Of course if you include the option of fleeing to another country where there are more jobs and opportunity, it's real easy to create a successful welfare state. This is always how leftist politics work, there's always some external funding or circumstance that plays the biggest part of the success, but attribute the success to how perfectly they can divide the profits, ignoring where they actually came from. But when you have to cover all your expenses by robbing collective pete, it doesn't really add up anymore.

Sooner or later you run out of other people's money, and then you have to create more incentives for people to work, to take advantage of your own strong people to create the value, and that comes with more "inequality", and requires you to compromise on the welfare.

I'm convinced that a country that cannot attract hard working highly educated people will struggle to be successful in the global economy, and the way forward is to educate people to become more self sufficient and independent, and not to continue with patronising welfare politics that were made for a post war booming economy.