Should one bother to study history, this should come as no surprise to anyone. You simply can’t have half of the population paying for the entire population, which is why socialism cannot work! It matters not which nation you live in, its a simple economic reality. In a democracy, free is how one panders to voters, but it is not practical. History teaches us this in so many ways. See the Roman Empire, France in the 18th Century, Spain, the Soviet Union. We must STUDY history, not repeat it.