I have visited the US most years out of the last 5-10, including a trip through 25ish US states a couple of years ago. It's easy to get the impression that competing interests maintain a problematic or worsening status quo - infrastructure that has to be OK until it collapses because no one wants to prioritise the money to fix it (many roads in California are shocking). A voting system (as mentioned by @kristofferR) that makes it difficult for a viable third party to emerge. Health, education, private prison industries, etc.
There are parts of the United States that feel like they are struggling to survive - including areas that are quite eye-opening like Bombay Beach and Wonder Valley.
In Australia, we see lobbying groups dictate terms increasingly often too and I don't know that our country is better for it.
Bombay Beach? Wonder Valley? I had to look both of those places up, and both are places with tiny populations. Can you help me understand why I should be thinking about places like those and not, say, Youngstown Ohio?
I don't know about Bombay Beach but I was just in Wonder Valley in January and that town is a unique place with a self-selecting population that values isolation.
There are larger towns and cities in the U.S. which more accurately depict the broader economic challenges the country is facing.
I'm thinking MIT economists haven't lived in a third world. (I was born in one) The U.S is not even remotely close to being a third-world or will be one anytime soon.
I've seen places in Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia that looked every bit as third world as rural Philippines/Vietnam.
What the US lacks is urban poverty in the form of shantytowns. This is because unlike most third world nations, we quickly raze them when and find excuses to incarcerate the people who live there. If we were more permissive, we'd certainly have them too.
Read the article. The title is click-bait, but the actual claim is that the social and economic structure has changed in such a way that, increasingly, it fits economic models reserved so far for third-world countries. ("dual economy", power imbalance, etc.)
That's a more nuanced but imo not less worrying claim.
Being born in a third world country probably blinds one to some issues though, as they don't have a historical basis within the US for comparison -- they only compare with their own country.
Of course the US wont be a "third world country" anytime soon. But it can regress closer to one than it was before.
That said, there are places in Mississippi, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, the Appalachia, etc. that are not that better of (if at all) than some developing nations.
I remember my first trip to the Philippines back in 2003. I saw these little children about the age of 5 wandering around at night trying to sell these little flowers. I ended up giving them some food instead of money as any money would be taken from them.
Again on a recent trip this year, I met two young children that were selling shells on an island near the food market. They should have been in school, but they were not. There has been an effort by the government to get all children in larger cities to attend school. The rural areas still have plenty of children who never see a classroom.
I think the US is very far from developing countries. Yes I have seen some extreme poverty in the mountains of West Virginia, but nothing like the Philippines.
I've ridden with a Mexican friend through the poorer parts of my Mississippi hometown, and he said, "Wow, this looks just like Mexico. . . The cars are a little nicer, though."
No, but this is a certainly hallmark of unstable governments. The big difference between Mexico and Canada is a strong middle class. Happy people who can feed their families and educate their children tend to stay quiet and go about their lives without stirring the pot. Once you've completely lost faith in government, why not look the other way when a drug cartel sets up shop in your town?
Trump's election slogan was "Make America Great Again" implying that USA is at the bottom and we need him to bring it up. But then so was the campaign of Hillary or Bernie or any one else (Perhaps except Garry Johnson).
I think this is a standard trick employed by elites. That to make a very serious claim that paints USA in a bad light and then propose themselves as the "problem solver".
> The antidote, as prescribed by Temin, is likely a tough sell in today’s political climate. Expanding education, updating infrastructure, forgiving mortgage and student loan debt, and overall working to boost social mobility for all Americans are bound to be seen as too liberal by many policy makers.
At the risk of being down-voted I think the MIT economist is playing political games here. In the absence of stronger contrary evidence I would simply call him a shill.
Has any one actually read this book, and can confirm how substantive it is?
You see a post with a title like, "Study by MIT Economist: U.S. Has Regressed to a Third-World Nation for Most", and you naively assume that the link will take you to... a study. By an MIT Economist. With actual data, about how the average or mean American has recently crossed some number of economic metric thresholds.
Instead, it's a book review. Really just a collection of mushy factoids (e.g. social mobility is lower today than it was just after WWII)... and political talking points worthy of a Facebook or Reddit comment (e.g. rich people are awful, and putting criminals in jail is racist).
Is the actual book a bit more data-oriented, or is the whole thing just ideological comfort food?
