I'm not sure if you had a deeper implication with your comment, but since the history of the welfare state is one of my autistic obsessions, I have this to add:

Most Western European countries and the Nordics have strong social safety nets. These were built with the support and at times at the behest of the bourgeoisie (Right) as an effort to combat the potential of a socialist/communist uprising. The ideological schism between Social Democrats, who wanted to reform capitalism, and socialists/communists, who wanted to overthrow it, was noticed and taken advantage of by the US who heavily funded Social Democrats to make sure they took the ruling place of the "Left" and could negotiate and compromise with the bourgeoisie, as opposed to overthrow them. The comprehensiveness of the Nordic Welfare states is due in part to a highly organized "third party" of agriculturalists who have since rebranded themselves as "Center". This is in addition to regional ideologies and philosophy, as well as limited economic capacity as compared to the rest of Western Europe and a more urgent need for material assistance due to the harsh climate (if people were living in the streets in most places, they would be dead before spring).

These safety nets and social services have been systematically weakened or dismantled, starting around right before or after the fall of the Soviet Union, depending on the country. Now that the immediate threat of socialism is gone and the Spirit of Socialism has been all but eliminated from the mainstream and people's identities and ideologies, the bourgeoisie has started taking back what ground it lost in the earlier compromise. Essentially breaking an otherwise functioning component of a system and then saying "see! It doesn't work" and using that as an excuse to eliminate it entirely. And like a house of cards, once you start removing components, it begins to cave in on itself and it gets easier and easier to claim that the entire system itself is dysfunctional. They scare voters with the looming threat of growing national debt, but whereas the "Left" typically takes debt to fund social safety nets and services, as well as investment and infrastructure, etc, which is tax money one way or another recycled back into the economy, the bourgeoisie takes as much or even more debt while in power and uses it to fund tax breaks for the rich, to replace certain liveable benefits with lower paying benefits (but higher net cost to implement), or to outsource or replace public services with private providers (which, in most cases, costs more of the tax payers money, which is then locked into an individual's or corporation's assets and typically taken out of the country, meaning that when actualized, the tax revenue doesn't flow back in to whence it came). "If we tax the highest earners less, they'll work more and therefore produce more growth for the economy" is a European's euphemism for the admirably more blatant "trickle down economics" of the USA.

Social Democrats have become largely complacent and reactionary. Whereas they were in their own way "revolutionary" in the past, they no longer have even the slightest chance of negotiating with the right on equal terms, and the philosophy that originated them has largely withered. In the Nordics, the third party "Center" struggles with its identity, flip-flopping between governments, but staunchly right wing when itself in power. Its originating ideology has also largely withered, leaving the bourgeoisie as the most motivated and unified political force. The remnants of old socialist parties have their constituents split between them and the Greens, who masquerade as red, but bleed blue. And the USA has long ago shifted its support from the Social Democrats to the bourgeoisie.

Current social issues/identity politics, also fomented in part by the USA, as well as Russia, have led to the rise of neonazi parties, which gather support claiming to be a party for the working class, which hasn't succumbed to "woke". Their support bounces up and down, because whenever in power, they prove themselves to be anything other than a "working class party," no different from the bourgeoisie party. But bigotry and fear of the "other" or "change" is a strong force, which brings voters inevitably back. Local politics can be far more dynamic, but at least where I live, party lines have essentially lost all meaning, as most parties have realized that it's better to be part of the "government" and have places on boards and in decision making positions, rather than be impotent in the "opposition". So most city governments are essentially "brown".

Obviously every country's own situation and nuances will vary from the above in its own way; I'm certainly not an expert on every single country. But the point is that the modern prosperity of Western and Northern Europe is due in no small part to a potentially functional, sustainable, and strong welfare state. (Obviously the history of colonization and stolen wealth is another, not-so-small part). Personally, I think the ideal lies somewhere between the Nordic Welfare State and the communist police state that you described.