4 ms·

After spending quite a bit of time outside of America, articles like this seem strange to me. Not right or wrong in assessment, just... very American-centric an

After spending quite a bit of time outside of America, articles like this seem strange to me. Not right or wrong in assessment, just... very American-centric and lacking a lot of perspective (Venetian anecdotes aside). I mean... pretty much everyone in America is rich. Stupidly ridiculously rich. The working poor in America are fabulously fantastically stupendously ridiculously rich compared to most of the world. I mean, staggeringly so. It's like, as time passes, luxuries become conveniences become necessities... and thus, there's always this keeping-up thing going on. But the majority of American "necessities" are truly luxuries in, like, 2/3rds of the world's eyes.

andrewcooke 14y ago
the article is about how rich places start to decline. so it makes sense only as an article about somewhere that is rich. or maybe you're not criticising the article at all, just keeping us informed about the rest of the world? [rather than downvote, try clarifying how an article on the decline of rich communities should be written about somewhere that is not a rich community...]
kamaal 14y ago
Well if you really mention this you are likely to be badly admonished to keep this to yourself. I can't even imagine how anybody in the US can even describe themselves as poor. I mean the definitions of poor so badly put down in this case, it makes the actual poor look like they don't exist at all. Sometime back there was a post here about blacks(in the US) in some place not having good sanitation facilities. They were considered very poor. And they had cars, good enough homes, food, electricity, roads, park and ask what not. In my country they would qualify as very rich people(In India). Its law of diminishing utility, a massive hedonic threadmill to describe at the best.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Its about social equity and respect. I remember a story where a redneck in Appalachia made about as much money as a highly regarded doctor in Africa, but the redneck was definitely worse off: he had no respect from the community, his social contribution was very low, and very low self esteem, while the doctor got to eat with the president of their country, had connections abroad, and so on. The war against poverty isn't finished once survival needs are met, people want meaningful lives, to thrive in society also and not just survive. I very much admire Europe (or at least Switzerland) where the upper class treats the working class with a lot more respect. Everyone is important, you don't treat the guy at the fast food rudely, even if you have much more money than them. Everyone's life seems meaningful and people are happy. Now, compare this with China where I now live, where very little respect is given from the middle class to lower-working class that cleans their houses, makes their food, drives them around... Edit: I didn't mean to use redneck here as a pejorative, it just seemed to get the point across more quickly.
  - cema 14y ago
    I guess using the word "redneck" did carry the point quickly, just a wrong point maybe. Regarding respect: cannot compare it with Switzerland first-hand, but in my experience Americans tend to treat each other with a lot of respect, compared with many other part of the world. Including cross-class encounters.
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      Perhaps we are seeing different America's? As someone who started out lower middle class and is now upper, I really see a country that isn't that much better than china and is very class based. Now Europe...has many problems also (aristocrats abound), but the day to day etiquette that is expected goes a long way into promoting at least social equality, if not economic.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Semi-tangent. In 1989, I did the summer of backpacking across Europe thing. Just before the fall of the Berlin wall, so there was still soviet control of eastern/central Europe. Anyway, I went to Budapest on that trip, and at the time it was common to be met at the train station by people offering a place to sleep in their homes for cheap. Me and some guys I was with at the moment took one of them up on the offer and went with him to his apartment, $15 a night for the three of us. It was a cramped little place, but in the city, so it was cool. We stayed up late talking to the guy, and found out he was a doctor. Which was a huge shock to me. A doctor living in a tiny little place and letting tourists sleep on his couch for very little money. That (and the flagship department store in Budapest being nearly barren by US standards) convinced me that the West had gotten some things right, at least. The guy did have a lot of books though, and asked me to send him some science fiction books once I got home. I mailed him a bunch of cyberpunk. Wonder what he made of that. Wish I'd kept up with him.