I don't buy it. The last election saw relatively wealthy cities voting to increase taxes, increase equity, and make life better for the poor. And rural areas voting the opposite way with national identity, lower taxes, and lower community spending being their important things.
This is very different from third world nations where the middle class wants lower taxes and the poor vote for more spending but don't succeed.
Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system?
The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness. [1] [2]
Since the American system forces people into two camps/parties based on ideology instead of the delivered results, the results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced.
This is a bit of a hobby horse of mine, but the reason is the number of elected representatives has not kept pace with the population growth. When the USA was founded there were about 20,000 electors per representatives and now in some seats there are over a million.
If you want representation you need to be able to meet and talk to your rep - more importantly they need to be able to acquire your vote without the need for advertising. Remove the need for advertising and you remove the need for money and the corruption that flows.
> Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system?
Almost certainly. The US was doing fine for most of the 20th century.
Globalism is what has brought wages down. Globalism combines the economies of the richest countries with the economies of the poorest in an attempt to "help" poor countries. As rich countries and poor countries combine economies, they move toward economic-equilibrium, which means the people from the poor country get brought out of poverty at the expense of the people in the rich countries. This is fine for the "1%" on the coasts of the united states, but if you're part of rural America you're getting hit very hard by globalism.
The constitution we have now isn't the first version. It was created with the ability to be changed with the process of amendments. We have 27 of them so far. More could be added to change the voting system or whatever else, if there was political will to do so; but currently there isn't.
(And this is ignoring the idea of the judiciary reading into the constitution new rights that weren't there to begin with.)
I think most of the division in US politics comes from the way representatives are influenced. By co-locating them all in Washington we enable destructive lobbying while keeping them away from the people they are supposed to represent. The party system is also destructive - I advocate against any legal recognition of political parties and against campaign ads funded by anyone outside the state a person is running in. These issues will not be addressed by the people in power though because they are part of the structures that need to be eliminated.
- First past the post. Such systems tend to favour fewer parties. The UK (also FPTP) barely has more than two parties. In most of continental western europe, there's considerably more, due to proportional representation. On the continent you end up having a bunch of different opinions, and you don't have to squish every issue onto a liberal/conservative axis. For instance you get socially conservative big state parties. Or socially liberal big state parties. Or socially liberal small state. And there's other axes too.
- A separate executive. In the UK even though they have FPTP, they have a government formed by the leader of one of the parties, and they "whip" the MPs to vote according to the party line, subject to various forms of sanction depending on how important an issue is. In the US, you choose two legislatures and a separate president. If they're not in agreement, it de facto entrenches the existing status quo by making it hard to change the law.
"results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced"
exactly. The most disconcerting part about the state of American politics is the focus on a predecided ideology of the other party being wrong.
proving the other party wrong is apparently worth everyone suffering over.
When each party is increasingly controlled by less people, then we now have a country where 300million people are willing to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of their party, with the ruling groups of each party having the interests of neither in mind.
Now youve just created an ideology of sacrificial progress in the name of a party.
There is more loyalty in this country to ones party than there is to the country and the progress of the country. The emotions and irrationality of attachment, and continual degredation of the other party just to be in the right, approaches religion.
The only thing more demoralizing than this is the fact that this conversation is continually broadcast on two news stations each owned by billionaires, who curate the "news" themselves. The biggest progress I've seen in news lately is Bill Oreily being fired for 11 pending and accumulating harrassment lawsuits. Must be nice to get paid $75million to be fired. True journalism shines through again.
There's nothing in the Constitution about political parties, two or otherwise. In fact, the initial idea at the time was that the US wasn't going to have political parties and that voters would focus on individuals instead.
> while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness.
Disagreement is a human condition, not a democratic one. Democracy is just a way to let some ideas win some of the time.
There isn't a system in the world that's freed people from disagreement. Humans like disagreement. We want to be creative, original, and unique at times. That requires setting your own path.
Not a US citizen, but my understanding is that the two-party system is not mandated by the constitution, or even encouraged. It's something that developed on top of it, as a consequence of some bad rules (first-past-the-post as you say) but also other factors (campaign financing)
Because the beneficiaries of the system get to make the rules, there is also a push to change regulations more and more to favor the two-party system.
There are other parties (e.g. greens) it just doesn't make any practical sense to vote for them.
