Warning voice from Czech republic – 5 hidden dangers of Social States in Europe (in reaction to Michael Moore´s new film) based on real-life experience

First negative side US experts usually see and frequently criticise on so called „Welfare“ Social States is (ironic diction here) “surprisingly” slow economic growth, the least important circumstance anyway. That is of course a correct argument, but economic growth itself has approximately the same impact on real human happiness, freedom and rights as Mr. Trump has on the world safety.

Second negative side (and much more important) is a large and growing public debt (public budgets deficit). Welfare social states and populist politicians create a large public debt (not just in Greece, even though this is the most “popular” country to be mentioned from some reason, probably thanks to Zorba the Greek). Public debt means that not yet born children will have to pay the debt of their parents and grandparents, who consciously lived from their money and wanted „more social outcomes“ then deserved and values they created. Putting our kids into a debt slavery, well, that is serious human issue especially in terms of the fact (concrete situation in our country), that in 2030 latest our retirement systems will collapse in case immediate reform will not be applied (what will not be, politicians need to tell us positive things, not negative ones). Is that fair?

Third negative side (and even worse one) is the fact, that people raised and educated by Social State systems are not raised and educated to be self-sufficient, but dependent (like drug addicts or organised religion believers actually). They do not think in a way: “What can I do”, but “What can I claim” (from the state based on politician´s promises). This is slow, but in a long term perspective very damaging change from „can do attitude“ to „want something attitude regardless if I deserve it or even moved a finger for it.“ The basic principals of human existence – to get what you deserve, to know that you have to work, slowly disappear and something called “Claim society” was born. Claim is more than a common sense and principals of merit. Social state works as organised religion: do what we tell you, vote the right people and we will take care about everything, believe us – and people lose instincts, ability to be responsible and of course: ability to defend themselves. This is very important to understand, that there can be no real democracy, when people talk to institutions instead of to each other and institutions with such a (and technically uncontrolled) amazing power are always likely to be misused – for tyranny.

Fourth negative side is the redistribution of public budgets. When you have the State to (promise) and organise all the duties and benefits Michael often mentions in his films, it must be done by collecting (very high) taxes and mandatory fees and redistributing them via state institutions and organisations. At first, this is unfair, as any “payer” can not control and get any real feedback if “addressee” has real right to get any support or not (look at our social systems, how big “hit” for them is refugee crises – social systems in Europe and especially in Scandinavia are simply not ready for so high percentage of new people intended to be integrated into social systems and definitely not ready for liars). At second, it is all organised by technically uncontrolled institutions and their representatives (politicians, officers) who are almost unpunishable if they fail (or are corrupted), because the rules of States are guarded by the Law, and creator of the Law is always the politician. That becomes clearly a „Catch 22“ kind of problem. When you redistribute on a very local level (families, communities, small cities f.e.), you state your own rules of control and responsibility, that is OK and progressive. Using technology for human freedom, knowledge, building fair society, that is a real progress – but is this the same as building massive redistribution model using uncontrolled institutions without any real control by people? I do not think so, as I see what exactly happens here: massive institutions and legislative framework are so complicated that people become disgusted and apathetic. And well, apathy is the fuel to the engine of politicians and private companies “stuck” to the state in anticipation of subsidies from public money. Well, anyone can see the hidden danger here and the major question is: is a service of the state even provided on an appropriate level of quality, looking at really large (and still higher) taxing people? The answer is: probably not already, the cost – in terms of loosing freedom both with money – is too high.

Last and biggest dark side is temporary status we reached – redistribution became a regular (and actually quite) simple business model. Look around EU – people are angry to “old” political entities and its representatives. They vote businessmen (Berlusconi, Babis) as they are just angry and want to punish somebody and in fact they punish themselves (may be you have the same story with Mr. Trump), what is not a solution. They see how things work: the state owned redistribution system provides ingenious cover for changing public money into a private (company) grants, bonuses, advantages, exceptions (simply, taxes of people used to save private companies during the financial crisis etc.) If you study the level of redistribution worldwide and not just via local EU states you will see a terrible story, where – literally – we can see changing water into wine, just names are different. Private money and rights of people are changed to “Public budgets and laws”, and budgets are redistributed then without any control by people. Simply said, social and other budget redistribution via states and global institutions became a clear business model, may be even the model of organised crime with the revenue in billions USD per year worldwide. Politics clearly becomes as just a “front-end”, “cover-story”, to divert public attention from that business model to „social paradise.“

So please always be aware of all consequences – idea that States will become a real „caring“ machines helping people to live better as the (only) priority is amazing and I love this dream too, but to achieve this stage, we first need to fight against negative sides of Social States and the very first step to do so is to know both sides of the story. Take care!