WEEKLY EDITORIAL RECAP

THURSDAY

CRACKS IN THE WELFARE STATE?

Those urging America to adopt more collectivist, government-run approaches usually fall back on some reference to the European model. "We're the only major industrialized nation that doesn't have ..." state-run medicine, whatever.

But there are signs that clouds are gathering over yet another bevy of collectivist utopias. Civitas, a nonpartisan British think tank ... reports the government-run system's monolithic nature, lack of competition, burdensome regulation and wasteful redundancy ... serve the bureaucrat, not the patient. ...

To our north, in Canada? "We all agree that the system is imploding," said Dr. Anne Doig, incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association. ...

Many Europeans seem to be getting the message, as replacing "greedy" free-market competition with "beneficent" government-run monopolies has led to increasing economic stagnation.

In Germany ... the pro-labor Social Democrats are headed to their worst showing in at least a generation, paving the way for the easy re-election of centrist Chancellor Angela Merkel. ... In France, "The Socialist Party is in tatters and poses little threat to President Nicolas Sarkozy," The Washington Post reports. In Italy, "The weakness of the leftist opposition has helped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire, weather a series of personal scandals. In Britain, voters are poised to toss out the Labor Party, which has ruled since 1993."

Are Europeans ready to abandon the welfare state? Not yet. But it certainly seems to have dawned on them that such stultifying "compassion" can go too far.