[belter]

Fortunately, this Atlas Shrugged variation of Liberalism, and it's tragic results are quite visible for all to see in societies like the United States.

Meanwhile...., In other places, in societies with a lesser number of Elon Musk's or Lebron Jame's, countries like the Nordics or even France, Germany and others, those millions of normal persons, enjoy 30 days of holidays per year, state sponsored retirement benefits, free or almost free healthcare and free or almost university level education.

[usrn]

Those countries are more demographically/culturally uniform and are higher trust societies. Even Bernie Sanders admits this is necessary for large social programs.

[jhgb]

> Those countries are more demographically/culturally uniform and are higher trust societies

What does that even mean?

[germinalphrase]

There is a vein of thinking that “diversity causes division” in the United States and this undermines our political willingness to create effective universal safety net programs.

High trust vs low trust societies tend toward egalitarian vs clannish communities respectively.

[lupire]

it means society can only thrive pre-integration or post-genocide/ethnic cleansing.

For example, Northern Ireland cannot exist in the successful European model until the Catholics are gone, or all the Protestants are gone.

[jhgb]

Which is a strange thing to claim because e.g. in Germany, Protestants and Catholics "coexist in the successful European model", whatever that means. Claims of "can only thrive" are trivially refuted by counterexamples.