I must have been to the US I suppose 20 or 30 times in my life. It is somewhere I intellectually should like, but I don’t somehow. I much prefer secular Europe and dynamic Asia. I know that many will say it is ridiculous to catagorize so negatively nearly 400m people. No doubt it is, but you can make certain observations, and as far as the US’s future is concerned, none of them are very flattering.
First though, I should say, that if we had to have a global superpower, the US is about as benign as they come. It has been the global policeman for 75 years now, and has presided over a period of unprecedented global growth, prosperity, and largely without war (at least world war). Sadly though I fear this is all about to come to an end.
Interestingly, there was recently conducted a study by Stanford University about the attitudes of senior American military officers past and present. Surprisingly, for a group you would normally expect to be strongly pro Republican, and pro miltary spending, nearly eighty percent of them came out strongly for deeply cutting defence expenditures and spending the money on rebuilding America, especially educational institutions, healthcare, infrastructure, and investing in innovation. What drove such a surprising result? Well one thing the US military is, it is not stupid. These officers fully realised, and articulated very forcibly, their long term future depends on a strong economy. Without economic strength, military might disappears viz; the Roman Empire; the British Empire; the Soviet Empire; the Ottoman Empire. Pity they do not influence their conservative political masters likewise, which of course may be just another indication as to how the Tea Partiers have high-jacked the agenda, and sidelined the GOP’s traditional, more conciliatory conservative base.
One of the most consistent things about America throughout its history is its ability to re-invent itself when all seems lost: slavery; the Civil War; Pearl Habour; the Cold War; Russians putting the first man into space; Vietnam. Unfortunately, now almost every statistic, financial and no- financial, shows the US in decline. And its political system is so badly broken, in spite of Barrack Obama’s best efforts. There is simply an inability to do anything about it.
Let’s take four examples:
1. US Social Indicators are going in the wrong direction.
The Table below from the OECD shows just how badly the US is doing as a society. Nearly all its social indicators are in the bottom half of the OECD league tables . What this table shows is the distribution of social indicators across all OECD countries, and breaks them up into countries in the top two deciles, in the bottom two deciles, and in- between. The measures include:
a. Household income (PPP)
b. Ratio of employment to population 15-64
c. Unemployment rate population 15-64
d. Reading literacy scales
e. Poverty rates
f. Percentage finding it difficult or very difficult to manage on current income
g. Percentage of average gross wage to meet poverty threshold
h. Life3 expectancy at birth
i. Infant mortality rate
j. Rate of positive experience
k. Percentage of persons satisfied with water quality
l. Percentage of people expressing a high level of trust in others
m. Corruption index
n. Pro-social behaviour
o. Voting rates
p. Tolerance of Diversity
Net Score of top decile minus bottom decile scores by OECD countries
Countries Top Decile Bottom decile Net Score Net Ranking
Australia 8 0 8 3
Austria 4 0 4 10
Belgium 1 0 1 17
Canada 4 1 3 12
Chile 2 8 -6 27
Czech Republic 2 6 -4 24
Denmark 10 0 10 1
Estonia 0 9 -9 32
Finland 7 0 7 5
France 1 0 1 17
Germany 2 0 2 15
Greece 0 5 -5 25
Hungry 1 9 -8 30
Iceland 9 0 9 2
Ireland 5 1 4 10
Israel 0 9 -9 31
Italy 1 3 -2 21
Japan 5 2 3 12
Korea 2 5 -3 22
Luxemberg 5 2 3 12
Mexico 1 11 -10 33
Netherlands 8 0 8 3
New Zealand 6 0 6 9
Norway 7 0 7 5
Poland 0 7 -7 29
Portugal 0 5 -5 25
Slovak Republic 2 8 -6 27
Slovenia 2 1 1 17
Spain 2 2 0 20
Sweden 7 0 7 5
Switzerland 8 1 7 5
Turkey 1 14 -13 34
United Kingdom 3 1 2 15
United States 2 5 -3 22
Source: Compilation from OECD Social Indicators in Society at a Glance 2011
There are many highlights in this information, but the most worrying from the US’s perspective is that it comes 22 out of 34, behind such advanced economies as Italy, Spain, Slovenia and equal with Korea. To be fair, it is likely that many of the European countries have gone backwards since the GFC and the Euro crisis(s), but so will have the US. It is likely that countries such as Korea and Israel will have gone ahead of the US since then given neither was greatly affected by either the GFC nor the Euro crisis. This probably puts the US about 25th, a disgrace given it is the wealthiest country on earth, and is the most advanced technologically, militarily, and academically.
