Learning to Love the European Welfare State
Russell Shorto has an excellent article in The New York Times Magazine about how he found himself living in the Netherlands and after at first rebelling against the high tax rate he learned to love the European welfare state:
In fairness to Europe’s critics, the Netherlands is one of the highest performing countries and things don’t look as great in Italy or Spain. Still, it’s a crucial point. The average standard of living enjoyed in the top European countries is better than the average standard of living in the United States and while we almost certainly can’t just copy Dutch practices, we can certainly learn from them and stop telling moronic scare stories.
I might add that one thing that tends to give a distorted picture of the situation is that the kind of Americans likely to travel to the Netherlands and other European countries are hardly socioeconomically representative. Shorto is writing from the perspective of a college educated professional, but the biggest contrast is probably found in the standard of living enjoyed by people in the bottom 25 percent of the wealth/income distribution.
127 Responses to “Learning to Love the European Welfare State”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
May 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Kind of strange that so many people don’t have a problem with the fact that many Americans would be better off if they lived in another country.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
He had me at vakantiegeld.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Reading Shorto’s essay, it sounds like Netherlands doesn’t have a “welfare state” as much as it has a “social security state.” Welfare is generally made up of benefits to help the poor. What the Netherlands does is provide a broadbased set of amenities and handouts that everyone pays into and everyone benefits from. It’s kind of hard to rail against things like the kinderbijslag when even the upper middle class are benefiting from them. It creates a direct feeling of “getting something for your tax dollars.”
May 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
“but the biggest contrast is probably found in the standard of living enjoyed by people in the bottom 25 percent of the wealth/income distribution.”
I’m not so sure about that. The key to the success of the welfare state is that it offers the most benifits to the middle and especially upper-middle class.
If you’re a 43yo director at a Dutch software company, yes you might live in a much smaller house and drive a 320d vs. a 335xi in the US – but you have between 6 and 9 weeks of vacation, its much harder to fire you if you slack off and even if you do get fired you have all those benifits to fall back on.
I’m sure being poor in Amsterdam sucks as much as being poor in Boston. But, being upper middle class in Amsterdam is much better than being upper middle class in Boston.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I thought you were going to say something about how all of the wonderful vakantiegeld and the like are well within our budget set without changing the tax code by a guilder. A couple fewer carrier groups and F-22s and you’ve got a wooden-shod paradise right here in the states.
It’s amazing what degree of tribute regular Americans are willing to pay to the military industrial complex. It funds a whole army of lobbyists and a never-ending congressional gravy train, and the rest of us get two weeks of paid vacation and no free bicycles.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Yeah but you can’t compare economic performance in Southern Europe to Northern Europe for a whole slew of social and cultural reasons…
May 4th, 2009 at 11:58 am
It’s amazing what degree of tribute regular Americans are willing to pay to the military industrial complex. It funds a whole army of lobbyists and a never-ending congressional gravy train, and the rest of us get two weeks of paid vacation and no free bicycles.
The nature of the military-industrial complex is such that so many Americans benefit from it, so that even the taxpayers play a role in its self-perpetuating nature. Plus, lots of those jobs pay a lot more money than anything you could find in Amsterdam.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I would add that it would probably be a little easier for Shorto to love the European Welfare State if he would learn how marginal tax rates work. Then he could forget about this “more than half my income goes to the government” non-sense.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I’m sure being poor in Amsterdam sucks as much as being poor in Boston. But, being upper middle class in Amsterdam is much better than being upper middle class in Boston.
JMO: You couldn’t be more wrong. While I found Shorto’s essay interesting (and like DTM, he had me at vacation money!), the fact is upper middle class Americans can purchase a reasonably high quality of life. And take nice vacation. And buy things at 2am. Different choices, to be sure, and like lots of readers of this blog I’d much prefer a re-balancing of the American system toward European-style social democracy — but at the end of the day upper middle class Americans generally live well. Our poor, however, live horrendously more degrading, dangerous and unhealthy lives than the poor of other wealthy democracies. There’s just no comparison between the odds faced by a newborn member of a welfare-dependent single mother in Boston or Atlanta, and one in Amsterdam or Copenhagen.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I’m sure being poor in Amsterdam sucks as much as being poor in Boston.
Why are you so sure? For one difference, if you’re poor in Amsterdam I think you can still get health care. Anyway, I’d like to see some evidence that being poor in Amsterdam is as bad as being poor in a major American city.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
For one difference, if you’re poor in Amsterdam I think you can still get health care.
I said Boston. We have universal healthcare here.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Then he could forget about this “more than half my income goes to the government” non-sense.
Not so sure it’s nonsense if one includes consumption taxes. (Shorto didn’t mention the Netherlands’ VAT, but I’d be surprised if it’s much under 20%). I’m pretty sure the higher-performing European social democracies do spend something like 50% or more of GDP on the public sector. Somebody’s gotta pay for it. Far better, like Shorto, to focus on the benefits of such a system than to pretend it can be had for cheap.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Barry Ritholtz has a great comparison of European and American socialism here:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/05/us-vs-europe-who-is-the-welfare-state/#comments
May 4th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I think the Netherlands actually tends to come in with a total taxation rate as a percentage of GDP of just under 40%.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Yes, and the average standard of living in the top areas of the United States is better than the average standard of living enjoyed in all of Europe. This is the type of statistics-based observation that now gets laughed out of discussions pertaining to baseball, but in politics it is considered germane, even after European free riding with regard to keeping global shipping lanes open (to say nothing of forty years of free rding with regard to a Stalinist empire to the east), and medical technology innovation.
It was instructive that in a PBS special last year touting the superiority of other health care delivery systems, compared to the U.S., when a Swiss pharmaceutical company executive was interviewed. The interviewer and the executive talked about how even the latest drugs are much more easily obtained by the typical Swiss citizen, compared to a U.S. citizen. The executive then went on to note that nearly all his company’s investment in research was done with the plan of making profits in the United States, and losing money or breaking even elesewhere. Yes, yes, I know private capital is irrelevant to medical technology innovation. Of course, if anyone believed this they would calling for the end of patents on medical technology.
Mind you, I’m not being critical of the Netherlands, or any other European country. I have relatives from there. Some of those relatives, none wealthy, have chosen to live there, and others have found living in the U.S. to be better. The smaller a polity is geographically or by population, the easier it is to avoid the worst pitfalls of increased central planning. I merely mean to suggest that examining a society like the Nehterlands and trying to compare it to the U.S., is a not very useful exercise, except in extremely general terms.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
As an American living in Spain, I can tell you it looks pretty good from here too. Sure the economy is in terrible shape right now, but I’d be terrified to move back to the US right now. Having good health care and a much less stressful lifestyle sure makes up for a lot.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Marshall, your comments about the military industril complex are largely accurate, but of course without that military industrial complex, there is a decent chance that Soviet tanks would have rolled into the Netherlands at some point in the 1950s, if not later. The American military industrial complex, for all it’s very real horrible faults, is probably the biggest reason we didn’t see a very hot WWIII that had death totals which exceeded that of WWII’s.
