Because we wouldn't want to be like France...

[GymLeaderMisty]

Yes, this an overtly political thread where I will show the superiority of a (relatively) left-wing country. Liberté, égalité, fraternité!!! Liberty, equality, and fraternity.


https://www.ginandtacos.com/2009/12/24/because-we-wouldnt-want-to-be-like-france

As most of us are painfully aware, employers are not required to provide paid vacation in this country. And contrary to popular belief, they are not required to give you time off, either paid or unpaid, for Federal holidays. There are only 10 such days, and only about half of them regularly result in days off for most of us – Christmas, MLK, Independence Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. Unless one works for the government, Washington's Birthday is unlikely to result in an opportunity to sleep in.

This situation is, to the amazement of some Americans, uncommon in comparison to other Western democracies.

It truly is depressing to see how we stack up to our cousins across the Atlantic or to the south. We're a nation of people working harder and harder for less and less, and the merest suggestion that we should do anything other than work 9 hour days without pause until we drop dead is met with cries of socialism and accusations of malingering.

Also, look at the figure four here (a newsletter from the Clarium hedge fund) showing the hourly compensation in European countries relative to the US. The US has a high per capita income, but makes less per hour worked. Also, look at the hours worked per year in European countries compared to the US.



And something from a libertarian magazine, Reason:

To put it plainly, when free marketers warn that Democratic health care initiatives will make us more "like France," a big part of me says, "I wish." It's not that I think it's either feasible or advisable for the United States to adopt a single-payer, government-dominated system. But it's instructive to confront the comparative advantages of one socialist system abroad to sharpen the arguments for more capitalism at home.

For a dozen years now I've led a dual life, spending more than 90 percent of my time and money in the U.S. while receiving 90 percent of my health care in my wife's native France. On a personal level the comparison is no contest: I'll take the French experience any day. ObamaCare opponents often warn that a new system will lead to long waiting times, mountains of paperwork, and less choice among doctors. Yet on all three of those counts the French system is significantly better, not worse, than what the U.S. has now.

What's more, none of these anecdotes scratches the surface of France's chief advantage, and the main reason socialized medicine remains a perennial temptation in this country: In France, you are covered, period. It doesn't depend on your job, it doesn't depend on a health maintenance organization, and it doesn't depend on whether you filled out the paperwork right. Those who (like me) oppose ObamaCare, need to understand (also like me, unfortunately) what it's like to be serially rejected by insurance companies even though you're perfectly healthy. It's an enraging, anxiety-inducing, indelible experience, one that both softens the intellectual ground for increased government intervention and produces active resentment toward anyone who argues that the U.S. has "the best health care in the world."

https://reason.com/archives/2009/12/07/why-prefer-french-health-care

 

[Ivysaur]

When you say that Sarkozy, leader of the French brand the main conservative EU party, leads a "left-wing" country, it's when I worry about the level of conservadurism of the US.

But yeah, not really surprising, Europe is a group of Welfare States, the US is the Land of the Capitalism, where companies are more important than the people working for them.

 

[GymLeaderMisty]

When you say that Sarkozy, leader of the French brand the main conservative EU party, leads a "left-wing" country, it's when I worry about the level of conservadurism of the US.

But yeah, not really surprising, Europe is a group of Welfare States, the US is the Land of the Capitalism, where companies are more important than the people working for them.

Yes, Sarkozy is a right-wing nationalist, like Pat Buchanan in the US. But I rather have right-wing nationalist who has some obligation to the welfare of his country ruling rather than the US right. (Hopefully, the right-wing nationalist would not be an incarnation of Hitler, Muossilini, or Franco.) I regard the US right (a stereotypical example are most of the readers of the WSJ) as transnational elite who could care less about the welfare of their country. Also, the people who support that elite in the US, do not know what they are supporting.