So again you made my point, the more nations evolve and the wealthier they become the more they embrace some degree of social safety net which consist of an array of entitlement programs…
Poor nations have “nothing to share” and so it is highly unlike that a poor nation would embrace socialism, those that do go no where. Wealthy nations that don’t embrace entitlements end up like Russia did in 1917. When WW1 hit, the Russian government failed to address the impact of the recession on the common people including starvation and so they rejected the government.
Similar revolutions were going on throughout Europe and after an initial move to crush these movements with force, states began to acquiesce to the demands of the people with various forms of entitlements (prior to being democracies) this usually took the form of “reforms” intended to prevent another violent outbreak.
No one imposed entitlement programs on the US or England from outside, the people felt their systems were not working for the majority of the people and so they used “their vote” to go with entitlements to keep the majority on board.
So the key is not whether all nations will move towards entitlements as they become wealthier… if they are democracies, they will… even if not, they will or they will crumble… that is given and your examples support that…
Knowing what will happen the question becomes… How do you gauge when your country is moving to far and the entitlements will “crash” your economy. That was the essence of my article. And my answer was ever increasing government budget deficits driven by unsustainable entitlement programs are that signal. Not all entitlement programs are unsustainable, but every country has a limit of what it can afford based on where the “heads” of their citizenry are at and the strength of their economy. I was troubled listening to the Democratic Presidential hopeful on the progressive wing dismiss that concept when brought up by their more moderate opponents.
I believe without capitalism a nation cannot afford entitlements. So I am not an “autocratic” socialist or even one who believes that socialism is an effective means to harness the energies of a society to produce goods and services.
But I am a successful business operator and owner, a historian, and someone with extensive education in economics and finance. What I know is that pure capitalism and pure socialism are innately unstable politically for opposite reasons. Capitalism produces goods and services, but generally leads to a concentration of wealth and class warfare, which if not addressed leads to societal upheaval and revolution.
So your examples actually make my argument… both the US and Britain successfully “reformed” their economies to address the instability that pure capitalism created, sadly Argentina did not and so it was wracked with one revolution or coup after another.