There ain’t no winning in this Vale of Tears.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
That photo was carefully framed to avoid showing the mob of rioting, unemployed Muslim youth. They lurk around every corner in the Netherlands. Really.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
What do the Dutch produce? I mean how much of their standard of living comes from the innovations of citizens in other countries? I assume their pharmaceutical drugs are mostly developed in the US. I assume their shipping is protected from pirates by the US and British Navy. I assume their computers and telecommunications equipment were developed by the US military. How much aid do the Dutch send to Africa and the developing world? I don’t know the answers to these questions, perhaps in a world of total isolation the Dutch would still maintain a standard of living equal to that of the US. But it seems to me that many of these European Welfare States that Yglesias is so enamored of are basically free loaders. I would be interested to see evidence of how the Dutch are contributing to the advancement of the global society. It appears to me that they are using free-trade as a means of sponging innovation from other societies. What do they produce? What do they contribute?
May 4th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
That actually would be one way to build support for such a “social security” system – make it so that the bulk of the population actually gets something from it, be it free health care or housing support. You’d need higher taxes, and the really rich wouldn’t benefit that much just because it would be a small fraction of their total income, but it would almost guarantee that the programs survive.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Keep in mind that that really only applies to central and western Europe, who were in NATO. It did not apply to the Scandinavians (who weren’t in NATO, but next door) nor the Finns (who were next door).
May 4th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
> I assume their computers and telecommunications
> equipment were developed by the US military.
You would assume massively wrong there, particularly if you have enjoyed the benefits of such Dutch innovations as the cassette tape and its eventual replacement the CD. Dutch electronics and consumer appliances tend to be innovative and of very high quality.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
and the really rich wouldn’t benefit that much just because it would be a small fraction of their total income
But, do you think if you asked your average biglaw partner making 1.5 million how he felt about the 120k in vakantiegeld he just received to help him pay for his summer vacation that will take up the entire month of July and August, I think he would approve.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
One thing I noticed about my time in Amsterdam: consumer crap is really quite expensive. (VAT has an impact there.) But the impact isn’t as noticeable, because you can have a pretty full and rich existence there without that 42in flatscreen. Likewise, people live in smaller homes, but tend to spend more time in shared spaces.
Which brings me to the significant point in Shorto’s piece: the role of public/social housing, and the idea of a rental sector that isn’t stigmatized and marginalized, in a society where owning real estate isn’t the investment vehicle by which you fund college/ill health/retirement/inheritence.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
The view from Britain is quite (metaphorically) sunny as well. I may be facing long term unemployment (sigh) but at least I have guaranteed health benefits and a social safety net designed to keep me from having to eat cat food to survive. That’s not to say there aren’t problems – and the growing diversity of the European population underlies many of them (see: Paris, riots by French-north African youth in) – but in general people are looking for ways to solve these problems and include everyone. The baseline desire to support and help one’s neighbours and countrypeople is something I wish we could foster in the US.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Will Allen,
No one against the necessity of military deterrence (or deploymnent if required, big if). However, the problem is any damned thing can be justified as “national defense” and if you object, you’re weak. To give one example. Our nuclear missile force no doubt deterred the Soviets from starting World War III (or, more likely, blackmailing us into submission). However, once the Navy launched its Polaris missile boats in the early 1960’s, we had an invulnerable nuclear strike capability. However, there was no way in hell the Air Force was going to give up its ICBM or B-52 programs (the holy and sacred “nuclear triad” had to be maintained). So we just threw billions more down a rathole and actually made ourselves less safe.
Last year, Matt posted an AF video from the early 80’s simulating a preemptive Soviet strike taking out ICBM and bombers before they could launch. The Strategic Air Command was on a hair-trigger, its never been confirmed, but they were probably on a “launch on warning” policy during the 1970’s and 80’s. If we had relied on Navy subs for our deterrence, we could wait to “launch on impact”, to ensure there wasn’t a computer or radar glitch, without any risk to our counterstrike capability.
One of the most alarming incidents took place during 1980 when National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski received a middle-of-the-night phone call reporting that warning systems indicated a Soviet all-out attack of 2,200 ICBMs. Just before he was about to call President Carter, who would have had about three to seven minutes to make a decision, Brzezinski learned that other warning systems showed that there was no attack; it was a false alarm. Someone had inserted a tape for a military exercise into a warning system computer.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB43/
May 4th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
You would assume massively wrong there, particularly if you have enjoyed the benefits of such Dutch innovations as the cassette tape and its eventual replacement the CD. Dutch electronics and consumer appliances tend to be innovative and of very high quality.
I was thinking more about satellites and computers than stereo equipment, so I’m sure that I’m willing to admit to being massively wrong but that’s interesting nonetheless.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I think the Netherlands actually tends to come in with a total taxation rate as a percentage of GDP of just under 40%.
DTM: The CIA (CIA.gov) puts it at 45% in 2008. Not sure what their source is. No time for extensive googling at the moment, and the OECD’s site is plain useless…
May 4th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Well, yes, Brett, the reality of a rapidly rebuilding, and then prosperous, Western Europe, combined with geography to make Western Europe a much more central area of tension with the Stalinists. I’m sure Finland, Norway, and Sweden were rather happy to have Soviet tank divisions parked near the Fulda gap as opposed to somewhere more to the north.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
The smaller a polity is geographically or by population, the easier it is to avoid the worst pitfalls of increased central planning.
But the smaller the polity, the easier it is for a small, relatively elite group of people to be able to benefit from free markets “by choice” rather than forcing a huge population to suffer the consequences of an inadequate safety net. So why not reverse the situations? Allow the large countries to be the ones with safety nets and nice amenities for a large swath of the population, and allow those best able to take advantage of laissez-faire/social Darwinistic capitalism to do that if they choose. To a certain degree, many of the upper-middle class foreigners who move to the US in search of lower tax rates are just freeloading off of the destitution and the economic precipice that the middle class are hanging off of in this country.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
What do the Dutch produce? I mean how much of their standard of living comes from the innovations of citizens in other countries?
Lots of it. Just like much of the standard of living of Americans “comes from the innovations of citizens in other countries.”
It appears to me that they are using free-trade as a means of sponging innovation from other societies.
Um, that’s what trade is for. That’s why smart governments keen on raising living standards don’t erect trade barriers.
It did not apply to the Scandinavians (who weren’t in NATO, but next door)
I suspect that would be news to the Danes and Norwegians.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I’m sure Finland, Norway, and Sweden were rather happy to have Soviet tank divisions parked near the Fulda gap as opposed to somewhere more to the north.
That argument can be extended ad infinitum: any conflict in the world can be said to have reduced military threats elsewhere in the world in a zero-sum manner, which will then end up benefiting from not having had to deal with those conflicts. This is more an expression of sour grapes of how “I could have been a contender” if only I didn’t have those other obligations that so-and-so didn’t have to deal with.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
But the smaller the polity, the easier it is for a small, relatively elite group of people to be able to benefit from free markets “by choice” rather than forcing a huge population to suffer the consequences of an inadequate safety net.
This is completely wrong, unless I miss your point.
A) Large countries are always impacted less by trade than small ones. In other words, relative to the size of their respective economies, the US at any given time is likely to have far fewer victims of trade than The Netherlands.
