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They should also care that their society remains well structured because it increases the probability that their own situation improves over the course of their life, and that their children/grandkids will be wealthy.

Are you calling USA "well structured"? Socialist European nations have much more income mobility than USA has. Few are threatened with penury, most employers pay a living wage, and many more people who have a great idea and the will to build it, do so.



Whether the US is well structured can be debated, but my point is only that even a well structured society can have poverty that cannot be eradicated in a generation.

Consider the US in 1870: per capita GDP was $3,000, so even with a totally noncorrupt and absolutely competent government, and perfect wealth inequality, the entire population would be in poverty by today's standards. Income growth takes time.

As to your point: wages in Europe are lower than in the US, and there is much less funding available for startups.

Europe is also not appreciably more socialist than the US:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_...

Almost all of the advanced economies became dramatically more socialist over the last 60 years, the US included:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long...




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