What rubbish. Americans love welfare as long as it benefits them-hence strong support for Social Security and Medicare which are universal programs that help virtually everyone. The programs they don’t like are “means-tested” program that are seen as not benefiting the majority but only a small minority of people-especially those people.
The expectation is that you have solidarity with your fellow workers as well and certainly most people in Norway or other European social democracies are quite well-off and there’s no reason to think hard work pays off any less there then in America. If anything social mobility is greater in these European countries.
It’s not surprising considering private-sector unionism has been systematically gutted in the past generation and isolating unions into the public sector where they can be vilified as rent seeking bureaucrats much more easily. Considering the public has little direct experience with unions and the utterly dishonest nature of the term “right-to-work” it’s not surprising most people would support it.
To steal others’ words, rubbish or no, “social insurance programs…are not generally considered ‘welfare’.” I recommend Gilens’ book Why Americans Hate Welfare if you’d like to learn more about the topic.
They may be quite well-off, but the median American is better off, as I cited upthread. I worked hard some years back to triple my income here. How much of that would I have gotten to keep in Sweden? If it’s less, then hard work pays off less. As for social mobility, Gregory Clark disagrees with you, as he describes in The Son Also Rises.
The thread is about one government being better than another. If Americans overwhelmingly want right-to-work laws and don’t want increased union influence, and Norwegians want the opposite (I’m just guessing, as I don’t know any Norwegians), are those fair measures of whether one government is better than another?
I am curious about your comment that the public has little direct experience with unions. I wonder how low that is these days. Being in one was only an option for about seven years of my working life, and it’s probably less or zero for many. I’d like to learn more, but I’m not sure what to search for.
Seems nonsensical. How can you claim that right to work is utterly dishonest? You think that a person should have to pay tribute to an organization, other than the taxman, in order to work? Sounds like a protection racket.
“With one out of five children currently living in poverty and more than 100,000 families with children now homeless, Gilens’s book is must reading if you want to understand how the mainstream media have helped justify, and even produce, this state of affairs”
“shows how racial stereotypes, not white self-interest or anti-statism, lie at the root of opposition to welfare programs”
Imagine a government with high taxes for high earners vs no taxes for them. In the one with no taxes, the hard word would pay off more… but there is the idea of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, especially if the few can afford to sacrifice things a bit.
Good point I assumed that Americans would also like unions.
Apparently around 11% of U.S. workers are in a union… so that means not very much direct experience. And even if they had direct experience maybe the low amount of union membership means they don’t have much power.
In other words reducing the power of the unions allowing “scabs”. So if there is a strike they could sack all of the union members because the employer is free to hire more desperate individuals.
So what do you consider “welfare” and what is the difference?
The consensus is clear that compared to Europe, America’s socioeconomic mobility is lower: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/dec/19/steven-rattner/it-easier-obtain-american-dream-europe/. And how of that difference in median prosperity is due to geographic considerations such as Americans being more likely to own a better house due to there being more land in the United States? Of course pure income measures aren’t everything in determining quality of life, assuming one has at least a reasonable lower middle-class standard of living, getting a few weeks of vacation might be far better then having an extra 10 grand.
Yes, because very bad governments can be reflective of public opinion-for example Jim Crow undoubtedly had overwhelming white public support yet it doesn’t make those policies “good”.
Just google private sector unionization rates over time.
At least non union workers are actually working. Have you dealt with union workers and their stupid ass work restrictions? You ever have to get rid of a non performing Union member? Look at the problems the government has with its union workers.
If you don’t think labor is a commodity you haven’t been paying attention tomChinas ascension. Unless you think the immediate post WWII global conditions are returning, which they aren’t, you might want to stop advocating for inefficient workers.
China is classed as an authoritarian regime. Are you saying that countries should aim to be more like China?
Well wages could be reduced (making workers more “efficient”) by having “right-to-work” laws, etc, so that unions stop having so much power. Having a high minimum wage also makes workers more inefficient. Do you think that minimum wage laws should be scrapped?
It seems China does have minimum wage laws but I think they are reducing worker efficiency.
When my Danish cousin came to visit he was so surprised when visiting a Home Depot store all the items available for the homeowner to install themselves. Electrical panel breakers, plumbing supplies, roofing materials, cement, etc… all available for the homeowner to buy and go install themselves.
You see in Denmark if you want electrical or plumbing or any other work done on your house - you cannot do it yourself. You must hire someone. Yes this leads to work being done more professionally but it also raises cost.
You cannot really compare taxes in the 2 countries because different countries tax different items. For example in Denmark they tax soda very high like we in the US tax beer and cigarettes (interestingly cigarettes are one of the few things cheaper in Denmark than in the US). If you go to a McDonalds in Denmark the drink sizes are smaller plus no free refills. Buy an ice cream cone in Denmark and see just how small it is.
Yes, that’s why I wrote, “Gilens argues there’s a hefty dose of racism in that sentiment.” So since I already pointed that out, what point are you trying to make?
To expand on your quote of the summary, welfare was (and perhaps still is; the book is old) portrayed as money taken away from whites and given to blacks. Which of course is nonsensical; more welfare recipients are white. Not that it should matter.
And that brings me to another question. I’ve asked several times something to the effect of whether a good government better reflects the will of the people. But what if the people are a bunch of racist fucks? We certainly have our share here. Didn’t Americans not majority-approve of interracial marriage until some embarrassingly late year? So I still don’t think we’ve pinned down what makes a government better.
This does not address any point I’ve made in this thread. Lower taxes meaning that hard work pays off better does not mean that I personally think taxes should be lower or higher. If you lay out my personal spending priorities, which probably do not match the sentiments of my fellow citizens, and matched them with my tax priorities, my taxes would probably go up. That means my hard work would pay off less.
Newer methodology gives a different answer. And it matches reality; a traditional intergenerational coefficient of ~0.25 for Sweden would wipe out any ancestral influence by S3. Yet elite and poor families persist. And with a larger dataset (including the entirety of Swedish tax records) and longer timeline, he sees coefficients 0.7-0.8. That’s both before and after Swedish democracy ~100 years back.
Now that’s Sweden, not Norway, but it’s the only country in the region he tested.
Other than vacation time, these objections are not applicable to my upthread post and linked cite. I recommend giving them another go.
Who gets to decide whether union influence is “good”. Americans don’t want more of it. You and I agree on Jim Crow. We disagree on union influence. So as I’ve asked over and over again, what makes a government better than another one?
That doesn’t answer the question. The interesting word is “exposure.” I’ve never been in a union, but I had to deal with their shady behavior on two jobs. Thus I was exposed to them.