You are right about Scandinavia (I should have thought about it). Seems to work well there. Unemployed people receive a substantial allowance. And lots of training. Health care for everybody. Thank you for reminding us; we should all keep this model in the back of our minds.

The countries of Scandinavia, though, are very small and rather homogeneous. I wonder if a similar system would work well in a country of 320 million that is not homogeneous.

About the elites, I read a quote from Forbes on this board today (http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/forum/index.pl?read=130688) that "Forbes estimates there are now 2,043 billionaires worldwide, up from 1,810 in 2016. Their average net worth is $3.75 billion": Obviously the number of billionaires, worldwide, is increasing very fast. And their average net value is also increasing very fast if we compare these figures with 10 years ago (with Forbes adding - he he he: "which means Trump is not even worth as much as the "average" billionaire.")

The Scandinavian model would of course require bi-partisan support, something that we may never see again in the US for a couple of generations at least. For example today, about the all important topic of whether or not Russia, our long-time enemy, played a role in the election, there was no bi-partisan questioning of FBI Director Comey: The Dems were after this question, but the GOP was after the leaks: WHO are the traitors who leaked the info that had poor Mike Flynn fired???? It is disheartening. By the way, I hear you when you say that the political and cultural/social divisions between right and left in the US are only a diversion from the big problem which is the elite increasing their wealth at the expense of the rest of the population. But how do you see the role that our enemy is playing in our elections, and in the elections of Europe: Is it much bigger than the class problem? Is it linked to the class problem? Or is it peculiar to the trump-putin dynamic?