B) The larger absolute size of the potential pool of people who might be negatively impacted by trade will be matched by the larger absolute size of the government’s budget.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
So we itemize deductions for kids, house, education, etc. And the Dutch don’t, but do get a check? I’d like to see a good comparison of the two ways of supporting these things. Maybe MattY can send Ezra a secret decoder ring message and get him on it.
And I like the fact that (I assume) the Dutch payments are not means tested. I’d suspect that rich conservative assholes in the US may be slightly less opposed to such things if they knew their hard earned (heh) tax dollars weren’t just being handed over to welfare queens and po folks. (Never mind the defense contractors.)
May 4th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Just Karl: the Dutch had a global trading empire when American colonists were shoveling shit. (Fun fact: John Hancock made his money smuggling tea that was grown in the East Indies, shipped to Holland, then packed off across the Atlantic.)
Maybe, just maybe, it’s not “freeloading”, but that Americans have been distracted from how their government fucks them over in exchange for those $1.37 plastic doodahs in WalMart?
May 4th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
While I found Shorto’s essay interesting (and like DTM, he had me at vacation money!), the fact is upper middle class Americans can purchase a reasonably high quality of life. And take nice vacation.
Well, while you can afford a “nice” vacation in terms of expense, as an uppper middle class American you don’t get a nice vacation in terms of leisure time. You are certainly not encouraged to take long vacations, and even while on vacation you are expected to take along your laptop and BlackBerry and check in every day.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Yeah, that’s right Will, you murderous bastard, the Europeans got a “free ride” for forty years. Not a dime did they pay for their own security. And all because the Americans had such big hearts that they gave all this charity.
Hey, speaking of charity, how’s your freedom for Iraqis program going? How many more were freed from this vale of tears? But at least they aren’t slaves, right Will? Better dead than a slave, at least if your death doesn’t involve Will Allen getting off his fat ass or any actual inconvenience to Will “Pol Pot” Allen.
People, Will Allen is just looking to justify the massive waste fraud and abuse that is the bloated American military. He so loves death and destruction that he consistently votes for whomever will promise to kill the most brown people. And, let’s face it, this guy is so stupid he thinks George Fucking McGovern had something to do with Pol Pot. Never mind that at the point McGovern gave what Will the moron calls “full throated support” to the Khmer Rouge, there was quite simply no way that the United States was going to go back to South East Asia to fight for someone else’s freedom. No, in the mind of a complete fucking moron, it was McGovern who brought about the killing fields.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This is completely wrong, unless I miss your point.
Hm. That’s a good point. Regarding your reasoning with respect to the consequences of trade, it’s certainly possible that adopting a deregulatory, laissez-faire approach in the Netherlands could result in significantly worse outcomes than it has in the USA. I didn’t consider that, and I don’t have a good reply at the moment. However, it just strikes me that if you have a relatively small population, you can place them in a position where almost the entirety of the population would be able to maintain a decent standard of living and success without a safety net, but that in a very large country, it means condemning a very large number of people to a state of economic insecurity simply to serve the deregulatory/laissez-faire interests of the (large, in absolute terms) economic elite. I probably need to develop this thought a bit more.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
beowulf, there is no doubt that all manner of nonsense and is justified under the heading of national security. I would caution against, however, being so certain as to what the wise course of action was in, say, 1960, from the vantage point of living in 1960. The Soviets were just a few years removed from being ruled by a fellow who first murdered tens of millions of his own citizens to consolidate power, then formed an alliance with Hitler too carve up Poland. Fear, even, large fear, was entirley warranted. As to the sufficiency of submarine ICBMs, keep in mind that the propsect of Pershing IIs really brought about a crisis in the Soviet system, and perhaps led to real breakthroughs in negotiations.
It’s a very complex topic in which it is extremely hard to make strong conclusions.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Eisenhower didn’t think so, and he was, umm, somewhat qualified to have an opinion.
Everything turns out to be a “very complex topic in which it is extremely hard to make strong conclusions” when you have to bullshit your way through a defense of the indefensible.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Just Karl: the Dutch had a global trading empire when American colonists were shoveling shit.
Yeah, but what have they done for me lately? Nobody seems to be able to answer that question.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Stupid, I’ve never said McGovern was solely responsible for the killing fields. You are lying. I said that when the Khmer Rouge was the only alternative to the corrupt Lon Nol government, McGovern praised the Khmer Rouge, lending his full throated support for the Khmer Rouge as an alternative. This is true, as insane as this truth makes you.
No, I never said the Netherlands never paid a dime, nor did I describe U.S. behavior as being due to charitable desires. Along with being Stupid, you are quite obviuosly psychotic. Now, go take the money you’ve saved by being a full throated supporter of slavery in pursuit of mineral exploitation, and go buy some new anti-psychotic drugs.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
It appears to me that they are using free-trade as a means of sponging innovation from other societies.
To echo Jasper, that’s the entire purpose of trade. We do the same thing — hell, every country that trades does it.
I was thinking more about satellites and computers than stereo equipment, so I’m sure that I’m willing to admit to being massively wrong but that’s interesting nonetheless.
Look into the research being done by Phillips into green lighting technology, including the pioneering use of OLED technology, or their work with biosensors, robotics, nanotechnology and genetics research.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Yes, Steve LoBonne, Eisenhower ciriticized the military industrial complex. No, he did not support the notion that the U.S. only rely on submarine based ICBMs for nuclear deterrence.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
May 4th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Tyro, you speak as a person who has never been tasked with the responsibility of developing policy with regard to Stalin’s tank divisions. Nor have I, of course. How nice for us.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I’m much too compassionate to take away your job.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Will Allen reminds me again how I don’t want to hear from conservatives any more of this “richest country in the world” crap ever again. It’s something that America loves to brag about, but if you ever want to take advantage of the consequences of America’s supposed wealth, we get told, “Oh, we can’t afford it. We don’t have the money.” WTF?
May 4th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Just Karl, Philips is a Dutch company. Royal Dutch Shell is a Dutch company. Unilever is a Dutch company. Use the Google!
May 4th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I’d be interested to know if any of these benifits phase out above a certain income level. I would assume that they don’t. I think one of the problems with building support for these programs in the US is the phase out.
For example, in the US student loan interest deductability phases out between 55k and 70k. Your average chemical engineering grad can start at 55+ so never is able to deduct the interest.
The key to the widespread support of Social Security is that it applies at income levels. The same theory should apply to all middle class entitlements – I bet that would swing a number of middle class voters
May 4th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
A simple “yes” would have been more concise, Steve.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Tyro, first, I’m not a conservative. Second, I’ve never bragged about the United States being the richest country in the world. Third, I’ve never talked about the U.S. taxpayer being “unable to afford” something.
Hey, if you want argue with people who have said those things, fine. No need to drag me into it.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Yeah, but what have they done for me lately?
Well, it depends what you need doing. It’s a bit like 3M: they make things run better. The historical basis of Dutch prosperity has been logistics and infrastructure, and that’s still the case today through Rotterdam and Schiphol. There’s plenty of heavy industry — steel, chemicals, North Sea oil — and commercial manufacturing (Unilever, Philips). There’s a big biotech sector. It’s the gateway to Europe for lots of US firms, and their success presumably filters back to Americans.
