The main reason so many EU countries have strong economies and a better quality of life than the USA is due to the compatibility between labor unions and corporate management.

In America we have an adversarial relationship between the corporate State and blue-collar workers – and what’s left of the unions. CEOs can make three thousand times what the average worker makes, and nobody sees a problem with that. And the GOP is strident in its desire to suppress wages and strip benefits from working people at every opportunity. The result is that social welfare and public services of all kinds have been steadily declining in quantity and quality for the past 30 years. And they’ve been handed over to private corporations, whose only interest is increasing shareholder profits.

That means layoffs and “cost-cutting” measures.

In Europe, American corporations [including fast food chains like McDonald’s and KFC] are mandated by law to give their workers the same “socialist” benefits that all EU wage-earners are entitled: unionization, paid medical and maternity leave; free childcare; required vacation days.

Only in America are we unable to have the same benefits provided to the rest of the world by US multinationals.

If socialism is so bad, why is the quality of life so much higher in Europe? Why are they so much happier? Americans never seem to have an answer for that one…

Europeans are always horrified to learn that in the USA you can be fired from your job at any time for any reason, without notice, and hourly employees often don’t know from one week to the next when or how much they will work. The fucking federal minimum wage in this country is still SEVEN DOLLARS AND TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. It’s been seventeen years since it was raised.

That is economic terrorism.

The quickest, easiest way to raise people out of poverty and inject more money into the economy is to pay workers a decent wage!

Those who are responsible for suppressing the minimum wage are traitors. Traitors to the country and traitors to their constituents. Any corporation that can’t afford to pay its workers a livable wage needs to go out of business. That’s how Capitalism is supposed to work. The ‘hidden hand’ of Adam Smith and all that, right?

But we don’t have that here. In the USA, we have corporate welfare. Here, our tax dollars serve as a safety net for tax-exempt corporations.

Another fun fact: it now costs four times more to go to college in America than it did before the Reagan era [including his stint as governor of California…] In most of the EU, higher education is virtually free and paid for through taxation. God forbid!

Internet and telecom services cost way more over here, too, and they are vastly inferior. The US still doesn’t even rank in the TOP TEN in global internet speed, and in a lot of EU countries wireless is free.

‘Planned obsolescence’ – a purely American concept: build stuff that falls apart.

Everything in the USA favors the “get-rich-quick-produce-nothing” crowd…like the super-duper Uber-rich Silicon Valley, hedge-fund managers, Social Media moguls…celebrities…lottery winners…

America’s elite are convinced they have zero social responsibility to their fellow citizens. Apparently, they don’t even care about the future of their own children – or grandchildren. They clearly don’t consider what kind of world they’re going to have to live in when they grow up.

Pick a crisis: endless wars, climate change, over-population, toxic air, immigration, poisoned food and water, fucking AI. There is no future anymore. For anyone.

But there’s profits to be made right now, dammit!

How fucked up is that? The concept of ‘community’ in the USA is severely broken. The idea of empathy is non-existent in the current political climate.

Inevitably what happens is that critical areas like infrastructure and public services aren’t maintained; mass transit doesn’t get built or even repaired; trains wreck; roads crumble from lack of funding; bridges collapse; trash doesn’t get picked up; dams burst. Eventually, private industry steps in to take over to raise costs and ruin everything for good.

But as long as some rich old white guy somewhere can make a buck, it’s okay.

And because Europeans walk a lot and ride more bikes and don’t eat as much processed, steroid-injected shit as Americans, they are generally thinner and healthier – and they live longer. You rarely have the morbid obesity that we see on a regular basis in the US.

Europeans also know far more about us than we know about them, and they generally know more about world history, technology, art, and culture. Because the media they consume isn’t all government propaganda.

They are for the most part more lenient, democratic, progressive societies. The standard of living is far higher in the EU because labor unions keep wages high. Worker protections are also in place and healthcare and education are generally free.

Sex and procreation are treated as a part of human nature in other western nations, not a religious matter. Nudity isn’t “dangerous” or “dirty.” They don’t seem to have this idea in the US that normal human activity is a disgusting, embarrassing process.

Sadly, the US seems content to rest on its laurels and pound its chest about ‘exceptionalism’ despite a wealth of evidence for America’s decline. Especially when one considers the flawed but generally successful European model, which values the health, well-being, education, and relative happiness of its citizens over corporate profits.

It may be more difficult to become fabulously wealthy, but the average citizen has much more peace of mind and a much better quality of life.

A society whose entire raison d’ etre is to make as much money as possible and kill anyone who gets in our way is not a very healthy place to live. Somewhere along the way, America’s ideals got distorted and greed became its national religion. Since the Coup of 1963, our leaders have all become nothing more than salesmen for RAYTHEON, LOCKHEED-MARTIN and GENERAL DYNAMICS.

Instead of supporting democracy around the world, the US has historically targeted democratic leaders for assassination and has instead supported brutal dictators and repressive regimes of all stripes. Because they need American weapons. And training…and we’re more than happy to provide them!

Before embarking on yet another foreign endeavor of dubious worth (Greenland, Cuba, Panama…) this country needs to focus on its own crumbling infrastructure and repairing our broken social fabric.

A nation is truly powerful when it has a strong economy and a healthy, cohesive, relatively happy population supported by a viable social fabric. A nation is strong when it has an appreciation for its real cultural heritage instead of whitewashed propaganda.

A nation is weak and scared when it needs 800+ bases overseas, 13 aircraft carriers and 20 thousand nuclear warheads to “protect” itself.

That’s my take.

Things aren’t perfect in Europe – or anywhere, obviously – but the European model is at least built upon institutions that were meant to stand the test of time. In America we no longer even have The Constitution to protect us.

Most Americans believe they are ‘exceptional’ and that they live in the greatest nation on Earth. And yet most have never even traveled outside the US, so their uneducated opinions about the outside world mean virtually nothing. But that’s a common flaw among Americans: they believe that if they say it, it’s true. Just like our “president.”

They don’t ever let facts get in the way of history – or reality.

[Edited repost from 2019]