In Europe, there is a "welfare state". For many countries, the so-called "welfare state" means that everyone comes to work for the government. For example, Britain, Germany, France and other European countries have had such "welfare states" in history. Everyone comes to work for the government, so their government has money, and their people can enjoy better welfare. But why do many people say that European countries are good when they have high welfare?
▲ European countries have a longer history and have experienced different stages of social development.
European countries have a longer history and have gone through different stages of development. From the birth of European civilization to the present, it has a history of more than 3,000 years. In these more than 3,000 years of history, Europe has experienced different stages of social development such as slavery, feudalism, feudalism, and capitalism. And every country goes through a stage from poverty to development. At this stage, many countries will choose to attract labor by improving government welfare. And the reason why European countries can implement high welfare is because Europe has gone through this stage. And those countries that have not gone through this stage, they do not know what this society is really like, so they have no way to implement high welfare policies. Greece, for example, was a poor and backward country before Greece, and there was no social welfare policy at all. Later, after the outbreak of the Greek debt crisis, Greece began to implement a high welfare policy.
◂ European countries have experienced a stage of poverty and backwardness.
Before the birth of European civilization, some countries in Europe were actually very poor and backward. For example, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome and other countries, they are actually slave societies. Moreover, there is no cultural exchange between these countries, and they know less about each other. Therefore, their economic development is also very slow, and social development will not be very developed.
After the birth of European civilization, each country began to have its own development. After the birth of European civilization, there were also cultural exchanges between European countries, and cultural exchanges between various countries gradually increased. Especially with the establishment of the capitalist system in Europe, many European countries began to industrialize and urbanize. This has led to a huge leap in economic development between European countries, and social development has become more and more developed.
◂ European countries from poverty to wealth, with a high level of social development.
In the early development of European countries, their social development level was relatively low. For example, in the beginning, Britain was a slave society, and there was no industrial revolution. At that time, the level of development of British society was similar to that of China. But after the Industrial Revolution, Britain changed dramatically. Britain not only became the most powerful country in the world at that time, but also had a very large influence in the world. Later, Britain became the only empire in the world that never set the sun. At this time, European countries began to pay attention to social welfare policies.
European countries have gone through a stage from poverty to affluence, so they have become accustomed to high welfare policies.
▲ European countries have experienced a stage of poverty and backwardness.
In the history of Europe, the population was not large. In 1300 AD, the population of Europe was only about 70 million. By the end of the 19th century, the population of Europe had reached about 115 million, and for the past hundred years, the population of Europe has been declining.
Of course, these data are all relative. For Europe, it is due to the mercantilist economic policies that European countries have adopted over the past few hundred years. So in the process, the population of European countries has been increasing. With the passage of time, the competition between European countries became more and more fierce, and everyone began to compete with each other for population resources.
Since the population of European countries is small, they do not need to import population resources to other countries. This gives European countries an advantage in introducing population resources. So from the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, European countries began to encourage fertility. They encourage fertility by various means.
In this process, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and other countries have formulated a series of policies to encourage fertility. Germany and the United Kingdom, for example, have introduced many policies to encourage childbirth. For example, in order to encourage childbirth, Germany not only provides subsidies for women who give birth, but also provides welfare housing for women who give birth. France has introduced a series of relevant policies to encourage everyone to have children, such as the French government even provides subsidies for women who give birth, and even provides free maternity leave for women.
In addition to countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, other countries have also introduced various policies to encourage everyone to have children. The existence of these policies has led to competition between European countries, which has contributed to the increase in the number of people among European countries. According to the current birth rate of Europeans, there is a population difference of about 260 million between European countries. This means that in the next 100 years, the population difference between European countries will not exceed 300 million.
Because of the small number of European countries, small population, low birth rate, etc., a competitive relationship has formed between European countries. This has led to the formation of a "high welfare" society in such competition. For example, Britain and France were the first countries to propose the concept of a "welfare state". Because they believe that Britain and France have been dominated by mercantilist economic policies for the past few hundred years, that is, mercantilist economic policies have developed to a certain extent, and only after they have begun to implement high welfare policies to attract more population resources and capital resources to develop the country.
Germany and Britain only proposed the concept of "welfare society" after World War II, because Germany and Britain experienced such serious wars as World War I and World War II, and Germany and Britain suffered heavy losses in both wars, so they felt that Germany and Britain should implement high welfare policies to attract population resources to develop the country, to work for the government to earn money, to pay taxes to the government, to maintain the operation of the country.
For a long time afterwards, European countries were mainly based on economic development and economic construction. Therefore, they do not attach great importance to the number of people, and only in order to promote economic development began to implement a high welfare policy, because in their opinion, a small population should implement a high welfare policy, because a small population can achieve economic development and increase national revenue to implement a high welfare policy.
▲ European governments have strong financial resources and can better ensure social welfare.
Historically, European countries have experienced a long period of war and division, and finally formed today's European countries. And in these European countries, they have also had wars for hundreds or even thousands of years. These wars made their countries not particularly rich, but they had enough money to implement high welfare.
For example, Britain, as the strongest country in Europe at that time, had great advantages in military and economic terms. Although they have also experienced a long period of division and war, they are much richer economically than other countries. The UK not only has enough financial resources to implement high welfare, but also ensures high welfare well. For example, the British government can not only ensure that people have up to a few hundred pounds of social welfare every year, but also ensure that people are not greatly affected economically.
Therefore, in European countries, although many countries have had long-term wars and divisions, these wars have not had much impact on European countries. That's why they have enough financial resources to implement high welfare. Although European countries have also experienced wars and divisions, they are better able to implement high welfare because they have sufficient financial resources. This is why European countries are able to implement high welfare.
But for China, after all, China has experienced thousands of years of war and division, so China does not have the ability to implement such high welfare.