The problem here is with your premise, because it implies a clientelism that seems more in keeping with colonial relationships than trade among high-skilled developed economies.
And to answer your earlier question:
May 4th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Matt writes: “the Netherlands is one of the highest performing countries and things don’t look as great in Italy or Spain.”
Ahh, more of Matt and his dreams of a blue-eyed paradise …
May 4th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
You’re late, Sailer. Mandatory morning cross-burning overran again?
May 4th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Jasper,
For what it is worth, here is an OECD link showing the Netherlands taxation rate under 40% of GDP:
http://oberon.sourceoecd.org/vl=4029523/cl=15/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/10/04/01/10-04-01-g1.htm
May 4th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Re: tax rates – how much of this is just different accounting.
I mean if college was “free” and as a result you had to pay $100 more a month in taxes for the rest of your life, or you paid $400 a month for the first 10 years to pay off your loans – is that really any different.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
jmo, college is mad cheap in Holland, too. My cousins paid something like $1000 a year, tops. I think it might have been less than that. One of them is a civil engineer, so it’s not like they’re working in a hotel, either.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Alli,
Is it any cheaper when you account for the extra tax burden that a dutch civil engineer would have to bear? For example – UMASS Boston instate tution is 7500 a year. 4 years is 30k which works out to be about 289 a month. I could imagine that over his lifetime your Dutch civil engineer friend will have paid back the cost of his education.
Does it matter if he pays it back at 289 a month for 10 years or 98.73 for the rest of his life?
May 4th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
The Netherlands is among the world’s leading aid donors, giving about 0.7% of its gross domestic product to development assistance and an additional 0.1% to environmental problems in developing countries, totaling about $6.3 billion in 2007.
By contrast, the relatively miserly US gives only about 0.16% of its GDP to development aid.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Does it matter if he pays it back at 289 a month for 10 years or 98.73 for the rest of his life?
Yes, it does, particularly when you consider that a Dutch student never has to forgo higher education because of cost, while in the US many students don’t go on to get more education because they simply can’t afford it.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I’d certainly rather have my college costs amortized over my lifetime as a tax incidence rather than pay it up front.
Not to mention that isn’t “paying back the cost” of education kind of the point? Education should be affordable so that everyone can go and develop themselves and eventually pay enough back into the government so that other people’s kids can go at the same cheap cost (to them, not to the government). If not, you end up with the US, where we’re squandering half our population’s talents because of crappy schools, and so the remaining labor force ends up with a tremendous cost, but also loses out on having a better educated workforce.
Or something. I really should get back to work :-/
May 4th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Stefan,
But as you know at the age of 12 “Depending on the advice of the elementary school and the score of the Cito test, pupils are assigned to either vmbo, havo or vwo.” And your ability to go to universtity is set.
We may ask our students to payback the cost of their education, but we have many more oppertunities for people to pursue higher education.
It’s free in the Netherlands only if you pass that test when you’re 12.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Alli,
Education should be affordable so that everyone can go and develop themselves
But in most of Europe, including the Netherlands, access to higher education is limited to those who were tracked into the proper High School level and who do well on standardized tests.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Yeah, it’s so great that they take 52% of his income, and then he’s dumb enough to call it a “benefit” when they grant him back about $2500 of it. Gosh forbid they taxed him at a lower rate and let him decide how to spend it himself.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
But in most of Europe, including the Netherlands, access to higher education is limited to those who were tracked into the proper High School level and who do well on standardized tests.
Color me skeptical.
I mean, this may have been the case once upon a time, and it still may be the case to a limited extent in Europe, but, as many people have noted, post-secondary education, too, is yet another area where America is falling behind the rest of the rich world.
To put it another way, what good is it if the US refrains from Euro-style gatekeeping (based on, say test scores) when its own style of gatekeeping (based on income) is actually a stronger form of barrier?
May 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Are people really so ignorant regarding the openess of higher education in Europe, as oppposed to the U.S.? Mind you, I think it likely that higher education in the U.S. has for many students become merely an extraordinarily expensive signaling device, but goodness, if one really thinks attending collger is vital to a productive and happy life, then the U.S. is superior. I’m not so sure that it is, and am thus ambivalent as to whether rationing by the Europeam method is better or worse than the U.S. method of rationing by price and/or willingness to incur debt.
My personal experience with relatives is the European kmethod can much too rigid. I had a cousin who was pigeonholed in the Netherlands, so his parents emigrated to the U.S., he eventually attended a good liberal arts college in the U.S., at a pretty high price, and is now making very good money in Bejing for a multinational. On the other hand, I know of too many people who paid way too much money for a degree which does not afford them good earning power, absent a lot of entrepreneurial ability. Of course, people with large amounts of entrepreneurial ability don’t need a degree as much to make good money.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
We may ask our students to payback the cost of their education, but we have many more oppertunities for people to pursue higher education.
jmo: the statistics certainly don’t bear this out.
Yeah, it’s so great that they take 52% of his income, and then he’s dumb enough to call it a “benefit” when they grant him back about $2500 of it.
James Robertson: Don’t be daft. The value of government benefits enjoyed by a middle class Dutch family is vastly greater than $2,500.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
jmo,
I would guess that we could talk about education policy differences the same way Ezra talks about health policy differences – everybody’s rationing, but we do it in different ways. In health care and in higher ed, the US rations by making it unaffordable to poor people. In the Netherlands, they ration health care in a way that makes it affordable to everyone, and they ration higher ed by tracking people according to ability, and making sure that the safety net is robust enough to compensate for having a (potentially) lower-wage job.
And James Robertson, “gosh” forbid you recognize, like the Dutch government does, that social spending strengthens society, provides for goods which can’t be purchased as individuals, improves health and happiness outcomes, and allows for a robust capitalist economy.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
To put it another way, what good is it if the US refrains from Euro-style gatekeeping (based on, say test scores) when its own style of gatekeeping (based on income) is actually a stronger form of barrier?
I’m not certain of the statistics for the Netherlands. But, in Germany, the SES of the child correlates strongly with their university tracking. While it doesn’t correlate directly with income – a German child from a working class or immigrant background is highly unlikely to be placed on the university track.
“After controlling for reading abilities, odds to be nominated to Gymnasium for upper middle-class children were still 2.63 times better than for working-class children.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_in_International_Reading_Literacy_Study
May 4th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
…if one really thinks attending collger is vital to a productive and happy life, then the U.S. is superior.
Superior to what? The US is decidedly mediocre among rich countries when it comes to college attainment. And that’s a drop from first or second in the world once upon a time. I mean, you could argue that the US is still competitive in this regard, but “superior” really is a stretch in 2009.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I guess the number we need is the university attendance rates for working class (and the poor) in Europe vs. the US.
I’d be willing to bet that a greater percentage of poor and working class kids go to university in the US than in Europe.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
You should learn your history. During the Cold War, there actually was a fairly strong Soviet presence on the Finnish border, including at least 12 divisions. That’s not including the nearby Kola Peninsula, which was a premier Soviet naval base for the Soviet Northern Fleet.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
By the way, the University of Michigan, a pretty good school, offers full term tuition for engineering for somewhere between 6-8 K , for Michigan residents. This ain’t cheap, but it is not wildly exorbinant, either.
