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I disagree. It seems to be that collectivism, ironically, has made cooperation impossible rather than individualism. The government has taken on the role of "

I disagree. It seems to be that collectivism, ironically, has made cooperation impossible rather than individualism. The government has taken on the role of "taking care" of your neighbor, so everyone stopped. Government guarantees you healthcare and income in retirement, so there's no need to have a family big enough to take care of you. And as the kid, your parents are taken care of, so your role is diminished. When a hurricane comes through and damages your neighbor's rooftop there's no need to pick up your tool belt, FEMA is going to cut them a check. People feel like they don't need to get involved in charity work such as feeding the hungry because the government takes care of that for the most part. Each one of those items and countless others seem like a great idea individually, but collectively it's destroying the social fabric of our nation.

crispinb 9y ago
Why then does the society with the flimsiest socialised provisions amongst rich nations (the US) also have on most measures by far the most precipitous collapse in social cohesion?
- observation 9y ago
  European countries are much smaller than the USA. I realize that within the USA there exist differences but I think your population centers are far larger than ours. Europe has a larger population but it is very dense with small, medium and then rarer large communities (similar to Japan I think). The USA appears to me (this could be quite wrong) to have large, very large and then sparse communities. I wish I could summon up a one of those nice charts on this subject from gapminder! That would show immediately if there's something to it. It could also be simply that the American media and intellectual class are unusually neurotic and there similar issues exist everywhere but the local reporting in my country doesn't emphasize it as much.
  - crispinb 9y ago
    The relevant comparison is amongst all the wealthy nations (European, N. American, Asian & Australasian), not "USA" vs "Europe" (the various nations constituting the latter have highly divergent social policies). There are many differences among these nations. Some are densely populated (the Netherlands), some sparse (Australia). No comparisons I've ever seen amongst them however remotely suggests that as you add more sophisticated social welfare policies, this reduces social cohesion. On the contrary, such policies tend to smooth out the effects of inevitable industrial change, rendering populations more resilient. It's no accident that nations clinging to relatively crude social policy (the US, the UK) have far lower economic mobility than those using the state of the art (Sweden, Germany). And it is about sophistication, not absolute expenditure, by the way. France, for example, has high spending, but it's badly targeted and rendered inflexible by traditional interests, so on many indicators other than health, it looks more like the laggards (US, UK) than leaders (Sweden, Denmark, Canada).
    - observation 9y ago
      This is where the rightist points out that most positive examples historically had ethnically homogeneous populations and that those populations with growing minorities also are developing integration problems that are usually blamed, perhaps scapegoated, on social welfare policy. Do you have a deconstruction of that?
      - _Tev 9y ago
        Actually all mentioned countries have sizeable immigrant minorities (except Denmark I guess). I'd say burden of proof is on the side claiming "developing integration problems" and such in Australia / Sweden / Germany. Without any data it seems like empty rightist populism.
        observation 9y ago
        Data: https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/2016/03/blogs/graphic-detail/20160326_woc937.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/...
ergothus 9y ago
Just throwing out a question here - What evidence do you have for the order of events? e.g. "The government has taken on the role of "taking care" of your neighbor, so everyone stopped" - how do you show that it wasn't the rise of urban centers, where you had too many neighbors to care for, that led to government stepping in where individuals were failing? For each of the items you list, I can see it going the direction you describe, or instead going the other direction, with government stepping in only after individuals were clearly not taking care of the problems. How do you propose that we can tell which direction it went?
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  The 19th century in the US was the great age of limited government. It was also the period of the greatest outpouring of charitable giving the world has ever known. This was the period when the first modern nonprofit community hospitals were created. It's when the Carnegie libraries were built, huge numbers of colleges were built. It's when the society of the prevention of cruelty to animals was built, the first international missions were started. Considering the technology available at the time it's really amazing what was accomplished. This was the boom time for personal charitable giving. And there were no income taxes and no tax breaks. So everyone who gave did so without being induced by the large government to do so. I have no intention of making an argument that government is better or worse at: providing healthcare, building libraries, feeding the hungry, etc. All I'm suggesting is that when the government creates programs like SNAP then people have a tendency to believe that the hungry are being fed.
  - willvarfar 9y ago
    Britain led the way in that enlightenment e.g. The 1848 Public Health Act. Except in Britain it was government that led it. In the US, you had to rely on the hoping that some of the rich did good (today: Gates, Buffet?) whilst all the rest did bad (today: Koch, Trump?)? This blame-the-government thing is uniquely American. In other parts of the world there are big governments that really help their populations thrive and live safely and comfortably (e.g. I live in Sweden).
abraae 9y ago
I live in a country with universal healthcare and it works pretty well much of the time, so perhaps I don't have the same perspective as you. But some of your examples ring a little extreme. Do you really suggest "having a big family" as the way to survive health problems and retirement? Because that's how it works in some (e.g.) SE Asian countries, and life there can be very harsh indeed if you strike adversity and don't have family to care for you. Some people are infertile, or have lost their children. Not to mention that simply populating the world with more and more people is kind of environmentally short-sighted. I'd rather have the government bulk buying my meds, and lighten my overall footprint on the planet, rather than harking back to ancient times when there was little or no government, and family was everything.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > ...life there can be very harsh indeed if you strike adversity and don't have family to care for you. Life can be very harsh if you're unfortunate but don't qualify for government benefits. Or maybe you've genuinely turned a corner in your life but government rules don't have mercy like individuals can.
