagandised by mainstream and social media as a wedge issue. It's very hard to compare like for like with taxation. For example health care costs in the US are effectively privatised taxation. So are the wildly inflated utility prices that the UK has developed. Newspaper articles debate proposed tax changes worth a couple of hundred pounds a year, while electricity costs have gone up by thousands.

engineer_22 2y ago
>It's very hard to compare like for like with taxation. For example health care costs in the US are effectively privatised taxation. So are the wildly inflated utility prices that the UK has developed. I'll quibble with you here. I think you're correctly identifying a problem, but I would argue inflated utility or healthcare costs are the effect of bloated monopolies. In the USA in the early 20th century certain monopolies were successfully combatted with federal legal power. The time may come again that abusive or inefficient industries in Western countries are significantly restructured. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the wheels of government turn slowly.
- immibis 2y ago
  They're also privatized taxation. The two are compatible.

tpm 2y ago

In a bit more nuanced view, the pre-war (WW1) and inter-war (WW1 to WW2) both liberal and conservative parties didn't really care about either social or nationalist stuff and because of that got nearly wiped out by nationalist and socialist parties. To survive, they had to heavily borrow from both. Which they duly did after WW2 in the spectre of Hitler and Stalin. In an even more nuanced view, Hitler was also supported by many rich people and high taxes and nationalisations served to cut their power. And in most countries, the means of propaganda was also nationalized and/or heavily regulated. So it was about much more than just the poor masses.

matthewmacleod 2y ago

I agree those shallow analysis are pointless. We can observe that the far right is also rising in the US, which isn’t too hot on vacation days or a social safety net! I guess I’d just say that people don’t like when everything is shitty and you keep telling them it’s great, and when that happens they turn to the person who says “everything is shitty and I’ll make it great again” even though they won’t - because what have you got to lose, really?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Aurornis 2y ago

> It's always been portrayed as "Europe so enlightened" and "guilletine goes brr" There is a deeply sad irony in watching someone mock the left for historically inaccurate takes while simultaneously falling hook, line, and sinker for a very historically incorrect alt-right talking point about Hitler. I don’t think you realize that you have become the very thing you mock, just on the other side of the political spectrum: Someone who accepts edgy, historically inaccurate propaganda as ground truth as long as it reinforces what you want to believe.

engineer_22 2y ago
As someone with an American education, I can attest that European social safety net is not attributed as a reaction to Hitler. I can understand how that line gets drawn, but that's not what is taught to our young people.

pjc50 2y ago

The welfare state works when there is a clearly defined "us". When people think of "European welfare state", they tend to mean one of Germany, France, the UK, or the Nordic states. At the time of peak support for the welfare state, immediately after the war, these were pretty much mono-ethnic states. The modern erosion of social cohesion is because there's enough non-white people around to be visible, and this makes some people really mad. As it does in America. > The far right is rising in Europe and no amount of vacation days or social safety net is stopping it. Same reason as last time: people want to do some ethnic cleansing. The missing link between material conditions and overt racism is probably housing. It consumes a huge fraction of income in places where the good jobs are, which makes people feel very in competition with those getting social housing for free. (the meaning of "welfare state" varies a lot depending where you are: old age pensions were usually the first part to be implemented, from Bismarck onwards. Health benefit systems vary and usually include some elements of insurance and co-pays, the UK single monolithic free-at-point-of-use provider is actually very unusual)