Having said that, the cartel-driven tutition prices in U.S. higher education is maddening.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
There is no chance Stalin’s tanks would have rolled into Amsterdam, according to the best historians of the period (I am thinking of Gerhard Weinberg). Of course there is a chance the Western Democracies would have voted in communism, since the communist party had a better record of opposing Fascism before the war than almost anyone else.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
You should learn your hitory, Bret, if you think “strong” is not a relative term for Soviet military strength, and thus have come to think that the forces the Soviets deployed along the Finnish border compared to their forces elsewhere. Mind you, the Finns no doubt had to shape their foreign policy with an eye to the reality of Soviet strength.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Yes, harold, wars are so predictable, and historians have such an outstanding track record in predicting future events. You are correct, of course, if you meant that the Red Army on the border of Western Europe in the 1950s, unopposed by a credible military force, would like have led to the Stalinization, as in East Germany, of large swaths of the region, perhaps without firing a shot. Yes, those communists did a fine, fine job of opposing the Nazis when they were not entering into secret treaties with them. Or something.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Well, it depends what you need doing. It’s a bit like 3M: they make things run better. The historical basis of Dutch prosperity has been logistics and infrastructure, and that’s still the case today through Rotterdam and Schiphol. There’s plenty of heavy industry — steel, chemicals, North Sea oil — and commercial manufacturing (Unilever, Philips). There’s a big biotech sector. It’s the gateway to Europe for lots of US firms, and their success presumably filters back to Americans.
Well, okay that makes sense. Of the Top 10 products imported into the Netherlands, six of them are also among the top 10 exports by the Netherlands. These must be the gateway products for the rest of Europe. (Crude oil, non-crude oil, computers, office equipment, electronic integrated circuits, medicines in doses) Interesting item making the top 10 imported products list is human blood. Interesting item making the top 10 exported products list is cigars and cigarettes.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Jasper, superior to telling a person at a young age that he can’t attend college.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
But in most of Europe, including the Netherlands, access to higher education is limited to those who were tracked into the proper High School level and who do well on standardized tests.
Nonsense, there are lots of avenues for those who for whatever reason didn’t get to university level straight away. Also, not everybody needs or wants a degree and it does not automatically translate into a higher income, as many humanities majors find out, when they compare their income with that of your average plumber or auto mechanic.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
The Netherlands is ranked fairly high in economic freedom (12th most free in the world), from http://is.gd/wHz3
“The Netherlands enjoys very high levels of business freedom, trade freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and property rights. Business regulation is efficient. Virtually all commercial operations are simple and transparent. Foreign investment is actively promoted, and 100 percent foreign ownership is allowed in sectors where foreign investment is permitted. Monetary stability is well maintained, and the highly developed financial sector serves as a European banking hub. The judiciary, independent of politics and free of corruption, has demonstrated an exemplary ability to protect property rights.”
“The Netherlands could do better in fiscal freedom and government size. Minor tax reforms in 2008 adjusted the three corporate tax brackets. Efforts to reform welfare spending have led to an improved budget balance, but overall government spending remains high. High welfare spending and increased public spending on an aging population are likely to create financial problems and hurt fiscal stability.”
“In the most recent year, government spending equaled 46.1 percent of GDP. There are 37 state-owned enterprises.”
May 4th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Gosh forbid they taxed him at a lower rate and let him decide how to spend it himself.
Ah, the ever-reliable voice of suburban white flight, secure in its mall-embellished fortress. As Jasper said, the little benefits are just the icing on the cake of living somewhere that doesn’t consider you damned to hell on account of misfortune.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Also, not everybody needs or wants a degree and it does not automatically translate into a higher income, as many humanities majors find out, when they compare their income with that of your average plumber or auto mechanic.
So… the plumbers and auto mechanics should be taxed to pay for the useless humanities degrees of the upper class?
This makes sense how?
May 4th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Funny, pseudonymous, I’ve known plenty of non-wealthy people in the U.S. who have experienced extreme misfortune. None of them have been damned to hell.
Econotarian, I think many of the differeces between the U.S. and Netherlands have been entirely overblown on this thread.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
the Dutch had a global trading empire when American colonists were shoveling shit.
In the Burns New York film, the East India Company is described as “IBM with guns”.
Philips is a Dutch company. Royal Dutch Shell is a Dutch company. Unilever is a Dutch company.
Most importantly of all: Heineken is a Dutch company
May 4th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
So… the plumbers and auto mechanics should be taxed to pay for the useless humanities degrees of the upper class?
Humanities degrees aren’t useless, income isn’t a measure for usefulness or worth.
Humanities majors aren’t predominantly upper class.
Most people are taxed for lots of things they never take advantage of themselves.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Econotarian, I think many of the differeces between the U.S. and Netherlands have been entirely overblown on this thread.
Yeah, but it’s the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here, they got there, but there they’re a little different. In Amsterdam, you can buy beer in a movie theatre. And I don’t mean in a paper cup either. They give you a glass of beer, like in a bar. And you know what they put on french fries instead of ketchup? Mayonnaise. I seen ‘em do it. And I don’t mean a little bit on the side of the plate, they fuckin’ drown ‘em in it.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Humanities majors aren’t predominantly upper class.
Do you have any data to back up that assertion?
May 4th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
First, do you have any data to back up your assertion that they are? I believe you were the first one to make the claim when you referred to the “humanities degrees of the upper class”.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
As for means testing benefits in the Netherlands: some are, some aren’t. Child benefits aren’t, for instance, but daycare benefits are. Personally, I’d rather have higher taxes and do away with the means testing. My wife is an entrepreneur, we never know how much she is going to make in a year, so we also never know if we get too much or too little daycare benefits.
Then, as for testing kids at 12. It’s true, we do that. But it’s not true that this one test is the end of it: after finishing VMBO a kid can continue at HAVO level and on to VWO and HBO or university. Alternatively, you can take Open University courses without any prior diploma whatsoever, and once you’ve got your propaedeuse you can sign up at a regular University (they accept the propaedeuse from Open University). Finally, if you’re over 21 and lack the papers you can always sit for an entry exam called the colloquium doctum.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
None of them have been damned to hell.
You miss my point. American Protestantism manifests itself in a secularized form of predestinarian theology, in which the elect status of the fit and wealthy is contrasted with the implication that the sick or unfortunate have somehow brought it upon themselves. (All manner of neo-Calvinist bullshit is spouted under the banner of “personal responsibility”, which is a very different thing from actual personal responsibility.) That’s partly why the average American is more comfortable underwriting the cost of keeping people in jail than that of social benefits.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Mr. Econotarian writes:
“The Netherlands enjoys very high levels of business freedom, trade freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and property rights. Business regulation is efficient…
…The Netherlands could do better in fiscal freedom and government size.”
This method of analysis underscores the idiocy behind a lot of libertarian rhetoric.
Here’s how it seems to work: first, construct an Economic Freedom Index that includes a wide variety of indicators, some of them not clearly related to each other.
Next, argue that the presence of wealthy countries near the top of the list proves that “economic freedom” as a whole produces prosperity.
