[goldstategop]

Actually the European model is a social market inspired by Germany's Christian Democrats. The idea is a free market tempered by social subsidiarity. Basically, the economy is privately owned but people are insured against the risks of life through collective state social insurance and entitlement policies that protect against unemployment, accidents, catastrophic illnesses and which provide assistance for having children along with taking care of the aged. It worked successfully for a long time but now faces increasing strains due to demographic decline and pressures resulting from competition from parts of the world that do not provide generous social benefits to their own people. It is the only model with which most Europeans are familiar.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Jim Noble]

It worked successfully for a long time

As any Ponzi scheme can do if you are guaranteed 250 million suckers to work with.

[Smile-n-Win]

Actually the European model is a social market inspired by Germany's Christian Democrats. The idea is a free market tempered by social subsidiarity. Basically, the economy is privately owned but people are insured against the risks of life through collective state social insurance and entitlement policies

Yes, I know that. The thing is, if you have collective state institutions "tempering" the market, then it is NOT a free market. It is a "tempered" one.

[AFPhys]

One of my liberal friends delights in saying to me, "Communism has never failed - It hasn't been tried yet." He maintains that the whole world must be communist for the experiment to be properly conducted.

We must have One World Government - in which everyone is coddled cradle to grave - for communism to work. Europeans have to figure this out for themselves, I guess.