Bryan Caplan has a couple posts linking to Clive Crook who makes the point that the difference between the US and Europe in regards to free market vs socialism is a matter of degrees:
Progressives and conservatives alike call the United States a "free-market economy": both sides have an interest in perpetuating this delusion. The idea is ridiculous - as ridiculous as calling Europe's economies "socialist". True, the blend of government and private enterprise is a bit different between the US and the European average, but the models (insofar as it makes sense to talk of a European model) are neighbors not polar opposites.
Bryan's most interesting point is in regards to healthcare:
According to 2007 OECD data, U.S. government spending [on health care] as a percentage of GDP is actually slightly above the average of (Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK). As a percentage of GDP, the U.S. government outspends Canada, too! And since U.S. GDP per capita is higher, the U.S. government actually spends a lot more dollars per person than the average country in Europe. Lack of U.S. government spending on health care is not the reason why our government's share of the economy is smaller than Europe's.
From that table, combining Health Care as a %GDP and Public Expenditures as a percent of total spending, we get this table:
| Country | Gov't HC Spending %GDP |
|---|---|
| Australia | 5.9 |
| Austria | 7.5 |
| Belgium | 8.0 |
| Canada | 7.2 |
| Czech Republic | 6.2 |
| Denmark | 8.1 |
| Finland | 5.9 |
| France | 8.8 |
| Germany | 8.5 |
| Greece | 5.0 |
| Hungary | 6.2 |
| Iceland | 7.8 |
| Ireland | 5.5 |
| Italy | 6.2 |
| Korea | 2.3 |
| Mexico | 2.5 |
| Netherlands | 7.0 |
| New Zealand | 6.9 |
| Norway | 7.5 |
| Poland | 4.7 |
| Spain | 6.1 |
| Sweden | 7.9 |
| Switzerland | 5.8 |
| United Kingdom | 7.0 |
| United States | 7.2 |
Contrary to what we've been told, the US is not an outlier here.
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