Finally, when one comes across a wealthy country with a high level of taxation and social spending, argue that they’d surely be doing even better if they reduced their taxes and spending – because “economic freedom” brings prosperity, and high taxes plus high social spending are a violation of economic freedom.
The logical flaws in this approach should be fairly evident.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Stefan,
Why yes I do.
http://fyesit.metapress.com/content/1u3n5040jw85t272/
” However, students from families with high socioeconomic status have a much greater probability of selecting lower income fields.”
May 4th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Well, I have no brief for Calvinism, and I think your generalization about Protestantism is waaaay to broad, which is not the same as saying that there is not an element of which you speak. I mostly think it is remarkable that a nation as geographically, ethnically, and historically different from a nation like the Netherlands would be so similar.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Anybody who thinks the Dutch, and Heineken especially, has anything to strongly recommend it with regard to beer, with Belgium right next door, is cheating himself. Of course, Heineken is better than nuthin’, or Old Style, for that matter, but that isn’t sayin’ much.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Re: For one difference, if you’re poor in Amsterdam I think you can still get health care.
Ditto in the US, since you’ll have Medicaid. It’s the working class and even the lower middle class that is in dicey shape with regard to health care on the US.
Re: I said Boston. We have universal healthcare here.
Which brings up the fact that there’s a north-south divide in social welfare systems in the US too.
Re: You are certainly not encouraged to take long vacations
Where I work (one of those evil Wall Street banks) we get four weeks vacation (management gets five) and are required to take every day of it (no carry over). For at least ten days of that vacation time we are not permitted any contact or connection with the office.
Re: Yes, it does, particularly when you consider that a Dutch student never has to forgo higher education because of cost
I don’t know beans about the Dutch university system, so I may be dead wrong here, but if it’s like France or Germany, entry to the university is restricted to academically gifted students only. In the US by contrast *anyone* can go to a college of some sort provided they can raise the funds (and most can, via loans– not that I approve of that system). It’s not clear to me that the elitism of the European system is more egalitarian than the plutocratic American system.
Re: The US is decidedly mediocre among rich countries when it comes to college attainment.
What do those stats look like when we compare only native-born populations (in all countries)? I suspect that the
huge immigration influx into the US is pulling down our numbers there.
Re: All manner of neo-Calvinist bullshit is spouted under the banner of “personal responsibility”, which is a very different thing from actual personal responsibility
Given that we are talking about the Netherlands, Europe’s premier Calvinist nation historically, I find it odd that we are discussing Calvinism as somehow unique to American culture.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
@Just Karl, besides everything already mentioned the Netherlands is also the 3rd largest foreign investor in the USA, our money creates american jobs and stimulates the american economy.
for further information I point you to the fun and informative world mapper site.
http://www.worldmapper.org/index.html
And because it also hasn’t addressed yet, the Netherlands is a significant contributor to the ESA and has one of the larger space industries in europe.
It’s large research and development investments make it the 9th ranking country in the world of granted patents overall, surpassing many countries with larger populaces and economies.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I find it odd that we are discussing Calvinism as somehow unique to American culture.
It’s a particular theological strain that fits the geography: the Dutch have spent the past 300 years collectively trying to keep out the water, while American Calvinism is all about carving out bits of land with your name on them. (Want to know the area of a plot in Amsterdam? Ask an American, and convert to metric.)
It’s not clear to me that the elitism of the European system is more egalitarian than the plutocratic American system.
It’s not really a like-for-like comparison. The function of the American college system, for the most part, is to educate young people to somewhere just above the level of their high-school graduate peers across the rest of the developed world. (For certain institutions, a US college degree lets you skip the first year of an undergraduate course.)
The more relevant juxtaposition is European undergraduates to American grad students — in the Netherlands, as in many European countries, law and medical students begin as undergraduates and qualify much earlier. In the US, law school and med school are not eligible for the kind of assistance offered to undergraduates; furthermore, many other careers that require postgraduate qualifications offer salaries that barely make them worth the cost of those degrees.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
The function of the American college system, for the most part, is to educate young people to somewhere just above the level of their high-school graduate peers across the rest of the developed world.
You’re not comparing a European abitur/baccalauréat level of education with a typical American High School graudate, are you?
You need to commpare all 18 yo in the Netherlands/Germany/France with all 18yo in the US. Often they are comparing the top 30% of European students with all students in the US.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Believe it, you do not want to get so sick or so poor that you qualify for Medicaid.
If I were a Dutch plumber, I would be tickled pink to pay taxes educating the upper classes. The upper classes in the Netherlands have obviously made the life of Dutch plumbers a lot better than our own, and it’s not just about pay.
People are kind of missing the difference between repaying a student loan or paying taxes to educate those who come after you.
When you repay the student loan, then you have more money. You can use that money to buy a bigger house, or invest in some hedge funds, or just buy a really big car. And how’s that working out for you?
When you pay taxes to help the people who come after you, you buy a young person a state-of-the-art education at the beginning of their working career. With health insurance and other supports, many of these people will have children and raise families. Some of them will even support the government that makes this all possible, instead of complaining incessantly about the government and taxes.
So, if I were an upper-class person in the Netherlands, I would be happy to pay taxes to help those who earn less. The Dutch Republic is about 200 years older than our own. Along the way, they experimented a lot with giving the upper-classes free rein for ignoble sentiments, and they seem to have learned something from all this.
I wonder if we could learn from their example instead of our own experience?
May 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Ditto in the US, since you’ll have Medicaid. It’s the working class and even the lower middle class that is in dicey shape with regard to health care on the US.
No, it’s too simple to say if you’re poor in the US “you’ll have Medicaid.” Since the states are afforded a wide degree of latitude to set standards, in fact there are plenty of poor (usually of working age) people who aren’t covered by Medicaid. A good percentage of them — maybe even the majority — are employed.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
[...] Yglesias: I might add that one thing that tends to give a distorted picture of the situation is that the kind of Americans likely to travel to the Netherlands and other European countries are hardly socioeconomically representative. Shorto is writing from the perspective of a college educated professional, but the biggest contrast is probably found in the standard of living enjoyed by people in the bottom 25 percent of the wealth/income distribution. [...]
May 4th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Serial Catowner,
“The Dutch Republic”
Queen Beatrix has issues with that statement. For your information the Dutch Republic lasted from 1581 to 1795.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
I am not going to get into the debate about who has a superior economic system . Because i have never lived in the Netherlands ,and cannot judge.I will say that we could probably learn many things from them,and they could learn much from us as well. No country is paridise.
I can not help noticing though, that many of the comments praising The Netherlands ,and Europe in general seem to be about whose culture is superior.
I personally do not worry too much that Americans do not ride bicycles. We are a bigger country with longer journeys ,and people should be allowed to make their own choices about what they ride.
My point isn’t that bicycles are good or bad. My point is that you do not have to go to Europe to lead a good life.Nobody in America is forcing you to watch NASCAR.And anyway, they have plenty of low-brow culture over there as well.
I live in a city on a brick lined street ,in a small rowhouse.I do not own a car, a radio or a tv .I ride my bicycle everywhere. No one stops me.No one forces me to watch American Idol or any other tv program.