I agree that first past the post is stupid, but the strong divide between Repulicans and Democrats seems to be fairly recent.[1] They used to vote less along party lines. So maybe the rise of mass media is to blame?
It's capitalism continuing to return to its "normal" after the exceptional post-WWII era where strong unions, social democracy, and the threat of the USSR forced generous accomodations for the working class at home while a large stable and rapidly developing economic sphere ensured a few decades of prosperity.
But an abnormal period, and we are now returning to the normality of capitalism described by critics like Marx or Dickens over 100 years ago.
The distinction between "developing" and "developed" is a dubious distinction anyways especially now. "Developing" implies that liberal capitalism has a linear narrative towards something (presumably something that looks like "the west"). There's a lot of hubris in that statement, and I don't think it is supported by any evidence.
How long until we see favelas in the US? Low income areas completely devoid of economic opportunity, more or less ceded by local municipalities, with lawless informal economies and virtually no basic city services? Or do we already have them by another name?
Visit West Baltimore. It isn't a favela in the sense of either density or construction but in terms of missing economic opportunity, informal economy, very weak city services.
The facts are piling up to support this view. However I don't see it as mere regression, insofar as time doesn't flow backwards, and it is still quite unfair to developing countries to say their condition is 'as good' as that of even lower-class US citizens.
It looks more to me, as I had somewhat theorized a decade ago, as the emergence of a 'new medieval age' politically and economically. The US being one of the most advanced countries on earth, it seems quite logical that they would pave the way forward towards new social orders in this century. Sadly not a desirable change, but history is made of ups and downs in quality of life.
Middle class people in developing countries, e.g. Small business owners, have much better quality of life than the lower class US. Much more likely to have emotional healthy families, low cost of living allow high rate of savings, can afford electronics and broadband internet, support family of 3-5 kids with good enough tertiary education, and maybe even a car. Compare that to some of the places in the US riddled with drug addictions...
The difference being, here we don't let the commoners engage in bribery, it is only reserved for the higher levels, and even then measures are taken to conceal the nature of the transactions. In many developing countries, everyone gives and receives bribes for many things. It is acceptable (and there are limits). I think it's healthy, if the system is corrupt, everyone should be able to exploit its corruption.
While I don't think the US is, de jure, a third-world country, I completely believe that it is, de facto, for many. I am on my way back from Memphis and onto Detroit, and both of these cities and their home states have plenty of areas that look unbelievably impoverished. Based on what I've seen from my years of traveling the country, it would not surprise me if most of the country had this problem. It's really sad.
Is this just happening in the US or is it also happening across many other "Western/European" nations? I wonder if it is isolated or widespread in part because there will be some equalization as other developing nations rise -- like China and India.
I definitely support paying more taxes to improve the infrastructure/rural areas of the country, but I also start to think that maybe the country is just too big.
Are there any countries that are nearly this large that have a consistent quality of infrastructure for everyone? I live in a large city and it seems that even we have trouble maintaining up our roads/bridges/grid/telecom systems and we pay a lot of state taxes comparatively — I can't imagine how a much larger, less dense, less wealthy area filled with people staunchly against taxes could even begin to keep up.
It's amusing there is so much misinformation on rural America on HN. You'd think it was mostly 3rd world by reading most of the comments on this post. I come from ND, which is an extremely sparsely populated state. However, don't let the rural nature fool you - per capita tax revenue was one of the highest in the nation. It's filled with rich farmers making more than many engineers here on HN. Most of the income comes from Oil & Farming but that excess money is being invested in developing a growing technology scene.
I regularly visit CA/SF as I have clients there. It's a beautiful place, but many things about living in ND are much more attractive.
Canada is bigger and with just 30 million people and the infrastructure is good. I live in a small city of 30k and sometimes I'm surprised how deteriorated the infrastructure is in big cities like Montreal (I also lived there for some years).
The Republican philosophy means rapidly shrinking public services. These area already have super low taxes and the conservatives who moved there don't want to pay anything that might benefit someone who isn't them. Such is the price to pay when selfishness is the primary political philosophy.
Yes, it would be great if we could sub divide the large country into smaller areas, and give each of those areas control over most of the roads / bridges / etc.
If spending and benefits are primarily local, shouldn't the decisions be as well?
