What does it really mean to be a socialist country, and are we plummeting face-first into that state as some might claim? We've certainly made the beginnings of universal-ish health care (though in a markedly different way than other countries do it), we have some social security (which may or may not be adequate), but we're a long ways from providing universally copay-free health services, an adequate federal pension for workers, etc. We can argue back and forth about the weights of these, but I mostly want to focus on one slice of the socialist pie: vacation time.
Is vacation time really a "social benefit"? I think so, though employers foot the bill rather than it being paid from a federal tax. However, it's still lost productivity that is mandated. If employers have to foot the bill, they have to raise prices and therefore the consumer, in the aggregate, pays for my vacation time. This is not too much unlike taxes, or a benefit derived from taxes. In a totally different sense, it's a federal stance that the population needs time off to function effectively.
Lucky for us, Wikipedia has this handy chart of minimum leave by country. Scanning through it yields a single point that is not like the other ones**: the USA is the only country with no federally mandated vacation time for workers. Even our voluntarily given average 1st year vacation grant (about 10 days) is less than just about every country.
Even Colombia gives its drug mules more time off.
Even ordinary Russians can escape the iron fist of Putin for more days a year.
Even super-productive Germany can get by fine with its citizens doubling that time off.
** - a handful of countries are left blank, and probably some countries are in so much turmoil that these laws are moot or unenforced. However, none of those are countries we should cherish comparisons with.
If socialism is a measure of the baseline care a country takes of every one of its citizens, time off work is one of those. And we fail at it.
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