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It's not just "broadly applied", it's the American motto!
by Grishnakh 10y ago
It's not just "broadly applied", it's the American motto!
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoLet's not kid ourselves: it isn't just the American motto...it is motto of most people in the world.
- Grishnakh 10y agoI don't know about that. Ignoring the rest of the world for a moment and concentrating on industrialized nations, we seem to be the worst at providing socialized services.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoI've been out of the states for 10 years now and have noticed the motto being applied in states as altruistic as Switzerland, and it definitely rules in here China, much more than in the US.
- Grishnakh 10y agoChina is a third-world country not comparable to western Europe. It's industrializing rapidly, but no one would ever be so naïve to think it has social services even approaching those in western nations.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoChina is comparable, but further down the development chain. Social safety nets and good governance tempers selfishness a bit, but can't eliminate it (e.g. Switzerland). America has less of a net and equality than much of Europe, which is why selfishness seems to be more apparent there than in Europe.
- Grishnakh 10y agoNo, China isn't even remotely comparable. Just a few decades ago, it was a mostly agrarian economy. They've had massive industrialization in a very short time, but they don't the much longer-term culture of industrialization and social programs and worker protections etc. that western nations have. And how exactly is Switzerland "selfish"? They may not be part of the EU, but they appear to have just as many social safety nets as any other western European nation. This seems like a rather silly charge to me.