[arethuza]

"the society never works"

It's a fairly common view in the UK - notably Thatcher's "There is no such thing as society" thing - which isn't actually as bad as it sounds if you listen to it in context (and I'm probably to the left of most people on HN and I'm not a particular fan of Thatcher).

Personally, I constantly struck by how the public sector here in the UK seems to contain both the absolute best of society (military, emergency services, a lot of NHS front line staff) and some of the absolute worst (mostly self serving bureaucrats).