2. US Obsession with Religion:
If you look at the measures outlined above, many of the social indicators where the US scores badly is what could broadly be called “social tolerance”. Much of this stems from the blind adherence to religious doctrines for much of the population, and much of its politics. The US is about the only country in advanced economies where it would be impossible for a non-believer to be elected to public office. Over 80% of the population goes to church on Sundays, where in the rest of the anglo world it is less than 10%. Even in the so called Catholic countries of Europe, such as Italy and Ireland, church attendances are less than 20%.
As a direct result of this social intolerance in the US, social measures are well below advanced countries norms. Take teenage pregnancies. With the exception of Russia (practices there are distorted by the championing of abortion as the preferred form of birth control under communism, and these practices continue today), the US has the worst record of teenage pregnancies in the OECD. Why? Primarily the opposition of the religious right, and the Catholic church to both birth control and comprehensive sex education in schools (see table below);
Birth, Abortion and Pregnancy Rates for Developed Countries Ages 15-19
Countries Births Abortions Pregnancies
Russian Federation 45.6 56.1 101.7
United States 54.4 29.2 83.6
New Zealand 34.0 20.0 54.0
England and Wales 28.4 18.6 47.0
Canada 24.2 21.2 45.4
Australia 19.8 23.8 43.6
Sweden 7.7 17.2 24.9
Denmark 8.3 14.4 22.7
Germany 12.5 3.6 16.1
Netherlands 8.2 4.0 12.2
Italy 6.9 5.1 12.0
Japan 3.9 6.3 10.2
*Note: pregnancies exclude miscarriages; data from mid-1990′s. SOURCE: The Alan Guttmacher Institute report on Teenage Sexuality and Reproductive Behavior in Developed Countries
Related to this, is the increasing trend in the US of children not been vaccinated for preventable diseases, mostly because of opposition from the religious right, who regard it as “ungodly”. The result, eminently preventable diseases such as hooping cough, measles and polio are on the rise there, when even in the developing world, partly as a result of the great work by that great American Bill Gates, and his Gates Foundation, rates are rapidly decreasing. In most of the developed world, these diseases are virtually eliminated by almost universal inoculations of the young.
3. The Paralysis of the American political system.
The US is not a Westminster style parliamentary democracy. Although difficult to believe in the current state of play, the US is not an adversarial system in the sense that Westminster democracies like Australia, the UK and Canada are. The way the US system has worked for 400 years is through compromise and consensus, with much of the power residing with the President. It depends on the legislature reaching compromises in order that the business of government gets done. Now, however, one side, The Republicans, have allowed their party to be high-jacked by extremists (the Tea Partyists), and not very bright ones at that, who regard compromise as a sin (a word used advisedly). Much of their ideology comes from the extreme right parties of Europe (Le Pen in France, the National Front in Britain, the successors to the Nazis in Germany, and One Nation in Australia). These parties generally are made up of disaffected working class voters, often extremely racist, and often under-educated. They carry with them an under-lying hatred of the way things are, and a frustration that they feel they are not getting their “fair share”. Usually, when prosperity continues these people remain in a small minority, but after the economic dislocation in Europe and the US in the last 5 years it has created an environment for extreme views to flourish, in much the same way that the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression was directly responsible for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. This time, however, the greatest victim is the US itself, where they have managed to successfully press the self destruct button.
Post the GFC, with the election of Barrack Obama, US society has managed to combine the ideology of extreme right Christian groups, with disaffected poor and ill-educated, which has been championed by extreme right billionaires like Rupert Murdoch with his heinous Fox News. For the first time, these people have got a platform, and amazingly are being taken seriously by a major political party. Previously unimaginable lunacies like: never increasing taxes; like dismantling the federal government; like undoing Rowe vs Wade abortion laws; like undoing the historic separation of Church and State; like making science, rather than be the solution to many of their problems, be its cause; and like saying no to everything, however worthy, put up by the Democrats, and not pre-selecting republican candidates who dare to seek a solution to this mess.
The result of all this is that the US has almost become ungovernable. No matter how competent the individual is in the White House, and how much his/her heart is in the right place, there seems to be no way by which will emerge a means to bring in the desperately needed reforms which will reverse the poor social outcomes listed above, and restore the United States reputation, previously assumed by the rest of the world, as being the beacon for progressive thinking, social innovation, and sound economic management.
4. The mad US health system
Nothing exemplifies the parlous state of American politics and economics as much as the US health system. The US spend almost twice as much as equivalent economies in the OECD as a proportion of GDP, yet they achieve substantially worse health outcomes. Currently they rank about 15th in the table of health indocators in the OECD. Nothing illustrates the parlous state of debate in the US as the political intransigence about Health Care, and nothing is so clear-cut in its dis-function. Yet nothing also creates such heat amongst the tea partiers.
It is indeed a sick society.
Filed under: American Politics, Economics, Politics, Barrack Obama, OECD Social Measures, timid US policy, United States, US Congress, US Health System
mikes2014