    - drumdance 14y ago
      I was just in Budapest in June, arrived via train, and there were at least a dozen people offering room for rent. Don't know if any of them were doctors, but the economy has been struggling there. We stayed in a really, really nice hotel for about $100/night.
- jgon 14y ago
  Ugh, there is a reason that you would be admonished for this argument and it's not because you are speaking some sort of uncomfortable truth. It's because this is sloppy, lazy thinking, and it has traditionally been used as a bludgeon to retard progress for the many in favor of the few. If you are going to talk about how rich even the poorest American currently is so as to intimate that they shouldn't complain about their circumstances you have to answer one question: Why now? Why is this standard of living reasonable, and an improved one not? Why was it fair of them to make it this far, but any better would be unreasonable. The entirety of human history has been one long story of progress, and at every time I am sure there have been people arguing that everyone has it good enough and working to allow more people to have "more" is wrong. Why don't we just stop after the establishment of agriculture? Hey, now people don't have to risk their lives hunting. Why not stop after we create homes and settlements. Now we don't have to live in caves. Isn't that good enough for everyone? Why didn't we stop when we developed basic medicine? Why not after modern agriculture alleviated periodic famines? Unless you can say why certain people deserve the standard of living they have right now, and why they also don't deserve a better standard, points like the one you are talking about are counter-productive, and usually used by people looking to keep more for themselves, and damn everyone else. To accept otherwise would mean accepting that there is no argument for the standard of living in your country to increase either, and I am pretty sure you wouldn't agree with that.
- pron 14y ago
  Indeed! America has much to pride itself on! After becoming the strongest economy in the world, and its technological and cultural leader, her poor may be content to know that they are much, much better off than those of Bangladesh and sub-saharan Africa. A great society indeed!
elteto 14y ago
There are people in America who go to bed hungry, are homeless, or die because of lack of basic health care. These are the same problems that poor people in the rest of the world face and the fact that they stroll the streets of megacities like LA or NY doesn't make them any richer. Maybe a significant majority of the low class US population (and for that matter of the developed side of the world) is better off than their counterparts in poorer countries but definitely not everybody. Edit: Why the downvote? Care to explain?
- dalke 14y ago
  "Why the downvote?" I think I can answer part of that. Some people think that if a person owns a TV, mobile phone, fridge, etc. then they must by definition not be poor. After all, 50 years these were considered luxury goods, or for the case of mobile phone, only available as operator assisted radio phones. They don't know that poverty is defined by a different measure; the Orshansky poverty thresholds. This is a relatively absolute measure based not on what one owns but on access to food and housing. And as you say, there are many Americans who own a car, and a CD player, and a personal computer, yet do not know if they'll have enough money to be able to eat for the month.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
The working poor in America have the standard of living that is fantastically rich compared to the genuinely poor world. But they don't own it. They rent it or, more often, they owe it to someone. No debt peon or unpropertied proletarian can really be called rich, because everything he has can pretty much be taken away by someone else's whim.

