Enough about Sweden, let's pick on Belgium for a while

Instapundit provided some links showing that Swedes are poorer than residents of Mississippi, and have more crime. The ever-engaging Maxspeak provides links and his own argument showing why Instapundit’s links are meaningless. Max’s comments are worth reading – but I’m actually linking to highlight an interesting response by Maxsspeak reader Scott Martens, who has lived in the United States but currently lives in Belgium, which (he says) is "widely hated on general principles." (I thought it was hated because it was widely understood to be a dirty word, but no matter).

However, let me offer some anecdotal evidence that middle-class people are actually wealthier here than in the US. I recently finished a graduate progrmme at a Belgian university. Since I’m deep in hock from a year of schooling without work, naturally I pushed quite hard to find a job and to start it immediately. However, among the graduates from my that I know well, I am the only one to have found a job. One wants to take a few months vacation before he starts looking for work. Another is laying low until October or so when the job situation is expected to pick up. Yet another has decided to stay in school with a paid assistantship. Another wants to take a year off to move to Germany and work in an unpaid internship. Still another is going to Paris to live with her boyfriend.

None of them is willing to take a job in retail or flipping burgers. None of them have wealthy parents or trust funds. One is an adult with no financial assets, another is the son of a rural agricultural family, still another has two unemployed parents. Yet, they can afford to wait for a job in their fields and take time after finishing school. They have no debts and there is no pressure for them to rush into unsatisfying work.

I don’t know anyone in the US who has that kind of choice except the children of privilege. In Belgium, however, even lower middle-class people enjoy that sort of economic freedom. If weath doesn’t correlate with economic freedom, then something has to be wrong with the way it is measured.

It’s amazing how often I’ve gotten into discussions with conservatives or libertarians in which they’ve denied anyone in the US is poor, because relatively few Americans (compared to, say, Zimbabweans) starve and nearly everyone owns a VCR (as if consumer durables were a measure of poverty). In their view, poverty is just being unable to fulfill immediate material needs.

That’s part of poverty, of course; an essential goal of any poverty-reduction program should be meeting immediate needs. But as Mr. Martens points out, that’s not everything. Few people talk about the damages of economic insecurity; having just enough to cover rent and food today, but not having the slightest idea if you’ll have it next month, plus every credit card you own is maxxed out and the electricity will be cut off next Thursday. “This week I’m okay, but I don’t know if I’ll eat or have a home next month” is a fairly common sentiment for minimum-wage workers in the US, and (I suspect) unusual for low-income workers in Belgium.

That kind of insecurity can’t be measured by looking at how many sneakers US workers versus Belgium workers can buy, yet it has a larger effect on "quality of life" as it’s really experienced. Especially for parents or other folks with dependents. The big difference between rich and poor in the U.S. isn’t if food’s on the table right now; it’s worrying about if there’ll be food there next week.

Getting back to Mr. Martens’ point – this has a big effect on liberty. People who are worried that they’re about to drown (economically, I mean) have much less freedom of choice than ivory-tower libertarians imagine; they’re forced to stick with a narrow path of immediate economic survival. Freedom from economic insecurity is nearly as essential for liberty as free speech or the right to a jury trial; and more important than many freedoms libertarians often discuss (e.g., "freedom from paying taxes which go to welfare"). As far as I know, this sort of thing hasn’t been measured; but if it were, I suspect that poor and working-class Swedes might turn out to be freer than their American counterparts.

(Oh, and if you were puzzled by my saying Belgium is a dirty word – don’t panic. It just means you’re not a geek. If you did get the reference – well, then, I’m afraid we’re both geeks, and if that bothers you then you can go Belgium yourself.).