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Outside of individuals who should be sentenced to life in prison, is there anyone not entitled to an upper-middle-class life, regardless of their life choices?
You need to define what "worth a damn" means. I haven't compiled what I usually see from leftists regarding what the elderly are entitled to, but once listed out, I'm guessing it's an upper-middle-class standard if you want to live in flyover country or a wealthy one if you want to live in an Alpha++ city.
For younger people, I see:
Considering that jobs are optional, it seems that everyone is entitled to the life of a trust fund kid.
Not having to lie in bed for hours waiting for the Filipino nurse to come and wash you after soiling yourself. Not lying on the cold floor at an isolated part of the retirement home after accidentally tripping and falling, because nobody comes to help. Not going hungry all the time when you're so frail lying in bed that you cannot sit up and eat, because nobody helps out by feeding you. Not living in complete solitude and social isolation. I'm referring to this sort of stuff, just off the top of my head.
I'm inspired by Who By Very Slow Decay: I honestly think that modern societies are going to go the MAiD/Athenian route, more or less. As I understand it, any Athenian citizen could request a lethal dose of hemlock poison; permission had to be granted by the Athenian Assembly. It could be that elderly people with no children or grandchildren sometimes ask for their hemlock from the government.
Why were things different in the past?
Closer families and more family support.
Modern medicine. The frail elderly who would've been killed by pneumonia or a heart attack or stroke 100 or 200 years ago now are able to survive and as such more time and effort is spent taking care of them.
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Life in a social democracy with more robust social services, in other words. Sounds great to me.
The problem is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
That's not really in evidence. The Nordic social democracies that are held up as exemplars may not be entirely what some of their external fans believe they are (in particular, they still have poor people, you still have to go to work, and they have high taxes on everyone, not just the rich), but they're not in danger of running out of money.
Do the Nordic social democracies provide to everyone:
As far as I can tell the answer is "no" to all three. I assume the answer is the same for the rest of the list.
Yes, yes, and within reason.
This is very easily googleable or verifiable by either going there or asking anyone from those places.
That last one is iffy though; I was told (in Oslo, at least) that if you want a big house for any amount of money you are gonna have to be willing to move outside the metro area.
Unlimited healthcare? Any procedure you want, the government will cover 100%?
40 hours of free childcare a week does not appear to exist, but maybe I missed it.
Last one is just totally false as far as I can tell. If you make enough money, sure.
I don’t know about the others, but unlimited world class healthcare is not unlimited healthcare to the maximal extent possible.
Unlimited means unlimited.
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I'm middle-income in Finland, and we currently have two kids who both have their own bedroom and get 30 hours of free childcare for the older one per week. (Could be more but my wife doesn't want it, and wants to keep the younger one completely at home for a bit longer.) I'm not sure what "unlimited" means regarding health care in this context.
Do unemployed people also have 3+ bedroom apartments within biking distance of downtown?
There is a world of difference between your strawman and real existing social democracy societies to which many younger people in the us aspire to. And you can easily have tens of thousands affordable 3+ bedroom apartments near the downtown. You just need to accept the glory of the commie block! Or at least, it's variation more palatable to the western tastes.
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This is caused by the transition from the left being the party of workers against bosses, to being the party of students against workers.
The western college experience is that you move out of your parents house to a 1-star resort where your immediate needs have no short term sticker price, and you can get a stipend to live off of. This is treated as an entitlement by the people doing it and it’s perfectly reasonable on an individual/class level to advocate for the thing to which you’re already entitled to become higher quality/bigger. And it’s also perfectly reasonable to lobby for the entitlement to not end.
I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s obviously wrong.
Workers in my experience both as a union member and rep are quite fond of not having to pay for healthcare, having more vacation, childcare availability, time to spend with their kids, adequate pay for better housing and lifestyle, shorter hours, and getting free education. They fight quite hard to try and get such benefits in their contracts. Go back to before the majority of the populace went to college and you'll still find social democratic, labor and socialist parties with such demands in their party platforms.
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