Having social benefits is great. Bulgaria is an ex-communist country and I've been brought up as a rabid anty-commie by my father. However, I can see some benefits of the socialism philosophy. Free health care, free education and goverment regulation on the prices of the most important commodities - bread, meat, dairy products, eggs, petrol, medicine, meant that the people lived without the fear of what they will eat tomorrow or if they will have 200 euro for their first grader's textbooks this fall.

Nobody is denied an operation or a medical procedure. Not like today where you have to go and buy your own bandages or you're left to rot. There was no fertile land which was not used for agriculture. Sure, the concept of private property in regards to fertile land was basically fiction as one could not opt out of the TKZS large-scale agricultural development format. But this also meant Bulgaria was a major producer of grain, tomatoes, plums, grapes (and wine) and such. We were exporting and we had enough surplus to saturate our own market.

Is this bad? Can't say. It probably is, but the alternatives are not that great either. But having fertile land growing weeds and shrubs now is the worst, considering our warm climate is great for quality fruit and vegetables. But back on the topic of health care - all goverments take in millions (some billions) from their people as taxes. In fact, if you sit down and calculate just how much of what we make we give to the gov. as taxes you'd see that druing the middle ages, revolts have happened and kings have been detrhoned for raising taxes to an extent of a fraction of what we conisder normal taxes today. So why shouldn't some of these huge piles of money go for OUR health and well-being?