by Nick Gier
The watchwords of the American and French Revolutions were liberty, equality, and, for the French, fraternity. Redefining fraternity as traditional community values, I see today’s conservative and liberals attempting to balance these three principles.
America’s conservatives focus on traditional values and economic liberty, whereas liberals place greater weight on equality and personal liberty, especially regarding private interactions. Libertarians agree with liberals on the latter, but they champion unfettered economic liberty at the expense of equality and community. Welfare liberalism and social democracy, which can be seen as democratic outgrowth of Marxism, stand in stark contrast to libertarianism.
Libertarians believe that countries with high taxation, government regulation of the economy (or ownership thereof), and comprehensive social programs should be failures. The facts, however, indicate that European welfare states are prospering with much better social and health outcomes. In 2023 the Visual Capitalist found that of the top 20 countries ranked for economic competitiveness, 10 were European welfare states.
I just returned from a 3-week trip to France, and, according to libertarians, this nation should be an economic basket case. The French government spends huge amounts supporting businesses and social programs.
French businesses are thriving with 60 ranking in the global 100 defined by market capitalization. (Luxury goods are the leaders.) Pfizer and Morgan Stanley have doubled their investment in the country. France also leads the U.S. and four European nations with five times more patent applications.
France’s marginal tax rate is 45% while the Americans pay 37%. Austrian rates are higher (55%) followed by Denmark (53%) and Sweden (52%). Calculated as a share of Gross Domestic Product, however, France’s personal tax collection is second only to Denmark.
I submit that the French and other Europeans get more for their money in social benefit return. (For example, Danes pay on average $600 per month for skilled nursing care.) One could argue, as Irwin Garfinkel and Timothy Smeeding have, that welfare states “complement capitalism and enrich nations.” See bit.ly/3Kwpf9Y.
This “enrichment” is not greater wealth because, as a measure of Gross Domestic Product, the U.S. is two to three times richer. (Only tiny Luxembourg exceeds the U.S. by this count.) Obviously, Garfield and Smeeding mean quality of life: such as personal security, better health, and much more leisure.
The French, for example, have five weeks of paid vacation, while, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American worker in private industry receives 10 vacation days after one year of service. Furthermore, according to Pew Research, 46% of Americans do not take the paid leave allotted to them.
Single payer and other government subsidized systems provide medical coverage at sometimes half the cost and produce health results better than the U.S. France spends $12 for every $17 the U.S. does. The World Health Organization has, for many years, concluded that France has the best health care program in the world.
The results are impressive: the French live 5 years longer than Americans; more French infants survive birth; three times more American mothers than their French sisters die within 42 days of giving birth; for every French teen mother there are 15 Americans; and there are nearly three times as many obese Americans as French. Finally, the American health system has twice as many avoidable deaths as the French system does.
The U.S. has a poverty rate of 15%, but France’s is 8%. This correlates with the fact that 60% of young children are in government day care. This relieves their parents of the high cost of childcare, especially in the U.S. and Britain where working parents struggle mightily with this problem.
At the risk of wonking out completely here are more significant facts. The U.S. incarcerates 12 times more people than France does; the U.S. homicide rate is five times that of France; and Americans are 30 times more likely to die of a gunshot.
France leads the world in nuclear energy technology and its 56 reactors provide 68% of its power. In 2011, an explosion killed one person at a nuclear waste treatment site in southern France. (Over 90% of the spent fuel is recycled.) The only serious accident happened in 1980, when at the Saint-Laurent nuclear plant two fuel rods melted but the damage was contained.
Nuclear combined with growing solar and wind, France produces 90% of its electricity from non-carbon sources. France will soon become the largest manufacturer of huge storage batteries for excess wind and solar energy.
Contrary to all other countries, the French high speed rail system actually makes a profit. Already in 2007, as an example of French engineering prowess, one of their trains set a world record of 357mph. Safety concerns limit top speeds to 200mph on principal lines such as the Lyon to Paris route that I enjoyed.
British economics commentator Sam Bowman was puzzled about France’s success, and he reluctantly concluded: “France gets so much wrong and yet it still does pretty well on the metrics that actually matter.”