> College is free
As in most EU countries, even poor ones.
> hospitals and medicine at those hospitals is free
See above.
The other subsidies do seem ridiculous, but unlikely to be the main problem.
As in most EU countries, even poor ones.
> hospitals and medicine at those hospitals is free
See above.
The other subsidies do seem ridiculous, but unlikely to be the main problem.
Socialism mainly fails because it requires a totalitarian government to pull off in its fullest form (everything managed by the state).
You'd have to reach a state in which all people can have all/any things at all/any times. It's an impossible condition. Humanity's desire for things is unlimited (as witnessed by the last 5,000 years of development).
Conceptually if Joe's neighbor has seven boats, Joe is going to want 10 boats. That's human nature and it can't be smashed out of humanity with force and or mental conditioning. Then what? It requires infinite materialism. And that's to say nothing of the basic human desire to be different (frequently via material objects), to want to stand-out, to be unique, to own unique things, to have a unique expression, that by itself destroys the post-scarcity premise (ie there are many other factors that confound systems like Communism beyond base materialist scarcity questions). That aspect is as old as humanity, is represented even in most primitive tribal systems and it perpetually clashes with Communism's collectivist ethos (which you routinely would see in the rebellions against Communist rule in the 20th century).
The sole means for it to work, is to convert humanity into something else.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453223/russian-revolut...