  - abraae 9y ago
    I guess I don't know what sort of scenarios you're alluding to. In the context of healthcare, universal healthcare means by definition that its available to everyone. But yes, unfortunate you if you get something that's not covered under the universal deal, e.g. some kind of leading edge cancer treatment. That's when you hope your private insurance (if any) will pick up the tab.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      > In the context of healthcare, universal healthcare means by definition that its available to everyone. The government doesn't literally pay for anything you want or need. It picks what things it will pay for and what things it won't. You can't always ask government to make a special exception in extenuating circumstances like you could with a parent or cousin. I'm not saying family is always better. I'm saying there are certainly downsides to government-based charity.
losteric 9y ago
Socially advanced European nations do not have cooperation and social cohesion problems. What makes America unique?
- summer_steven 9y ago
  Your making the classic mistake of equating the top 10% European countries like Switzerland and Sweden with the entire United States. Midwestern states, Washington state, and New England have cohesion. Correct your perspective and see that the United States and Europe are fairly equal. Example: Italy has next to no cohesion.
  - mbroncano 9y ago
    > Italy has next to no cohesion References? In my personal experience that's far for accurate. If anything they are an extremely nationalistic country. Living half way between the US and the EU has taught me otherwise - that the kind of cohesion between say Portugal and Sweden is surprisingly solid - once you know where to look e.g. social values, political views. Trying to do the same with someone from deep Texas and a little town in the Maine coast could be an interesting example of the opposite. Having different languages even inside the same territory doesn't account for lack of cohesion. It's quite irrelevant in practice actually. Cohesion seems to be mistaken these days by sheepishly following politicians into unnecessary wars and lacking critical thinking. Widespread ignorance is not cohesion, is divisive at best.
    - observation 9y ago
      > References? In my personal experience that's far for accurate. If anything they are an extremely nationalistic country. Turkey is a nation that is even more nationalistic and they have very serious trust issues with their fellow citizens.
      - observation 9y ago
        It's not a value judgment. It is a fact. Plenty of polls, references and other evidence exists. Or ask any Turk.
srssays 9y ago
The US hardly lacks collectivism, it is merely on an incomprehensibly grand scale. Pay your taxes and the state will help you, evade them and the state will punish you. Certain African countries are strongly individualistic. The state is too weak to help or punish anybody. Infrastructure crumbles, crime and slavery abounds. You seriously don't want to visit let alone live in a country that lacks collectivism.
- hueving 9y ago
  Collectivism != cooperation. The comment to which you replied also says the US has heavily collectivism. But due to its coercive nature, it killed the cooperation that existed before it.
cakedoggie 9y ago
So according to you, NO ONE takes care of their neighbours, NO ONE helps anyone in their family when they need it, and NO ONE does charity work, because the government know fulfills that roll. But we can all plainly see that this is completely wrong, and people do do all that.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  As with virtually every case of the use of "everyone" when I said everyone stopped I did not mean it literally. And yes, families are far more likely to be broken today than in decades past. The elderly are more likely to be dumped in a home somewhere. Welfare has ravaged families. The single motherhood rate is 8x what it was in the 50s because we incentivize broken families. Over 50% of adults are single now. That's historically unprecedented, and it didn't start heading that direction until the 1950s when socialist programs started really taking hold in the US.
  - cakedoggie 9y ago
    You could do what a lot of people do, and don't use the word everyone when it is not the case, or not even close to being the case.
cat199 9y ago
Isn't caring for your neighbor an inherently 'collectivist' act?
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Yes of course, but let me try to shine a light on the distinction I was trying to make. If I as an individual become aware that there are hungry people in my area, I may as an individual choose to put forth some effort, funds, etc. to attempt to rectify this problem. This is an individual act for the collective good. You are emotionally attached to your own act and have a personal interest in improving the system of feeding people because you want to make sure your money feeds the most people possible. Conversely, if we all decide we're going to take some of your money, whether you like it or not, and decide how all of us cumulatively wish to solve the hunger problem, that is not an individual act. It is not an act of your conscience. It separates you emotionally and cognitively from the people you're feeding. You never meet them, you never get to know them. You have no attachment whatsoever to what's going on. You just pay taxes and hope the bureaucracy does a decent job, or more likely you stop thinking about feeding the hungry altogether because it's "taken care of." You still want your money to be used efficiently/effectively but the entire scope of government is far too big for the average person to deal with at that level. I'm not intending to make any argument about which way is the most effective at: feeding the hungry, providing healthcare to the poor, etc. That's a different debate altogether. I'm only pointing out that the government giving some of your money to feed people is a completely different social experience than you doing so yourself. And further that when the government tells you it's going to take care of feeding everyone, it tends to drop off your radar.
specialist 9y ago
Bah. I've lived on a farm, in the city, in the burbs. People are people where ever you go. If you're not neighborly, that's your problem, not the government's.
coliveira 9y ago
That's nonsense. If that was the case, European countries would have a lower level of social cohesion, which is just the opposite. American society is far more individualistic, and still there is very little in terms of social support for poor people and disaster relief, for example.

