Oh my god!! No EBAY for me then!! Sounds too risky for my tastes.
Pifft, typical "poor euro" remark. Its not capitalism that is the problem, it is the lack of real capitalism. The lame lack of freemarkets and free trade between the americas and your countrys very pink shade of capitalism. If i was you i would go on strike!
The "damn capitalism" was just an effort of self sarcasm. I wasnt serious about it
But if we are about to talk abou EU and capitalism then this is how things are:
Free market and trade isnt necessarilly only a capitaistic advandage. It can exist in a socialistic economic enviroment as well. Free trade is actually proposed by socialists and socialistic theories for better distribution of welfare. The fact that there is a need by some for protectionism actually indicates to market imperfections and distortions not necessarilly imposed by government regulations for justice. Due to
self centered extremely competitive economies and nations, such problems exist due to the system itself, no matter what theories and models of a perfect economic policy may suggest.
The more socialistic an economy becomes and attention to social matters it gives in a global system of capitalism the less effective and efficient it gets due to self centered economies and nations competing each other. Real socialism is ineffective in a system such as this. In the EU there is an effort to maintain a balance between efficiency and fair social welfare.
US may show high performance, have lower prices than EU and deal with higher growth rates etc if we isolate certain economic variables and such for our observations and comparisons but viewing the economy and society beyond these certain numbers there are other problems in the US caused due to the so called liberal market.
So whether it is US or EU whatever policies we may observe they
both have double edge sword effects. EU chose one side trying to slip to the middle (dealing with an amount of the problems from both policy directions) and the US choose the other end (dealing mostly with issues from the one edge).
In other words EU may deal with some disadvandages due to some regulations such as customs causing higher prices, but these problems would have taken a different form if these regulations didnt exist. EU does move to a more liberal market and regulations are getting minimized but they are doing it steadily and gradually in order to keep as minimized and stable as possible problems that may be caused from a shift especially if they move suddenly.
So if you ask me,
both continents suck for different reasons. But I d still choose EU for culture and less material-centric society.