andrewcooke 14y ago

the article is about how rich places start to decline. so it makes sense only as an article about somewhere that is rich. or maybe you're not criticising the article at all, just keeping us informed about the rest of the world? [rather than downvote, try clarifying how an article on the decline of rich communities should be written about somewhere that is not a rich community...]

kamaal 14y ago

Well if you really mention this you are likely to be badly admonished to keep this to yourself. I can't even imagine how anybody in the US can even describe themselves as poor. I mean the definitions of poor so badly put down in this case, it makes the actual poor look like they don't exist at all. Sometime back there was a post here about blacks(in the US) in some place not having good sanitation facilities. They were considered very poor. And they had cars, good enough homes, food, electricity, roads, park and ask what not. In my country they would qualify as very rich people(In India). Its law of diminishing utility, a massive hedonic threadmill to describe at the best.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Its about social equity and respect. I remember a story where a redneck in Appalachia made about as much money as a highly regarded doctor in Africa, but the redneck was definitely worse off: he had no respect from the community, his social contribution was very low, and very low self esteem, while the doctor got to eat with the president of their country, had connections abroad, and so on. The war against poverty isn't finished once survival needs are met, people want meaningful lives, to thrive in society also and not just survive. I very much admire Europe (or at least Switzerland) where the upper class treats the working class with a lot more respect. Everyone is important, you don't treat the guy at the fast food rudely, even if you have much more money than them. Everyone's life seems meaningful and people are happy. Now, compare this with China where I now live, where very little respect is given from the middle class to lower-working class that cleans their houses, makes their food, drives them around... Edit: I didn't mean to use redneck here as a pejorative, it just seemed to get the point across more quickly.
- cema 14y ago
  I guess using the word "redneck" did carry the point quickly, just a wrong point maybe. Regarding respect: cannot compare it with Switzerland first-hand, but in my experience Americans tend to treat each other with a lot of respect, compared with many other part of the world. Including cross-class encounters.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    Perhaps we are seeing different America's? As someone who started out lower middle class and is now upper, I really see a country that isn't that much better than china and is very class based. Now Europe...has many problems also (aristocrats abound), but the day to day etiquette that is expected goes a long way into promoting at least social equality, if not economic.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Semi-tangent. In 1989, I did the summer of backpacking across Europe thing. Just before the fall of the Berlin wall, so there was still soviet control of eastern/central Europe. Anyway, I went to Budapest on that trip, and at the time it was common to be met at the train station by people offering a place to sleep in their homes for cheap. Me and some guys I was with at the moment took one of them up on the offer and went with him to his apartment, $15 a night for the three of us. It was a cramped little place, but in the city, so it was cool. We stayed up late talking to the guy, and found out he was a doctor. Which was a huge shock to me. A doctor living in a tiny little place and letting tourists sleep on his couch for very little money. That (and the flagship department store in Budapest being nearly barren by US standards) convinced me that the West had gotten some things right, at least. The guy did have a lot of books though, and asked me to send him some science fiction books once I got home. I mailed him a bunch of cyberpunk. Wonder what he made of that. Wish I'd kept up with him.
  - drumdance 14y ago
    I was just in Budapest in June, arrived via train, and there were at least a dozen people offering room for rent. Don't know if any of them were doctors, but the economy has been struggling there. We stayed in a really, really nice hotel for about $100/night.
jgon 14y ago
Ugh, there is a reason that you would be admonished for this argument and it's not because you are speaking some sort of uncomfortable truth. It's because this is sloppy, lazy thinking, and it has traditionally been used as a bludgeon to retard progress for the many in favor of the few. If you are going to talk about how rich even the poorest American currently is so as to intimate that they shouldn't complain about their circumstances you have to answer one question: Why now? Why is this standard of living reasonable, and an improved one not? Why was it fair of them to make it this far, but any better would be unreasonable. The entirety of human history has been one long story of progress, and at every time I am sure there have been people arguing that everyone has it good enough and working to allow more people to have "more" is wrong. Why don't we just stop after the establishment of agriculture? Hey, now people don't have to risk their lives hunting. Why not stop after we create homes and settlements. Now we don't have to live in caves. Isn't that good enough for everyone? Why didn't we stop when we developed basic medicine? Why not after modern agriculture alleviated periodic famines? Unless you can say why certain people deserve the standard of living they have right now, and why they also don't deserve a better standard, points like the one you are talking about are counter-productive, and usually used by people looking to keep more for themselves, and damn everyone else. To accept otherwise would mean accepting that there is no argument for the standard of living in your country to increase either, and I am pretty sure you wouldn't agree with that.
pron 14y ago
Indeed! America has much to pride itself on! After becoming the strongest economy in the world, and its technological and cultural leader, her poor may be content to know that they are much, much better off than those of Bangladesh and sub-saharan Africa. A great society indeed!

elteto 14y ago

There are people in America who go to bed hungry, are homeless, or die because of lack of basic health care. These are the same problems that poor people in the rest of the world face and the fact that they stroll the streets of megacities like LA or NY doesn't make them any richer. Maybe a significant majority of the low class US population (and for that matter of the developed side of the world) is better off than their counterparts in poorer countries but definitely not everybody. Edit: Why the downvote? Care to explain?

dalke 14y ago
"Why the downvote?" I think I can answer part of that. Some people think that if a person owns a TV, mobile phone, fridge, etc. then they must by definition not be poor. After all, 50 years these were considered luxury goods, or for the case of mobile phone, only available as operator assisted radio phones. They don't know that poverty is defined by a different measure; the Orshansky poverty thresholds. This is a relatively absolute measure based not on what one owns but on access to food and housing. And as you say, there are many Americans who own a car, and a CD player, and a personal computer, yet do not know if they'll have enough money to be able to eat for the month.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

The working poor in America have the standard of living that is fantastically rich compared to the genuinely poor world. But they don't own it. They rent it or, more often, they owe it to someone. No debt peon or unpropertied proletarian can really be called rich, because everything he has can pretty much be taken away by someone else's whim.