...... Life is extremely different here in Western Europe, quite dramatically so from Great Britain with its more "Anglo" economic model, even though London is only two hours away on the Eurostar train through the Channel Tunnel.
For financial high-flyers, the Anglo-American model offers more fast-and-loose opportunities for money-making, no doubt about it.
But for people in the know - including a large number of ex-Americans who have been quietly evacuating to Western Continental Europe with their money for several years (like myself, ex-banker, evacuated US in '04) - daily life in Continental Western Europe is much better and sweeter, precisely thanks to the strong social welfare and worker protection systems.
It's actually even a nicer life for rich people here, who appreciate the lower stress levels and more gracious life around them. Most people accept that there is a trade-off in this kind of managed capitalism, we have less opportunity and economic mobility, but daily life is sweeter and richer in the small ways that count.
And there are endless benefits from the fact that there is essentially no poverty, everyone has health care, nearly everyone can have a beer at the corner café, and one isn't worried about one's neighbours undergoing massive devastation as is the case inside the USA.
Interestingly, visiting Americans often miss how sweet life really is in this managed and more restricted capitalist system, because they don't "stop to smell the roses" in the Continental style, and because they see people in Europe driving smaller cars, not realising that here, cars are un-needed toys, and here millionaires often drive small cars because they are easier to park and have an understated image.
Moreover, the pleasant state of life in Western Europe is obscured and hidden by collusion of the pro-neo-liberal media powers, and by portions of the local greedy elite here in Europe as well, who are trying to import the Anglo-American cultures of longer work hours, trying to chip away at the workers' social protections, and also trying to hide the sweetness of life in this part of the world where aspects of "socialism" work pretty well.
In fact it's a better life here even for such rich people as are non-obsessed with unlimited acquisition, but the neo-liberal media supervisors don't want the joys of quasi-socialism to become well-known. Some of the elites here on the Continent are tied to the Anglo-American elites, and they truly want to introduce the rougher Anglo-American system, but these elites are stymied by the fact that common people here retain an old-fashioned face-to-face political rebelliousness. Here, people assemble quickly, and are ready to call a general strike and storm the Bastille again if necessary. Here, people aren't so beaten down and fearful like common Americans have become in recent years.
And this is of great relevance now for any scenario of world economic collapse and crisis. Under the social compact that, though battered, still stands here in Continental Western Europe, we are all rather somewhat in the boat with each other, and for whatever crunch times lie ahead, we realise we will all be sharing its costs and that we need to see that the humblest people have a minimum of decent resources, even if the gross economy is in a struggle.
The Western European social model really has been the better of capitalism, despite not having produced fill-tilt hedge fund and structured-finance mania. Maybe at the end of this recession-depression tunnel, some of the people currently suffering under the neo-liberal regimes will realise that a better model was there all along.