[+] [-] prawn|8 years ago|reply
I have visited the US most years out of the last 5-10, including a trip through 25ish US states a couple of years ago. It's easy to get the impression that competing interests maintain a problematic or worsening status quo - infrastructure that has to be OK until it collapses because no one wants to prioritise the money to fix it (many roads in California are shocking). A voting system (as mentioned by @kristofferR) that makes it difficult for a viable third party to emerge. Health, education, private prison industries, etc.
There are parts of the United States that feel like they are struggling to survive - including areas that are quite eye-opening like Bombay Beach and Wonder Valley.
In Australia, we see lobbying groups dictate terms increasingly often too and I don't know that our country is better for it.
[+] [-] tptacek|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexandersingh|8 years ago|reply
There are larger towns and cities in the U.S. which more accurately depict the broader economic challenges the country is facing.
[+] [-] nirav72|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CuriouslyC|8 years ago|reply
What the US lacks is urban poverty in the form of shantytowns. This is because unlike most third world nations, we quickly raze them when and find excuses to incarcerate the people who live there. If we were more permissive, we'd certainly have them too.
[+] [-] xg15|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
Of course the US wont be a "third world country" anytime soon. But it can regress closer to one than it was before.
That said, there are places in Mississippi, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, the Appalachia, etc. that are not that better of (if at all) than some developing nations.
[+] [-] tmaly|8 years ago|reply
Again on a recent trip this year, I met two young children that were selling shells on an island near the food market. They should have been in school, but they were not. There has been an effort by the government to get all children in larger cities to attend school. The rural areas still have plenty of children who never see a classroom.
I think the US is very far from developing countries. Yes I have seen some extreme poverty in the mountains of West Virginia, but nothing like the Philippines.
[+] [-] celticninja|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mr_overalls|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davewritescode|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] subterfudge44|8 years ago|reply
I think this is a standard trick employed by elites. That to make a very serious claim that paints USA in a bad light and then propose themselves as the "problem solver".
> The antidote, as prescribed by Temin, is likely a tough sell in today’s political climate. Expanding education, updating infrastructure, forgiving mortgage and student loan debt, and overall working to boost social mobility for all Americans are bound to be seen as too liberal by many policy makers.
At the risk of being down-voted I think the MIT economist is playing political games here. In the absence of stronger contrary evidence I would simply call him a shill.
[+] [-] StevePerkins|8 years ago|reply
You see a post with a title like, "Study by MIT Economist: U.S. Has Regressed to a Third-World Nation for Most", and you naively assume that the link will take you to... a study. By an MIT Economist. With actual data, about how the average or mean American has recently crossed some number of economic metric thresholds.
Instead, it's a book review. Really just a collection of mushy factoids (e.g. social mobility is lower today than it was just after WWII)... and political talking points worthy of a Facebook or Reddit comment (e.g. rich people are awful, and putting criminals in jail is racist).
Is the actual book a bit more data-oriented, or is the whole thing just ideological comfort food?
[+] [-] arjie|8 years ago|reply
This is very different from third world nations where the middle class wants lower taxes and the poor vote for more spending but don't succeed.
[+] [-] kristofferR|8 years ago|reply
The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness. [1] [2]
Since the American system forces people into two camps/parties based on ideology instead of the delivered results, the results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
[+] [-] danieltillett|8 years ago|reply
If you want representation you need to be able to meet and talk to your rep - more importantly they need to be able to acquire your vote without the need for advertising. Remove the need for advertising and you remove the need for money and the corruption that flows.
[+] [-] 324343245|8 years ago|reply
Almost certainly. The US was doing fine for most of the 20th century.
Globalism is what has brought wages down. Globalism combines the economies of the richest countries with the economies of the poorest in an attempt to "help" poor countries. As rich countries and poor countries combine economies, they move toward economic-equilibrium, which means the people from the poor country get brought out of poverty at the expense of the people in the rich countries. This is fine for the "1%" on the coasts of the united states, but if you're part of rural America you're getting hit very hard by globalism.
[+] [-] jasonlfunk|8 years ago|reply
(And this is ignoring the idea of the judiciary reading into the constitution new rights that weren't there to begin with.)
