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Comment by aivisol | Hacker News Reader

I come from a similar place and feel the same, and would never ever want those times back. We have seen too much repression, horror and misery that we have developed our own allergy against anything which hints in that direction. But on the other hand I can understand the appeal of the ideas which promise that there will be no inequality, everyone gets access to free education, healthcare etc. That all sounds nice, but what is suspicious that we have not seen a working implementation yet. Which makes me think underlying model has some issues.

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> That all sounds nice, but what is suspicious that we have not seen a working implementation yet.

You mean to say that Western and Central Europe don't exist? They have single-payer healthcare and it works way better than American healthcare. They have cheap tuition and it works way better than American tuition.

We see that America could be better if we stopped being dogmatic about capitalism, and stopped putting it where it doesn't belong. Capitalism is about money. It is not about well-being. It is very poorly suited for well-being.

> You mean to say that Western and Central Europe don't exist?

I would say they are all capitalist countries. I cannot think of any European country after 1990 which prohibits private enterprise.

What you are referring to is still a capitalism, each with their own different taxation, social security and welfare system. You can argue which works better, which not. It is not that it does not exist in US at all, it is probably less developed or is just different. And European countries also differ between themselves, by large degree. But that is not socialism, it is still capitalism.

Looks like another example of Schrödinger's Capitalism. Western Europe is capitalist whenever anyone praises it, socialist whenever anyone criticizes. In point of fact very few people want to abolish private enterprise. The "socialism" they want is of a very moderate form, setting limits on a free market which is still the dominant form of economic activity. The "100% laissez faire or Stalinism" false dichotomy never does these debates any good.

I guess we grew up with stories which gave us +5 resistance to socialism. Stories about how in almost every group were people who would report you if you talked about some "threat" to union. Stories about how everyone was living in socialism and they were building communism. Once communism is built - nobody needs to even walk in streets - you will have conveyor belts everyone taking everywhere. Stories about how in the west capitalists were using everyone as slaves and how you as a citizen had power to control. Stories how streets were empty and you had to wait for car for 8 years to buy it (price was insane too). Everyone was stealing from factories, selling "behind table" and etc.

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