crispinb 9y ago

Why then does the society with the flimsiest socialised provisions amongst rich nations (the US) also have on most measures by far the most precipitous collapse in social cohesion?

observation 9y ago
European countries are much smaller than the USA. I realize that within the USA there exist differences but I think your population centers are far larger than ours. Europe has a larger population but it is very dense with small, medium and then rarer large communities (similar to Japan I think). The USA appears to me (this could be quite wrong) to have large, very large and then sparse communities. I wish I could summon up a one of those nice charts on this subject from gapminder! That would show immediately if there's something to it. It could also be simply that the American media and intellectual class are unusually neurotic and there similar issues exist everywhere but the local reporting in my country doesn't emphasize it as much.
- crispinb 9y ago
  The relevant comparison is amongst all the wealthy nations (European, N. American, Asian & Australasian), not "USA" vs "Europe" (the various nations constituting the latter have highly divergent social policies). There are many differences among these nations. Some are densely populated (the Netherlands), some sparse (Australia). No comparisons I've ever seen amongst them however remotely suggests that as you add more sophisticated social welfare policies, this reduces social cohesion. On the contrary, such policies tend to smooth out the effects of inevitable industrial change, rendering populations more resilient. It's no accident that nations clinging to relatively crude social policy (the US, the UK) have far lower economic mobility than those using the state of the art (Sweden, Germany). And it is about sophistication, not absolute expenditure, by the way. France, for example, has high spending, but it's badly targeted and rendered inflexible by traditional interests, so on many indicators other than health, it looks more like the laggards (US, UK) than leaders (Sweden, Denmark, Canada).
  - observation 9y ago
    This is where the rightist points out that most positive examples historically had ethnically homogeneous populations and that those populations with growing minorities also are developing integration problems that are usually blamed, perhaps scapegoated, on social welfare policy. Do you have a deconstruction of that?
    - _Tev 9y ago
      Actually all mentioned countries have sizeable immigrant minorities (except Denmark I guess). I'd say burden of proof is on the side claiming "developing integration problems" and such in Australia / Sweden / Germany. Without any data it seems like empty rightist populism.
      - observation 9y ago
        Data: https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/2016/03/blogs/graphic-detail/20160326_woc937.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/...

