WARNING: long post by yours trully!...
Just a thought on European socialism and taxes. I do not wish to pick any bones with my American friends but I have to say something because my country has come up in the conversation, albeit brieffly.
1)
I'm from Portugal and I have some trouble considering that my country has ever been socialist. In fact, I object to the idea. Maybe this is one of the small things that divide us Europeans and Americans...
Europe has had many trully socialist countries: Romania, Hungary, Poland, East Germany and so on. Then the wall came down and, in time, so did socialism in Europe.
What I mean is: in Europe, our definition of socialism is akin to communism up to a point. It is the political root of communism. Therefore, a socialist state is an authoritarian, single-party country. And normaly, there is no such thing as wellfare in those countries because there is a political rulling elite that centralize commodities and power. But things changed substacialy since the fall of the USSR and the consequent fall of socialist republics in Europe.
Today, what we call socialism over here is directly connected to a political stance on wellfare and varying degrees of intervencion of the state in a system that, by definition, is a wellfare state. Let's have an example: Portugal and our political parties.
There are many parties in Portugal but only 5 have managed to make it into Parliament. So, let's take a look at them from left to right. All these parties are trully democratic parties. Also, bare in mind that all parties have sections and these reflect only a rough sketch of what these parties stand for...
LEFT
BE - Bloco de Esquerda (Leftist Bloc) - deffends social policies focused on the people as a whole it has a Trotsky-ite overnote to the ideology and values intelectualization - it is the party of choice for left-wing intelectuals;
PCP - Partido Comunista Português (Portuguese Communist Party) - once a trully stalinist party, after the fall of the USSR has undergone a severe change in policy and no longer deffends authoritarian positions - deffends social policies based on the wellfare of workers in the first place;
CENTRE LEFT
PS - Partido Socialista (Socialist Party) - wellfare focused policies but admiting that free enterprise is essencial to the growth of an economy;
CENTRE RIGHT
PSD - Partido Social Democrata (Social Democrat Party) - wellfare focused policies, but more directed to a neo-liberal political view, valueing capitalist enterprise;
CDS - Centro Democrático Social (Social and Democratic Centre) - christian democrats, focussing on wellfare but with a firmer grip on it.
So that we understand this, let's put it into perspective. For our American friends: the Democratic Party (that some consider leftist and even socialist) is akin to our own CDS. The Republican Party might be compared to the PNR - Partido Nacional Renovador (National Renovative Party). In Portugal this Party is considered Far-right and has no seat in Parliament.
So... what do I mean by all this? Simple: the pond has an extreme influence on what we view as socialist or non socialist. What some Americans consider to be socialism we simply view as a manifestation of the wellfare state in varying degrees of implementation. I have no idea of a party holding government in the European Union that is against the wellfare state in one form or another. Wellfare is interwoven into the fabric of life in the EU.
2)
Since, in 1974, a popular revolution led by the military overthrew the Fascist(ish...) Dictatorship we had since the early 30's, government has been more or less shared by centre left and centre right parties. The current government is centre right (PSD) and the previous was centre left (PS). The previous government finished sinking the economy not because it was socialist but because it was led by one of the most corrupt politicians we've ever had in power. It is just a detail that he was PM for the "Socialist Party". He could have been PM for the Lunar Party or the Coalition of Martian Laundy Machines - the end result would have been the same... Of course, over the pond, it will be hard to understand this because the name of the party does, inded, bear the name "socialist"...
3)
Concerning taxes in Europe - not one person can live in the European Union and, in extremis, be exempt of taxes: we have a tax called VAT that is implemented in all the countries of the EU. It taxes consumption of everything and every purchase we make. If a 12 year old boy buys a packet of chewing gum he will pay between 15 and 25% VAT on the price of the gum. Sure, you can have the VAT given back to you if you are an enterprise of some sort... but it is very hard not to pay any taxes in Europe. We have this idea that some things, namely education, health and culture must be subsidized to prevent the evils of corporation funded education, privatization of healthcare and comercialist cultural production, all of this focused not on the improvement of the standard of living but on profits for private enterprizes. For that, we need taxes. And I, for one, am very happy to pay them because if I have good cheap education, healthcare and contemporary cultural productions is because of the taxes we all pay.
As a side not to this last point: all the "cultural refugees" I've ever met (and I've met a few due to my own profession) are americans... they try to compose contemporay music and find themselves unable to play it beacuse no producer will ever place on stage a piece that won't make a profit.
Even if we Europeans and you Americans share a wide set of common values and expectations from life, there are many things that divide us. Wellfare and state intervention is one of them.
4)
As a final note on the main topic here: sure... the Nanny State is annoying and there are times when we do tend to go a bit too far on that. But most laws are made for 2 reasons: 1) profit for the lawmaker and his/her friends; 2) keeping idiots from hurting themselves and others. :)
