If you want to retire while you’re still young, moving overseas can make it possible. And choosing a country with a good list of social benefits can raise your standard of living even beyond what you expected. But you may be entering a different political world…

I’ve always considered myself to be a conservative thinker. My Depression-era parents raised me to believe that life should be “every man for himself”…that people should work hard, and be able to keep what they make.

President Eisenhower’s balanced budget was a hallmark of my childhood…the gold standard by which we measured any subsequent president’s fiscal responsibility.

I resented my taxes being used for anything but the 18th-century basics: infrastructure, defense, and delivering the mail. Those liberal social programs were for places like Russia… or maybe France.

Then back in the ’90s, I decided to retire before I turned 50. And the most exciting way to do that—actually, the only way—was to retire abroad.

So I moved to Latin America, and entered the alien world of “leftists.” A world where many top retirement destinations—like Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina—are ruled by socialists. A place where the “good guys” were the very people that had been vilified during most of my life…guys like Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro.

A landmark Uruguayan social initiative

On July 19, 2008, a typically Uruguayan “leftist” event took place in the city of Paysandú. On that day, the town plaza went live with free 24-hour Wi-Fi Internet, and the government delivered the final 150 laptop computers to local children and teachers as part of a plan to connect children, parents, and educators.

As the government handed out the first 172,000 computers around the country, Uruguay’s remaining town plazas were wired with free public Wi-Fi, to provide connectivity to students after school hours, and to the public. Meanwhile, Montevideo became one of only six cities in the world to install Wi-Fi in public buses.

Is this sort of initiative important to the expat? In short, yes.

When a government allows the poor to “fend for themselves,” it results in a wider gap between rich and poor…and the inequities cause increasing resentment and sometimes, civil unrest. But when the people believe that the government is looking out for them, they maintain a positive outlook thanks to the more-equitable opportunities they have.

Uruguay consequently enjoys one of Latin America’s highest education levels with low rates of crime and corruption…things that make it a pleasant place for expats to live.

My conservative views of government’s fiscal responsibility were at odds with the entire region.

But then a strange thing happened that changed my outlook entirely.

Governments started giving me money…and I became the beneficiary of all these social programs, instead of the guy paying for them.

I bought a house in Ecuador that was four times the size of my house in Pennsylvania, but instead of paying thousands of dollars in property taxes, my tax bill was only $120 per year. Plus, I paid no income tax in Ecuador, and little in the U.S., given my low earnings.

While my friends back home were paying $4 for a gallon of gasoline, government subsidies allowed me to fill up my Land Rover for $1.03 per gallon. My electricity was $35 per month, my water $8…my natural gas only $3.

Then I moved to Uruguay, and the benefits continued. In Montevideo, we have free Wi-Fi in many of the city buses, and also in town plazas around the country. We have free health care, and I still pay no income tax.

Education is free in Uruguay, all the way through university level. It’s one of the reasons why Uruguay enjoys a broad middle class with relatively low crime and poverty…thus making it a pleasant place for expats to live, without the social tensions found in many poor countries.

And my newfound benefits are not just from foreign governments, but from the U.S., as well. When our economic stimulus checks arrived, we gladly cashed them…and stimulated the economies of Uruguay and Brazil.

Are these social benefits and subsidies the product of unsound economic policies? Are the granting countries (including the U.S.) incurring too much debt? Probably. And frankly, my personal views on debt and fiscal prudency haven’t changed.

But I’ve learned a more important lesson during the last eight years of living abroad; you can’t take government too seriously.

Each of the world’s governments will do things you don’t agree with, and at times you’re bound to have ideological differences with the one you’re living under. But the successful expats are the ones who can put ideology aside, and appreciate what their foreign home has to offer. They leave the diatribes to politicians, and take full advantage of the programs and benefits that allow us all to live a better life abroad.

It’s been a long road…but I think I’m going to make a good leftist.