{UAH} Why is the US rejecting socialism when Canada is quite successful with it?

TK

Well, first of all, Canada is not a socialist country (and neither are the Nordic countries, either). This is a common misconception that has been spread throughout the US by right-wing media and some left-wing media to advance their political agendas. In fact Canada (and the Nordic countries) are fundamentally capitalistic in their economic systems.

Second, the average Canadian is probably better off than the average American when things like health care are factored in. Health care in the US is insanely expensive by international standards, and many Americans have to pay it out of their own pockets rather than having it paid for by their taxes. The Canadian educational system is also a lot better, particularly for the poor and immigrants, and is also more heavily subsidized by the tax system. The police are better, too.

Lost in the discussion of "socialist" health care is the fact that most Canadian doctors are self-employed and most Canadian hospitals are privately owned and run by non-profit organizations, the largest of which is the Catholic church. Most Canadians don't know the latter fact, either. The governments only control their fees and budgets.

Income estimates actually underestimate the economic well-being of Canadians relative to Americans. Canadians usually receive more in-kind benefits from their governments, notably in health care. Had these benefits been included in the estimates, the median augmented household income in Canada would likely surpass the American median.

While these benefits also come with higher taxes, the progressivity of the income tax system is such that the median household (as distinct from the mean household) is most likely a net beneficiary. The wage distribution in the US concentrates income at the top end of the scale (the infamous 1%), and this skews the mean to be higher than the median. You would have to take statistics in university to know what I am talking about.

The rough-and-tough U.S. approach to capitalism hasn't delivered faster per-capita growth to the country, and because growth in the U.S. has been concentrated at the very top of the income distribution, that means Americans in the middle and the bottom have been losing ground to their counterparts in other countries.

This is why I have been saying, based on my extensive travel in the US and other countries, that large parts of the US are backsliding into the third world, and why Americans who live in upper middle class neighborhoods with high incomes, good schools, and low crime rates get very upset at that observation. They haven't seen it.

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