Lawrence:
> Communism is gone and yet much of the West continues to have a large welfare
> state. In no Western nation has state spending as a percentage of GNP
> dropped below 150% of where it was in 1960. In Europe, in particular, strong
> social safe guards remain in place. It is mostly the English speaking
> countries of the world, with their strong libertarian streak, that have
> moved away from the welfare state.
>
> I don't mean to defend the welfare state. The amount spent on the poor and
> sick is everywhere insufficient, and fundamental questions remain about
> whether that is the best way to go anyway. But I doubt your analysis of why
> strong unions were allowed to exist. In Germany, they still exist.
Well, I've heard from time to time that the Welfare State is under attack in Europe and is now a subject of conflict. I am uncertain of my information, however, because as I do not live in Europe I have to get my information largely through the bourgeois media whose accuracy seems to range from half lies to all lies, and through the Net, whose reliability is legend.
However, if the Welfare of the Welfare State is not now under attack, it seems likely that it will be in the near future. That is because no one is born submissive to the will of another, and even those who seem to submit resent and resist the abrogation of their wills. Political power, then, is a constant struggle, and those who are not acquiring more are losing what they have, unless they have made some kind of peace based in freedom and equality with one another. Therefore, every ruling class and all the constitutents of a ruling class constantly seek to extend and perfect their power (or they cease to rule). Provisionally, the European ruling classes may have found ways of ruling through the Welfare State, but at some point even the pittances allowed to the lower orders will begin to seem onerous to them and better spent on themselves, and the attacks will begin. (If, as I say, they have not already begun.)