this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Tight command and control systems, like you're advocating here, are hard to manage. Too many competing interests. Its the primary reason 20th Century style communism failed, and they had an honest to god good go at it. Moving away from such a tight system is a key reason why China has been so successful since Deng Xiaoping.
Most of europe has laws mandating a minimum number of vacation days, some have +3 / +5 extra if you have children. Almost every country (I lived in) has +5 days sick leave for people with kids (added to the base mandated for everyone) In germany you can deduct various child related expenses from your taxes (though you don't have those expenses at all if you do not have children). The list goes on... In the end these are the benefits mandated by the governments. On top of that, some companies add extra benefits (and this is the part, that does not make sense to me and feels like the real discrimination that shouldn't be there)
We're agreed on having a good baseline set by government.
Don't know why some companies adding other benefits "feels like the real discrimination that shouldn't be there", sounds like advocating for a dictatorship of employment law, as I say before a command and control system.
I probably did a better job explaining my position in the response here
Labeling healthy social support systems as Communism, or reflective there of is a clearly propagandized concept.
Bullshit.
Thats not the same suggestion as a healthy social support system.
An example of a healthy social support system could be where the government sets a baseline of standards that must be met, but businesses can go above that in a competitive reachbfor employees.
What was suggested by OP was far tighter, where the top line and base line were controlled by the government. Those systems are referred to as command and control systems, the most famous example of which is probably the USSR, maybe in that conglomeration the GDR might be the best example, for its good and horrifying aspects.
You and I are probably having different underlying assumptions about the connotations relating to communism though. Its not a spectre haunting europe for me, thats fascism.
I think its important to be able to comment on all systems of governance in a reflective and complex systems driven way. By understanding the drawbacks by comparison with other systems, even when those other systems failed, we can understand our own systems more clearly.