[+] [-] phkahler|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|8 years ago|reply
The US has an interesting constitution:
- First past the post. Such systems tend to favour fewer parties. The UK (also FPTP) barely has more than two parties. In most of continental western europe, there's considerably more, due to proportional representation. On the continent you end up having a bunch of different opinions, and you don't have to squish every issue onto a liberal/conservative axis. For instance you get socially conservative big state parties. Or socially liberal big state parties. Or socially liberal small state. And there's other axes too.
- A separate executive. In the UK even though they have FPTP, they have a government formed by the leader of one of the parties, and they "whip" the MPs to vote according to the party line, subject to various forms of sanction depending on how important an issue is. In the US, you choose two legislatures and a separate president. If they're not in agreement, it de facto entrenches the existing status quo by making it hard to change the law.
[+] [-] usmeteora|8 years ago|reply
exactly. The most disconcerting part about the state of American politics is the focus on a predecided ideology of the other party being wrong.
proving the other party wrong is apparently worth everyone suffering over.
When each party is increasingly controlled by less people, then we now have a country where 300million people are willing to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of their party, with the ruling groups of each party having the interests of neither in mind.
Now youve just created an ideology of sacrificial progress in the name of a party.
There is more loyalty in this country to ones party than there is to the country and the progress of the country. The emotions and irrationality of attachment, and continual degredation of the other party just to be in the right, approaches religion.
The only thing more demoralizing than this is the fact that this conversation is continually broadcast on two news stations each owned by billionaires, who curate the "news" themselves. The biggest progress I've seen in news lately is Bill Oreily being fired for 11 pending and accumulating harrassment lawsuits. Must be nice to get paid $75million to be fired. True journalism shines through again.
It's extremely....disconcerting.
[+] [-] jhbadger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unityByFreedom|8 years ago|reply
Disagreement is a human condition, not a democratic one. Democracy is just a way to let some ideas win some of the time.
There isn't a system in the world that's freed people from disagreement. Humans like disagreement. We want to be creative, original, and unique at times. That requires setting your own path.
[+] [-] xg15|8 years ago|reply
Because the beneficiaries of the system get to make the rules, there is also a push to change regulations more and more to favor the two-party system.
There are other parties (e.g. greens) it just doesn't make any practical sense to vote for them.
[+] [-] adrianN|8 years ago|reply
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|8 years ago|reply
But an abnormal period, and we are now returning to the normality of capitalism described by critics like Marx or Dickens over 100 years ago.
The distinction between "developing" and "developed" is a dubious distinction anyways especially now. "Developing" implies that liberal capitalism has a linear narrative towards something (presumably something that looks like "the west"). There's a lot of hubris in that statement, and I don't think it is supported by any evidence.
[+] [-] fiatpandas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] realo|8 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan
[+] [-] dpierce9|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlebrech|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] K0SM0S|8 years ago|reply
It looks more to me, as I had somewhat theorized a decade ago, as the emergence of a 'new medieval age' politically and economically. The US being one of the most advanced countries on earth, it seems quite logical that they would pave the way forward towards new social orders in this century. Sadly not a desirable change, but history is made of ups and downs in quality of life.
[+] [-] meric|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jefe_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nunez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Paradigma11|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scott_s|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhouston|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yodsanklai|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ENTP|8 years ago|reply
Everything just goes that way my friend,
Every king knows it to be true,
That every kingdom must one day come to an end,
[+] [-] justforFranz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] accountyaccount|8 years ago|reply
Are there any countries that are nearly this large that have a consistent quality of infrastructure for everyone? I live in a large city and it seems that even we have trouble maintaining up our roads/bridges/grid/telecom systems and we pay a lot of state taxes comparatively — I can't imagine how a much larger, less dense, less wealthy area filled with people staunchly against taxes could even begin to keep up.
[+] [-] nightski|8 years ago|reply
I regularly visit CA/SF as I have clients there. It's a beautiful place, but many things about living in ND are much more attractive.
[+] [-] earlyriser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevin_b_er|8 years ago|reply
The Republican philosophy means rapidly shrinking public services. These area already have super low taxes and the conservatives who moved there don't want to pay anything that might benefit someone who isn't them. Such is the price to pay when selfishness is the primary political philosophy.
[+] [-] tuna-piano|8 years ago|reply
If spending and benefits are primarily local, shouldn't the decisions be as well?
[+] [-] bobbington|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] esteves_|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jlebrech|8 years ago|reply