I can not figure out why so many liberals[and yes ,it's mainly liberals] spend so much time praiseing European culture and condemning American culture.If you like Belgian beer ,no one is stopping you from buying it in the US.
America is about choices.I love my small rowhouse and my bicycle.But i want to live in a country where if someone wants to live in a big house they can . I have known too many people that talk about how great European lifestyles are, but live in mcmansions and drive SUVs.If they want to live that way,fine. but no one is forcing them.If you don’t like Mcdonalds, don’t go there!
Yes, Baltimore public transport is bad. But i know too many people who complain about Americans who drive everywhere ,and they themselves drive to work , despite being a short bus ride away.
I have found that when these people say “American’s don’t ride buses”. They are white upper middle class people talking about themselves.Trust me ,people in Baltimore ride the bus.I can not get a seat half the time, and i don’t think the people sitting down are Dutch.
I am all for learning from Europe and elsewhere.But putting Europe on a pedastal is silly.You do not have to go to the Netherlands to lead a good life.I am not rich.I spent all day swinging a sledge hammer.But i lead a good life in America.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Re: I can not figure out why so many liberals[and yes ,it's mainly liberals] spend so much time praiseing European culture and condemning American culture.
The Left’s Europhilia is the mirror image of the Right’s Europhobia. Both are equally ridiculous, and equally based on selective illusions about reality.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
@Just Karl, besides everything already mentioned the Netherlands is also the 3rd largest foreign investor in the USA, our money creates american jobs and stimulates the american economy.
Yes, but this sort of goes to my point that the Dutch are exploiting the American system. You are free to set price controls on pharmaceutical drugs for your citizens without fear of stifling innovation. R&D is funded by the American consumer who must work longer hours and pay more for the same drugs so that these Dutch investors can make a profit. By no means am I blaming the Dutch, but I feel like America spends a lot of it’s money subsidizing the well being of the rest of the world. I wonder if the world would truly be better off if America adopted the Dutch social system.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Pete & Jon,
How about this for an idea: If people want good schools, decent public transit, universal healthcare, gay marridge, generous unemployment benifits, etc they can move to Massachusettes.
If people want their guns, religion, cheap houses resulting from a sprawl inducing lack of zoning, poor schools (but low taxes) they can move to Texas or Alabama.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Just Karl, your arguments are completely illogical and you seem to argue back from the set notion that America is paying for everything in the world and twists every argument to fit that notion.
First you say that it’s America’s money that is subsidizing every investment, when I say that in case of the Netherlands, we subsidize your investments, create American jobs in American factories and stimulate your economy it’s actually America that suffers and we are exploiting the American system? that flies against every economic reality you can think off.
You seem to believe the entire world economy is funded by medical resource and development, and that medical R&D only and entirely paid for by american consumers. And thus, American prescription costs=world economy.
Truly bizarre.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Regarding JonF’s comment #104
I would agree that the right’s Europhbia is bizarre. While there have always been Europhobes , i think that most Europhobia is recent.It has nothing to do with these country’s foriegn policies.I think it is just a knee jerk reaction against liberal’s europhile tendencies.
At least there is some basis for the liberals worshipping of Europe , even if they do get carried away. But i find Europhobia absolutly stupid.
I consider myself a free market conservative.I do not see why that means that i should hate Europe just because Rush Limbaugh tells me to.I think most Europhobi is pretty much an act.It’s the rights equivalant of saying “society sucks dude”.There is no intellectual basis to it.
Whenever i point out problems in Europe to Europhiles, they say i must hate Europe.Quite the contrary.I love Europe . But i love the REAL Europe ,warts and all.Not the idealised version where everyone is perfect and good looking and there are no social problems.
If we want to learn from Europe, we should see how they deal with their social problems ,and the solutions that they come up with.We might be able to use the same solutions over here.
But to examine their solutions we have to realise that there are problems in Europe to begin with.
And yes JMO, even Massachusetts has problems as well. And as a proud resident of Baltimore, i can tell you that we do to.That does not stop me loving Baltimore.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Regarding JMO ’s comment #106
There are plenty of guns in liberal states.Not to mention cheap houses[I paid $45,000 for a three bedroom in Baltimore]
And many of my liberal friends would be very suprised to find out that they are not religious.As for poor schools, North Dakota and Wyoming have far better schools than many “BLUE” states . And Iowa is probably more conservative than Maryland .Yet Maryland is far behind Iowa on the gay marriage issue, despite the fact that democrats totaly dominate the state of Maryland.
JMO , i am sorry to have to disagree with you but i do not think that a person has to be a liberal or a conservative to want good public transport.Or to consider themselves religious.And i can personaly assure you that many conservatives support gay marriage. The world is not simple . I hope we can respectfully disagree .Beest wishs to you JMO
May 4th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
76. I’ll take Weinberg over you. At least I have read his books and you have not.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Ernst,
Please don’t pretend that Dutch investment in the American stock market is some sort of subsidy provided to the American people. The Dutch invest heavily in American companies because that is where they can make the greatest profit. The economic reality is that if Dutch companies were providing higher rates of return, then that money would be invested in the Netherlands. The fact is that American pharmaceutical companies are some of the most profitable companies in the US and the world.
But the reason I have mentioned pharmaceutical R&D is because the current debate about social programs in America is focused on providing Americans with health care. I worry that the adoption of European style health care in America would reduce innovation and health outcomes for Americans as well as the rest of the world. If you don’t believe that Americans pay more for prescription drugs or that price controls are a subsidy that leads to a reduction in R&D, then please make that argument. Stop claiming I said that prescription drugs equal the world economy.
I think the this testimony provided by the US Undersecretary of Trade to the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions supports my argument and even goes so far as to put a dollar figure on the subsidy. Please note that the Netherlands was one of the 11 OECD countries compared with the US.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
but this sort of goes to my point that the Dutch are exploiting the American system.
If you really think that, you should be a lot more upset with how the American system exploits Americans. But as Ernst said, it’s just a bizarre line of argument.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
If you don’t believe that Americans pay more for prescription drugs or that price controls are a subsidy that leads to a reduction in R&D, then please make that argument.
And arguing the opposite is certainly not clear-cut. As Marcia Angell has noted, the American market for pharma is shaped to DTC advertising, me-too drugs, and the ask-your-doctor-about-AssEffects private market. But it also uses primary research from public institutions, or licenses from the increased number of private academic spinoffs.
(As mentioned upthread, the Netherlands does lots of biotech work.)
If you think that the laughable excuse of a health-care system in the US is in Americans’ best interest, because of innovations that are available to those with the right small print in their insurance policies, make that argument. But you’re really just offering a variation on the conservatives’ “well, our military subsidized your welfare state after WW2″ line. Global projection of US military power during the Cold War was a deliberate policy goal; any consequences are side-effects. Are you going to send an invoice?