ergothus 9y ago

Just throwing out a question here - What evidence do you have for the order of events? e.g. "The government has taken on the role of "taking care" of your neighbor, so everyone stopped" - how do you show that it wasn't the rise of urban centers, where you had too many neighbors to care for, that led to government stepping in where individuals were failing? For each of the items you list, I can see it going the direction you describe, or instead going the other direction, with government stepping in only after individuals were clearly not taking care of the problems. How do you propose that we can tell which direction it went?

Consultant32452 9y ago
The 19th century in the US was the great age of limited government. It was also the period of the greatest outpouring of charitable giving the world has ever known. This was the period when the first modern nonprofit community hospitals were created. It's when the Carnegie libraries were built, huge numbers of colleges were built. It's when the society of the prevention of cruelty to animals was built, the first international missions were started. Considering the technology available at the time it's really amazing what was accomplished. This was the boom time for personal charitable giving. And there were no income taxes and no tax breaks. So everyone who gave did so without being induced by the large government to do so. I have no intention of making an argument that government is better or worse at: providing healthcare, building libraries, feeding the hungry, etc. All I'm suggesting is that when the government creates programs like SNAP then people have a tendency to believe that the hungry are being fed.
- willvarfar 9y ago
  Britain led the way in that enlightenment e.g. The 1848 Public Health Act. Except in Britain it was government that led it. In the US, you had to rely on the hoping that some of the rich did good (today: Gates, Buffet?) whilst all the rest did bad (today: Koch, Trump?)? This blame-the-government thing is uniquely American. In other parts of the world there are big governments that really help their populations thrive and live safely and comfortably (e.g. I live in Sweden).

abraae 9y ago

I live in a country with universal healthcare and it works pretty well much of the time, so perhaps I don't have the same perspective as you. But some of your examples ring a little extreme. Do you really suggest "having a big family" as the way to survive health problems and retirement? Because that's how it works in some (e.g.) SE Asian countries, and life there can be very harsh indeed if you strike adversity and don't have family to care for you. Some people are infertile, or have lost their children. Not to mention that simply populating the world with more and more people is kind of environmentally short-sighted. I'd rather have the government bulk buying my meds, and lighten my overall footprint on the planet, rather than harking back to ancient times when there was little or no government, and family was everything.

humanrebar 9y ago
> ...life there can be very harsh indeed if you strike adversity and don't have family to care for you. Life can be very harsh if you're unfortunate but don't qualify for government benefits. Or maybe you've genuinely turned a corner in your life but government rules don't have mercy like individuals can.
- abraae 9y ago
  I guess I don't know what sort of scenarios you're alluding to. In the context of healthcare, universal healthcare means by definition that its available to everyone. But yes, unfortunate you if you get something that's not covered under the universal deal, e.g. some kind of leading edge cancer treatment. That's when you hope your private insurance (if any) will pick up the tab.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > In the context of healthcare, universal healthcare means by definition that its available to everyone. The government doesn't literally pay for anything you want or need. It picks what things it will pay for and what things it won't. You can't always ask government to make a special exception in extenuating circumstances like you could with a parent or cousin. I'm not saying family is always better. I'm saying there are certainly downsides to government-based charity.

losteric 9y ago

Socially advanced European nations do not have cooperation and social cohesion problems. What makes America unique?

