Given how obvious and clear these examples are and should be for literally everyone, it is really mystifying to me why the anti-person rhetoric is so prevalent here (among an ostensibly pretty well-educated populace). Do you have thoughts on why that is?
As an American with a hardcore capitalist entrepreneurial father and now living in Switzerland, I chalk it up to some Americans simply not being able to imagine a society that doesn't enshrine "If I don't exploit, someone else will" race-to-the-bottom mentality, or if they could imagine such a society then they deem it "suboptimal" and therefore "wrong".
Edit to add: there's a generational mindset too. Older generations have the advantage of living longer and seeing massive technological change, and have an entrenched mindset of "if I work like a dog and live like shit now, everything deferred will be incredibly rewarded later". Whereas the "proverbial millennial" has not seen as much change and thinks such a mindset is an unbalanced extreme crock of shit, and therefore makes demands of the now, to live a generally fulfilling life; to which older generations think is ungrateful, soft, and demanding, that "because my life was shit, everyone else's should be too, it's only fair". But they'll still tell you they want to leave the world a better place for their kids, which is doublethink. (I'm speaking in very very broad terms)
White collar employees in Germany and Scandinavia are much poorer than their equivalents in Canada and the US. Sure, they get maternity leave and 8 weeks of vacation and whatever but they'll never be able to retire at 35 like an American developer.
It is not worth losing over half my income to get these "worker protections" and "social benefits" and it's no wonder that tons of Europeans come to the US to work and very few Americans go to work in Europe.
Yes, being forced by low wages and high taxes to work until I hit 65 and the government graciously allows me to retire is a shitty life that I am not jealous of.
I don't care how much vacation and benefits Europeans get.
