I'm interested in Britain's benefits system. I worked for the old DSS at a JobCentre in London for a while before I started in the newspapers in London, and it always struck me as rather benign compared to the States' "safety net", which is far different and much much less generous. But I definitely saw a darker side in the UK, too -- an entrenched benefits subculture in north London, and it wasn't pretty -- yet it somehow seemed happier to me than the US version. There WAS a lot of mental illness, substance abuse, and a seemingly internalised lack of ambition -- people who maybe once had a desire to work but lacked self-belief to such an extent they would continually shoot themselves in the foot when on the verge of a better life. Another dimension in the UK are vestiges and shadows of the old class system. It may be mostly gone in name, but it persists within the English mind, and it really must be smashed forever. [Add lots of guns and racism, and an even deeper hopelessness, and you get the US version, by the way.] I like Mooney's point but you gotta have those healthy peers do, and where do they come from? There are class systems everywhere. It's simply propaganda telling us we're all equal and in the same club that has us believe that there is none, for example, in the US and it's almost gone from the UK, if we could just get rid of Lord & Lady rascals.