[Darth_Hobo]

Making things available universally have already been tried in USSR. What it leads to is everyone being equally poor. And it also disincentive hard work, because most of the fruits of your labor will go to equality, instead of going to you. And because everyone gets things equally you might as well as work as little as possible - you will get what you want in any case.

[pengstrom]

Meanwhile, many European countries also make things available universally, without making everyone poor.

[Darth_Hobo]

Not on the same scale as USSR. The less you do it the farther you are away from making everyone poor. Europe still has a lot of capitalistic elements to counter the equality plague.