Socialist Utopia

My liberal friends used to assure me that their economic model would work and endlessly cited Europe as proof of this. It was easy for me to point out that per capita GDP in Europe was about 2/3 of that in the U.S. The retort was that U.S. workers were enslaved by the blood-sucking capitalists and shouldn't have to be so productive.

Today we are less productive and per capita GDP is down. For some reason my liberal friends, those not employed by the government, seem strangely silent. Europe is on the receiving end of admonishments by the ChiComs:

“I think if you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of their worn out welfare societies,” Jin Liqun said in an interview with Al Jazeera television. “I think the labour laws are outdated – the labour laws induce sloth, indolence rather than hard working. The incentive system is totally out of whack.”

Keeping in mind, of course, that sloth and indolence are civil offenses in China and draw rather severe penalties up to public execution. Still...