Which Is a Better Place to Live in, Europe or the USA?
August 8, 2017
Alex Henderson, Periodista and Technical Writer
Europe, problems and all, wins by far. Universal health care, better infrastructure, excellent mass transit, greater upward mobility, technologically savvy, greater life expectancy, better education.
The American middle class was the envy of the world after World War II. Jobs were plentiful. Unions were strong. The programs of the New Deal were great for the middle class. But times have changed. Thanks to corporatism, trickle-down economics, neoliberalism, Reaganomics, etc., the U.S. is now a banana republic of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%. Throw in extreme nationalism, tribalism, police militarization, the War on Drugs and a rabid Christian fundamentalist movement that longs for violent theocracy, and you have a toxic brew.
None of that is to say that Europe is idyllic. While countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Denmark are doing fairly well, times are hard further south in Spain, Italy and Portugal. Unemployment is much too high in Southern Europe. Greece has been through hell. In France, a white nationalist won roughly one out of three votes in the 2017 presidential election.
But Europeans, on the whole, are smart enough to realize that having a strong middle class is vital. Too many American politicians think the middle class is expendable.
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