Coyote writes:
Why Government Spending Does Nothing for Jobs
While most economists and policy makers are focusing on the International Monetary Fund’s epiphany on the perils of austerity, some researchers at the IMF have offered another take on the fiscal-policy debate. They found that less is more, even when it comes to the size and scope of government.
More.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
That's an opinion piece you've linked to, which is why it says "opinion" in the bar at the top. Here's a list of countries in order of the percentage of employees who are in the public sector, highest at the top,
from the OECD in 2008.. I've put their current or most recent recorded unemployment rates in,
from here.
Norway 3.0
Denmark 7.7
Sweden 8.4
Finland 8.2
France 11
Hungary 10.9
Estonia 10.8
Luxembourg 5.1
United Kingdom 7.9
Belgium 7.4
Canada 7.1
Israel 6.7
Australia 5.5
Ireland 13.7
Slovenia 10.2
United States 7.5
Italy 12.0
Czech Republic 7.3
Spain 27.2
Portugal 17.7
Netherlands 8.3
Austria 3.9
Turkey 8.1
Slovak Republic 14.5
New Zealand 7.3
Poland 10.6
Switzerland 3.1
Germany 5.4
Chile 6.2
Mexico 5.12
Greece 27.4
Japan 4.2
S. Korea 2.9
Those figures don't mean that there isn't any crowding out (public employment keeping people out of private employment) effect at all, but they do indicate that it isn't a major factor in causing unemployment.
When you read articles on economics, they're often coloured by ideology, whether right, left or centre. It's always worth doing your own research because of this. Looking at the OECD chart, there's nothing to support the following hypotheses:
Having many public employees makes a country rich/poor.
Having few public employees makes a country rich/poor.
Having many public employees means high/low unemployment.
Having few public employees means high/low unemployment.
Public employment isn't the same as public spending, which is what my last post was about. Some wealthy countries have very high public spending but a low level of public employment (Austria, for example) and others relatively low public spending but high public employment (Luxembourg).
As you seem to consider all or most public spending to be socialism, then we can certainly say that all wealthy successful countries are socialist (by your definition, not most people's
).