“Transitional Socialism” aka Democratic Socialism
“Transitional” socialism like that in Europe is not sustainable. People who point to Europe should study Europe closer. England is trying to leave the EU, because the British people began to see how little input they had on their own economy. Instead of electing leaders under Democratic socialism… they were electing nominal leaders, while the real economic control was exerted by bureaucrats in Brussels.
Democratic socialism is fragile. You cannot have a system where entitlements are provided by a government, if that government is subject to change in political philosophy. So under any form of socialism you must eventually get to one party rule. And that creates a true class structure where bureaucrats live well and the rest of the country suffers. Europe has found a neat way to do that… by transitioning powers to the EU commission, they avoid an internal revolution and obvious change in political process… people still vote… it just doesn’t mean anything…
Economic growth in Europe is virtually dead and has been for almost four years. People are getting angry. Under Trump US economic growth has been substantial especially this late in a recovery and wages are rising at faster levels adjusted for inflation than they have in more than a decade. Our system is not perfect, but various studies have shown that “economic growth” does “trickle down” at the rate of about a 1% increase in standard of living per year… Big deal right? But it is an increase where socialist countries tend to experience a short term rapid increase (triggered by the liquidation of wealth) followed by a long term decline (due to the lack of capital investment in their economies because of the limited ability to profit)…
Things in Europe are about to get worse…
Under traditional socialism the “state” controls the means of production in order to distribute the output “fairly” (sic) to the people (somehow fairly means bureaucrats deserve more, but leave that aside for now). In the past, the “means of production” were factories and farms. But today the means of production are largely “services”…
Translate services to the labor of “the people”. So under socialism we would expect to see greater control exerted by Europe on where people can live… is there any evidence that is happening?
Over 800 professional qualifications are subject to licenses to practice in the EU at a geographical level. In other words, you cannot move and continue to practice your profession without the EU licensing in the new location. Normally, this is not a bad thing, if it makes sense from a knowledge perspective… like different state laws for a lawyer, but in the EU it is being used to prevent “professional workers” from seeking higher pay in other markets. The EU sees it as preventing “professional workers” from earning more in wages by forcing competition for their skills”. The EU sees this desire to increase your own wages as disruptive to their planned economies…
In fairness to the EU, countries pay to educate their citizens to serve their citizens and not the citizens of other countries… they have a lot invested in these various professionals, but it also means you don’t have “civil rights” like ours to pursue happiness, but rather you are a “worker” of the state… they funded your education and they own you.
Make no mistake about it… under any form of socialism, you eventually lose your individual civil rights and they become subordinated to the rights and needs of the “state”, that is largely controlled by a bureaucracy coming out of single party. I do not find this top down bureaucratic structure attractive, since for me it means success long term comes from being part of the party bureaucracy and not through the economy… I simply see no longer term upside for the people as a whole, when the most talented individuals in a society perceive success as working for the government..
