Welfare, II
May 4, 2009I spent my initial months in Amsterdam under the impression that I was living in a quasi-socialistic system, built upon ideas that originated in the brains of Marx and Engels. This was one of the puzzling features of the Netherlands. It is and has long been a highly capitalistic country — the Dutch pioneered the multinational corporation and advanced the concept of shares of stock, and last year the country was the third-largest investor in U.S. businesses — and yet it has what I had been led to believe was a vast, socialistic welfare state. How can these polar-opposite value systems coexist?
[…]
There is another historical base to the Dutch social-welfare system, which curiously has been overlooked by American conservatives in their insistence on seeing such a system as a threat to their values. It is rooted in religion. “These were deeply religious people, who had a real commitment to looking after the poor,” Mak said of his ancestors. “They built orphanages and hospitals. The churches had a system of relief, which eventually was taken over by the state. So Americans should get over ‘socialism.’ This system developed not after Karl Marx, but after Martin Luther and Francis of Assisi.”
The best article I have EVER read about my own country - and it’s written by an American living in Amsterdam. If you ever want to get a good idea of how a modern welfare state has NOTHING to do with “socialism”, this is it.
World | 
The problem with the welfare state is in the case of New Zealand it almost bankrupted it. The Netherlands is lucky given that it has a decent size population, it is on the door step to a large economic zone and more importantly the historical ties that it has with other countries.
When you look at the welfare state model in most other countries it is a mess, France and Sweden being two examples of stagnation, declining populations and mediocrity par excellence.
Comment by kaiwai — May 4, 2009 @ 1:35 pm