I guess it would have been nice if you just left your original text here and replied to my comment, pointing out how I misparsed a key point. Apart from that, (a) the Greece story is much more complex than how you try to frame it here (b) Greece and Spain are pretty different and shouldn't be thrown together. I also don't see a connection between communism and what has been discussed here under 'BIG' (I don't know of any communist country, actually -- mind you, 'communism' as it was/is meant!). And what 'socialist' countries grinding to halt do you think of?
As far as I understand most essays/reports from 'rather neutral' (yes, difficult to get an unbiased view) institutions here in Germany usually tell the story that nowadays a small minority lives on people's efforts, and this minority is well above welfare level.
Is there any 'proof' for your starting sentence? (countries don't last when ever more people rely on relative fewer producers). After all, automation levels increase ever more, and thus productivity, too. E.g. the number of people working in farming has shrunken dramatically (at least in first world countries), yet we have overall more than enough to eat ('overall'!). The fact that any country runs out of money is not an argument: Did Spain's productivity suddenly (or maybe also slowly) fell to zero? Did the people in Spain suddenly all lose their ability to work and think?
It was my mistake, not yours. Didn't elaborate the correction because writing essays on an iPod Touch is inconvenient.
The proof is obvious. If consumption exceeds production, necessities run out eventually. "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money." Of course Spain and Greece are more complex than this, but the short version is too many people rely on too few producers; it's not that productivity went to zero, it's that production minus consumption did. The USA is facing the same issue, and driving up hugely infeasible debts to forestall the inevitable.
The point of YCombinator is to work real hard on something clever and create a valuable business and reap the rewards; not motivating if those rewards are taken and given to those who do nothing for them.
As far as I understand most essays/reports from 'rather neutral' (yes, difficult to get an unbiased view) institutions here in Germany usually tell the story that nowadays a small minority lives on people's efforts, and this minority is well above welfare level.
Is there any 'proof' for your starting sentence? (countries don't last when ever more people rely on relative fewer producers). After all, automation levels increase ever more, and thus productivity, too. E.g. the number of people working in farming has shrunken dramatically (at least in first world countries), yet we have overall more than enough to eat ('overall'!). The fact that any country runs out of money is not an argument: Did Spain's productivity suddenly (or maybe also slowly) fell to zero? Did the people in Spain suddenly all lose their ability to work and think?