It’s as if you don’t mind your master beating you with a stick, but you’re offended that other people are placing bets on when you go down.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
[...] to quality healthcare, good education, and modern infrastructure, I enjoyed this article. As Matt Yglesias points out, Shorto is already well-off by American standards, so his improved standard of living is much less [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 12:33 am
[...] Ook deze invloedrijke progressieve blogger is onder de indruk van Nederland, al vermoedt hij dat Shorto’s analyse alleen wordt gedeeld in een bepaald segment van de Amerikaanse bevolking: ,,Shorto is writing from the perspective of a college educated professional, but the biggest contrast is probably found in the standard of living enjoyed by people in the bottom 25 percent of the wealth/income distribution.” [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 12:38 am
Pseudo,
The reason the law changed regarding patents and the NIH and public institutions was because without exclusivity rights, the drug companies were not bringing to market the drugs developed by the publicly funded researchers. Who benefits from that? Perhaps you don’t believe that profit motive matters to innovation. Just because no miracle drugs have been developed in the last few years doesn’t mean we should eliminate the motivation for future development. Yes the American health care system needs drastic help, but we need to maintain the incentives for profit if want to advance. Price controls reduce those incentives. It would help Americans if we stopped acting like price controls were somehow economically efficient and recognized that they were a form of protectionism and an unfair trade practice. I agree we’re getting fucked by the drug companies, but if two people are fucking me over, I don’t praise the person who fucked me over less. I try to stop getting fucked over by both parties.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:56 am
@no. 115.
Please, if you’re going to translate, as a Dutchman you might try for linguistic accuracy. The Dutch cited actually says: “…. This influencial progressiver blogger too is impressed by The Netherlands, even though he suspects that Shorto’s analysis is only shared by a particular segment of the American population.”
As for whether the bottom quarter of the population is better off than in the U.S., there really isn’t much doubt about this: they are.
Unfortunately, there is a problem that Shorto signaled. Basicly, the Dutch are oblivious. The ’societal’ structure is in many respects a marvel; ’socially’ it’s a very unpleasant cesspool.
As for Dutch universities: the ‘beta’ subjects (science, technology, math) are very good. The social sciences and humanities have become a bad joke.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Strage no one has mentioned the Mark Steyn proposal that the Netherlands is just about (in a matter of a few years) to turn into a Muslim country. As well as the rest of Europe.
Maybe that particular caravan has passed by.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Re: Strage no one has mentioned the Mark Steyn proposal that the Netherlands is just about (in a matter of a few years) to turn into a Muslim country.
Actually the Netherlands has more Christian immigrants than Muslim (mainly from its Caribbean territories and ex-territories)– and they have a higher birthrate than its Muslim immigrants too.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Strage no one has mentioned the Mark Steyn proposal that the Netherlands is just about (in a matter of a few years) to turn into a Muslim country. As well as the rest of Europe.
Sarcasm aside, I hardly see what the big deal would be even in the extremely unlikely event that this were true. I live in a working-class and mostly-Muslim neighborhood in Germany, and from the statistics all the way down to the nuts-and-bolts personal experience, it is far safer, more peaceful, and more livable than any of the wealthier places I’ve lived in the US.
As for the education policy throughout this corner of Europe, I’m glad wp200 put more succinctly than I could some of the reasons it’s more porous than most Americans seem to believe. While it seems weird at first to think that much of one’s future education/career path can be determined at age 12, I find that this tendency is overshadowed by just how much of this – though we hate to believe it – is already determined at birth, in both the US and Western Europe. Parents with a higher education are more likely to groom their kids for the same, and they’re disproportionately represented amongst their countries’ highest earners.
In my opinion, this isn’t really the problem. I’m more concerned about the danger of poverty for those who arrive at adulthood without college degrees, as well as the burden of debt experienced by those who obtain them. On these counts, the American system falls well short of even the fictional Dutch one that some posters here have conjured up.
America is about choices.I love my small rowhouse and my bicycle.But i want to live in a country where if someone wants to live in a big house they can .
You don’t get that big house just by wanting it. But seriously, do Americans really think that Europeans are forced to live in tiny cubicles in Amsterdam and cycle to work? Sure, it’s not terribly practical or affordable to have a big house and car in densely populated cities like Amsterdam, Paris, or London (or New York, or San Francisco…) but we do actually have suburbs and smaller towns too. And if the relatively modest culture and high-density buildup of somewhere like Netherlands doesn’t suit one’s decadent tastes, a citizen does have the freedom of movement to get a big garish house elsewhere in the EU. In both places, if you have lots of money, you have lots of choices. The differences really emerge when you compare the choices available to people who can’t afford the McMansions and SUVs. As one of those people, I can assert with certainty that I’ve experienced far more flexibility and freedom with respect to quality-of-life since moving to Europe, and I’m not losing any sleep over the prospect of life without a three-car garage.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
if two people are fucking me over, I don’t praise the person who fucked me over less. I try to stop getting fucked over by both parties.
Your mistake is to believe that the bystanders are fucking you over. They didn’t pay to watch your master beat you: they were just there while it happened. Of course, your master likes you to think that they’re to blame as well, because it diverts your attention from the beating you’re receiving at his hands.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
And your mistake is to believe that the setting of price controls is a passive act. The guy holding you down while the bully beats you with a stick is not a bystander, he’s contributing to your ass whippin. In a world without price controls, Americans would be paying less for drugs.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Normally, the diagnosis of insanity is a long and tedious process involving much thinking and observing by highly trained clinicians.
Occasionally, though, we see a statement so divorced from any known reality, so lacking in any ability to reason from what has gone before to what is to come, that the veriest lay person can instantly realize the speaker is insane.
In that category, I place Just Karl and his “In a world without price controls, Americans would be paying less for drugs.”
May 5th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Just Karl: Yeah, but what have they done for me lately? Nobody seems to be able to answer that question.
The Dutch navy has helped the victims of hurricane Katrina
U.S. thanks Dutch Navy for aid in aftermath Hurricane Katrina
and Dutch engineers gave advise on reconstructing the levees.
Building Better Dams –
Civil Engineers Learn from Dutch Flood Barrier System
Well, this was not for you personally, but for your fellow citizens. Does that count?
May 5th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Just Karl: I assume their shipping is protected from pirates by the US and British Navy.
Oh really?
Dutch Navy raid pirate ‘main’ ship & release 20 captive
Just Karl: I assume their computers and telecommunications equipment were developed by the US military.
Changes are big the chips in these computers developed in the US were made by machines designed by the Dutch company ASML.
ASML has a 65% market share in machines to make chips. From their website
“ASML is the world’s leading provider of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry, manufacturing complex machines that are critical to the production of integrated circuits or microchips. Headquartered in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, ASML designs, develops, integrates, markets and services these advanced systems, which continue to help our customers – the major chipmakers – reduce the size and increase the functionality of microchips, and consumer electronic equipment.”
May 5th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Sebastiaan,
I stand corrected on industry in the Netherlands, the 3M of industrialized nations. However, while I appreciate the Dutch efforts in the war in Afghanistan (1,650 soldiers as of March 09), their military spending is low by even European standards (1.65% GDP)
Serial Catowner,
May 6th, 2009 at 6:51 am
@ Just Karl,
I’m amazed to see that everytime someone counters your baseless claims you just ignore it and go into a different direction. Maybe you could just admit that the Netherlands is quite a decent country doing their share in the world. Of course the Netherlands has it’s problems, but to somehow assume that this small country (16 million inhabitants, smaller than west virginia) should play the same role as the U.S. is ridiculous.