Socialism's success: socialism, once abhorrent to most Americans, is increasingly being embraced by them. But is more socialism likely to reinvigorate the U.S. economy and help Americans?(ECONOMY)(Column)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

According to the CIA World Factbook, nine European countries place ahead of the United States in terms of per capita Gross Domestic Product--Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Netherlands--all socialist countries. The United Kingdom, Austria, Canada, Australia, France, and Germany come up close on the heels of the United States. Considering the fact that these countries generally have less natural resources than the United States, and they offer extensive government services--free medical care, public transportation, generous unemployment income, and retirement benefits--are socialist systems better than free-market systems, such as in the United States? And do high doses of socialism boost economic growth?

It would seem so, especially if one factors in the "Gini coefficient," which is a statistical measurement of income distribution by country. It is expressed as a percentage. A Gini coefficient of zero percent would mean that everyone in a country has exactly the same income, and a score of 100 percent means that one person has all of the income, while everyone else has zero income. The United States ranks 73rd at 40.8 percent--of course coming after the European socialist countries. European countries generally range in the low to mid 30s, percentage-wise.

Should we give up on capitalism, run up the EU flag, and embrace socialism because of this finding? No, as we shall show.

Though it is somewhat meaningful that other countries have a higher per capita GDP than the United States, having a slightly higher or lower Gini coefficient is relatively meaningless and is most likely a reflection of situational conditions in each country, rather than some inherent "unfairness." Vietnam, which has a Gini coefficient of 34.4 percent, has a lot of similarly poor people. The United States, with its somewhat high Gini coefficient, contains a large population of mainly uneducated illegal immigrants--estimated at 11 million recently--and a fairly large percentage of uneducated legal immigrants. The U.S. population of illegal immigrants alone is almost 23 times greater than Luxembourg's total population, and these illegal immigrants often work for peanuts, relying on local, state, and federal aid to make ends meet. (Without abundant welfare to rely on, the number of uneducated foreigners in the country would drop significantly, causing our Gini coefficient to drop and per capita income to climb.) Likewise the figures for per-capita GDP are skewed because of country-by-country variants. For example, many mainly educated foreigners work in Luxembourg, adding to their GDR but these people are not counted as part of the per-capita GDP figure. Similarly, in many of the socialist countries, foreigners are not able to take advantage of generous social services, even though they are paying high taxes in these countries.

Any kudos for socialism also ignore the fact that the United States barely even resembles a free-market economy anymore and that, in fact, the United States is, economically speaking, arguably more socialistic than the European countries with which it is compared. Sounds crazy doesn't it, but it is true.

World Socialism