In the Direction of Social Democracy
The woman in the cartoon here is actually author National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
She makes an interesting point.
At this point in history, most enlightened minds would like to see the United States move in the direction of the form of government found in most of the other developed countries, e.g., the “social democracies” Europe and Scandinavia.
This is a long way from Marxism, but it’s not completely deregulated capitalism either. If you live in Denmark and want to get filthy rich, you’ll run into the same marginal tax rates that we had here in the U.S. from the 1930s through the 1970s: around 90%. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos, but it does mean that you won’t be able to get there without paying your fair share of taxes.
It’s no coincidence that these folks are mentally and, in many cases, physically the healthiest people on Earth; they have achieved that position largely by virtue of their political philosophy, which may be summarized as follows: We live in a human society. If it costs me a few extra Euros to eradicate homelessness, the death of relatively poor people with treatable diseases, and the ignorance of those without means to afford an education, that’s 100% OK with me.
