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Comment by achou | Hacker News Reader

A question for those of you in France (or Europe more generally) - many of the changes being proposed -- universal healthcare, free or low cost education, paid for with higher taxes on the wealthy -- basically already exist in your country.

Yet France has seen the yellow jackets, and there seems to be a feeling of discontent that's spread far and wide throughout Europe. So my question is, why? And what does that bode for the US if we move in that direction?

(BTW, out of curiosity I looked up taxes in France and I didn't realize that it had a real wealth tax, which goes up to 1.5% of all assets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France).

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France provides healthcare and education. It doesn't guarantee food, shelter, or power. Of course there are relief programs in place if you are without, but there is a substantial difference - as can be seen in any countries welfare programs - between "everyone gets this for free all the time" and "apply and qualify for this limited offer program only if you really need it and we think you do".

The equivalent of the NHS and public education for the later three would be things like widely available public housing with short enrollment periods, maybe even "public" hotels you can stay at. Public food kitchens without needs requirements - just free meals provided by the city if you want them. Free groceries, up to a threshold, per person - something like "food stamps for all". Same with electricity, you could have a "free" amount every month for what the minimum a person should have would be.

Of course when you talk about it all like that you eventually just get to UBI as a means to accomplish all those without the bureaucracy. But as long as France only guarantees a portion of the bottom rung of the hierarchy of needs there will be discontent amongst those who cannot fulfill the rest through the market economy.

The "feeling of discontent" in France goes far beyond the Yellow Vests protests, which are more like a "Tea Party" populist movement pushing for stagnation and short-term complacency. The low-productivity fraction of their labor force is essentially shut out of the labor market due to a combination of high taxes + extremely hostile regulatory environment.

And no, they can't adopt something sensible like UBI or EITC - not without reforming the way their government is run from the ground up. Which is exactly the sort of reform the "average dudes" that are now powering the Yellow Vests protests don't want. France is FUBAR - "God-Emperor" Macron had been trying to start seriously working on fixing the mess, but he is clearly failing just like his many forerunners.

France doesn't tax the rich high enough is the basic problem. Macron also passed big tax cuts for the wealthy that did not stimulate the economy as well. So the working class are feeling the taxes as well as not having enough economic opportunity. Nationalism is also big in Europe as it always has been. People see refugees getting resettlement benefits and that upsets them. It doesn't help that ISIL want to shoot and blow people up as well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-econo...

> France doesn't tax the rich high enough is the basic problem

Not even 10 years ago, I read that France introduced aggressive taxation on the rich ("75% supertax"), with disastrous consequences, so they got rid of it.

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