summer_steven 9y ago
Your making the classic mistake of equating the top 10% European countries like Switzerland and Sweden with the entire United States. Midwestern states, Washington state, and New England have cohesion. Correct your perspective and see that the United States and Europe are fairly equal. Example: Italy has next to no cohesion.
- mbroncano 9y ago
  > Italy has next to no cohesion References? In my personal experience that's far for accurate. If anything they are an extremely nationalistic country. Living half way between the US and the EU has taught me otherwise - that the kind of cohesion between say Portugal and Sweden is surprisingly solid - once you know where to look e.g. social values, political views. Trying to do the same with someone from deep Texas and a little town in the Maine coast could be an interesting example of the opposite. Having different languages even inside the same territory doesn't account for lack of cohesion. It's quite irrelevant in practice actually. Cohesion seems to be mistaken these days by sheepishly following politicians into unnecessary wars and lacking critical thinking. Widespread ignorance is not cohesion, is divisive at best.
  - observation 9y ago
    > References? In my personal experience that's far for accurate. If anything they are an extremely nationalistic country. Turkey is a nation that is even more nationalistic and they have very serious trust issues with their fellow citizens.
    - observation 9y ago
      It's not a value judgment. It is a fact. Plenty of polls, references and other evidence exists. Or ask any Turk.

srssays 9y ago

The US hardly lacks collectivism, it is merely on an incomprehensibly grand scale. Pay your taxes and the state will help you, evade them and the state will punish you. Certain African countries are strongly individualistic. The state is too weak to help or punish anybody. Infrastructure crumbles, crime and slavery abounds. You seriously don't want to visit let alone live in a country that lacks collectivism.

hueving 9y ago
Collectivism != cooperation. The comment to which you replied also says the US has heavily collectivism. But due to its coercive nature, it killed the cooperation that existed before it.

cakedoggie 9y ago

So according to you, NO ONE takes care of their neighbours, NO ONE helps anyone in their family when they need it, and NO ONE does charity work, because the government know fulfills that roll. But we can all plainly see that this is completely wrong, and people do do all that.

Consultant32452 9y ago
As with virtually every case of the use of "everyone" when I said everyone stopped I did not mean it literally. And yes, families are far more likely to be broken today than in decades past. The elderly are more likely to be dumped in a home somewhere. Welfare has ravaged families. The single motherhood rate is 8x what it was in the 50s because we incentivize broken families. Over 50% of adults are single now. That's historically unprecedented, and it didn't start heading that direction until the 1950s when socialist programs started really taking hold in the US.
- cakedoggie 9y ago
  You could do what a lot of people do, and don't use the word everyone when it is not the case, or not even close to being the case.

cat199 9y ago

Isn't caring for your neighbor an inherently 'collectivist' act?

Consultant32452 9y ago
Yes of course, but let me try to shine a light on the distinction I was trying to make. If I as an individual become aware that there are hungry people in my area, I may as an individual choose to put forth some effort, funds, etc. to attempt to rectify this problem. This is an individual act for the collective good. You are emotionally attached to your own act and have a personal interest in improving the system of feeding people because you want to make sure your money feeds the most people possible. Conversely, if we all decide we're going to take some of your money, whether you like it or not, and decide how all of us cumulatively wish to solve the hunger problem, that is not an individual act. It is not an act of your conscience. It separates you emotionally and cognitively from the people you're feeding. You never meet them, you never get to know them. You have no attachment whatsoever to what's going on. You just pay taxes and hope the bureaucracy does a decent job, or more likely you stop thinking about feeding the hungry altogether because it's "taken care of." You still want your money to be used efficiently/effectively but the entire scope of government is far too big for the average person to deal with at that level. I'm not intending to make any argument about which way is the most effective at: feeding the hungry, providing healthcare to the poor, etc. That's a different debate altogether. I'm only pointing out that the government giving some of your money to feed people is a completely different social experience than you doing so yourself. And further that when the government tells you it's going to take care of feeding everyone, it tends to drop off your radar.

specialist 9y ago

Bah. I've lived on a farm, in the city, in the burbs. People are people where ever you go. If you're not neighborly, that's your problem, not the government's.

coliveira 9y ago

That's nonsense. If that was the case, European countries would have a lower level of social cohesion, which is just the opposite. American society is far more individualistic, and still there is very little in terms of social support for poor people and disaster relief, for example.