Actually, most of European politics can be summarized as a political arrangement between the owner class and the working class and poor to tax the upper middle class bourgeoisie in order to fund large welfare states. (See Jonas Pontusson, Equality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America)
Duplicate comment deleted. By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
