> If Europeans can’t figure out new valuable areas where they can contribute to the world, than their system isn’t as clever or morally righteous or fantastic as they think it is.
I don't think it follows that unprofitable things are by definition not clever, righteous, or fantastic. This seems like a blinkered, American-capitalist viewpoint.
Profitable and valuable are synonymous. If something is more valuable than the inputs used to make it, then it is profitable to make it.
Things being clever, or righteous, or "fantastic" (whatever that means) doesn't mean that people actually value them. That isn't what value means. Something is more valuable if you would give up more to have it. It is less valuable if you would give up less to have it.
Basically, no, it is in fact definitionally true, not blinkered, and has nothing to do with America. All of Europe is just as capitalist as America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
Except you do not provide it for free. You provide it under the implicit transaction of your relationship, where you are both giving up value in other to get value.
Try betraying your partners trust and cheating on them - or refuse to take care of your children. They will likely be upset that you aren't holding up your end of the bargain.
Just because you haven't placed a price tag on your relationship and hate the idea of thinking of it that way due to modern cultural ideas of romantic love, doesn't mean relationships are not a transaction (historically in fact they did carry a price tag).
So your police, firefighters, the military, health services (not in the US though) and various charities are not valuable? That is an interesting take.
They are valuable and they are also quite profitable (I am excluding "various charities" as that is too broad and fuzzy).
The fact that the state may provide the majority of these does not mean that they are not profitable as private ventures. Why are they profitable? Because they are deemed very valuable!
In some countries they are not profitable, because they are publicly owned organisations not for-profit private ones, and they are run purely for the benefit they provide to society.
Please re-read the comment you replied to with this context in mind (as their excluding the US was for this reason; though of course the US is not the only country foolish enough to allow profit motives to harm their healthcare, firefighting, etc. services) - the fact that some countries choose to allow profit extraction through these services does not mean that the non-profit versions have no value.
Healthcare is a profitable industry in the EU. Security services are a profitable industry in the EU. There are private firefighting services in the EU. You can easily understand that in general terms all of these services are valuable and profitable to provide (because they are valuable!). The same goes for "military services"... Mercenaries and other "private providers" are a thing.
You are completely missing the point. Whether a type of service has a state monopoly and thus no viable private market is also quite irrelevant to the general point.
The general point is that people (i.e. "the market") are willing to pay for things they find valuable but not for things that they do not. That includes paying through taxes though because the payment is indirect it is more likely to not perfectly align with "value".
I personally think it's you missing the point, though I suppose if I were missing the point I might not realise it!
The fact that some healthcare in some EU countries involves profit is irrelevant to my point & the point of the original comment you replied to. Neither of us were saying that the EU is a shining example of profit being out of healthcare (and in fact I was clear to state that the US is not a solo example on that side of things).
The claim we are disagreeing with is that profit = value and therefore lack of profit = lack of value.
Take UK firefighting services as an example. They are publicly owned and funded by taxes, and as such they are not designed to extract profit, just to be funded enough to provide the services needed. Does this mean they have no value? And in a hypothetical world where every country decided to shut down all private fire fighting companies and to fund publicly-owned ones, would that mean there is no value in any firefighting worldwide?
In my experience, people who argue against this model and in favour of for-profit businesses providing these services say that the profit motive leads to better efficiency, competition etc. (which I personally agree with, but that's a separate conversation). I don't think I've ever before seen anyone argue that lack of profit means they have no value.
There are profits made in the UK firefighting services. The fact they are (mostly?) funded by taxes is not key.
People are willing to pay for those services (and they do through their taxes as a result). People are paid salaries to provide those services (that's a basic form of profit). There are many commercial companies that provide equipments and even services to tax-funded firefighting services. So there is indeed "profit" everywhere. That is the big picture.
> I don't think I've ever before seen anyone argue that lack of profit means they have no value.
That's odd because it is a really basic concept.
In general socialised services (education, healthcare, firegighting, etc) are so not because they aren't valuable or profitable but because we think that they are so important that everyone should have access to them, even those who can't afford them.
I don't think it follows that unprofitable things are by definition not clever, righteous, or fantastic. This seems like a blinkered, American-capitalist viewpoint.