> > I don't understand what you mean by "level of social spending". Do
>> you mean government expenditure on health and welfare? If so then you
>> must realise that the statistics you quote are meaningless, since US
>> social spending on things like health care, education, pensions etc
>> defined as private. But Maybe I'm missing the point?
>
>Yeah, you are, because if the spending is private, it depends on your
>having the money to make the expenditure. That's not true of
>universal public programs.
Yes, however the issue was whether the "level of social spending" is evidence of this. (WS quoted 25 - 30% of the GDP in EU, half that in the US.) It may be that the "level of social spending" in the US, if you include what is categorised as "private" is as much or more than elsewhere.
I gather that is the case with health care. The difference of course is that, in the US, health insurance premiums are "private" because they are classified as being paid mainly by employers. Whereas universal "public" health insurance is paid through what is classified as "taxation". However, if you get right down to brass tacks, it appears to me that employers pay either way. In Europe or whatever, employers might pay into a government health care fund, in the US employers pay into a private health care fund.
But its all social spending, surely. Seems misleading to claim that the US is spending less (WS claims 50% less) than other places on social spending than other developed countries based on a statistical trick of ignoring most of the US spending because it is accounted for differently. Especially since we know that the US health care system, for instance, costs a lot more to run. It seems safe to assume that someone somehow is paying for that, so in fact the US must be spending a lot more, not a lot less.
The outcomes might be a lot less fair and ordinary people might suffer a lot more insecurity in the US, but it seems to me that the "level of social spending" is not necessarily relevant to this. As with capitalism in general, its not the resources put in, its how they are distributed, that is relevant to the level of economic terrorism suffered by the working class.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas