Feb. 27, 2006 issue - Here's a pop quiz on gender equality. In which part of the world are women most likely to reach the highest rungs of power? Choice A offers new moms 12 weeks of maternity leave, almost no subsidized child care, no paid paternity leave and has a notoriously hard-driving business culture. Choice B gives them five months to three years of paid time off from their jobs after having kids. Millions put their offspring into state-sponsored day-care centers for several hours a day. Government agencies, full of female directors and parliamentarians, protect workers at the expense of business and favor a kinder, gentler corporate culture. So which place is better for women who want to make it to the top? If you guessed A, the United States, you'd be right. If you chose B—Europe—think again. . . .
Why is this? Simply put, Europe is killing its women with kindness—enshrined, ironically, in cushy welfare policies that were created to help them. By offering women extremely long work leaves after children, then pushing them to take the full complement via tax policies that discourage a second income, coupled with subsidies that serve to keep them at home, Europe is essentially squandering its female talent. Not only do women get off track for long periods, many simply never get back on.
Read the whole thing.
This is socialism at work. When you remove a person's incentive they cease to perform. Why should European women work hard to advance and succeed when many of them can have most of the things they want simply by putting forth a minor amount effort and owning a vagina? They shouldn't. They'd be crazy to. If the government is going to hand them these things on a silver platter why should they put themselves out?
This same line of reasoning can be applied to other areas as well. Take socialized health care, for instance. Why should citizens put forth the effort to ensure that their doctors and hospitals are providing them with cost-effective and efficient health care when those things don't matter? After all, what does the price of an x-ray matter when the government is picking up the tab?
Or consider labor issues. Why should workers seek to better themselves and move up the employment ladder when they can count on government to come along and force their employers to compensate them at the levels the workers want?
Why should colleges work to keep higher education costs low when they know government will respond to increases in tuition prices by making more tax dollars available for loans and grants?
What we need to realize is that big-government solutions, however well-intentioned, rarely work. Government should not exist for the purpose of caring or providing for its citizens, government should exist for making citizens as free as possible to care and provide for themselves. Free people making free decisions based on their needs and desires is the way things should work. Socialism, in the form of government entitlement and nanny-state policies, stifles the individuals' desire to achieve and as a result society as a whole stagnates.
Our politicians often feel like they are doing citizens a favor when they use their government powers to give us things, but they're wrong. They're usually doing us a grave disservice.