From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: "American Ideals" (was: AMERICA IN DECLINE)
Date: 27 Jul 92 13:41:06 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Jul25.233846.10708@oakhill.sps.mot.com> pjm@anegada.sps.mot.com (Patrick J. McGuinness) writes:

>                          With the collapse of the USSR, the
>world is increasingly turning to the "western" powers, and to 
>America especially, to find the political and economic ideas that
>can make their societies develop and prosper.

  But that doens't necessarily mean it's sensible to do so.   The US
  has, by a wide margin, the highest rate of violent crime in the 
  world (source: Senate Juciciary Committee Report, March 13, 1991, 
  FBI stats).  We have much lower math and science test scores than a
  large number of our economic competitors, while at the same time
  spending  more money per pupil on education (source: 1991 ETS).
  We spend far more on a per-capita basis on health care than any
  nation in the world, while having higher infant mortality and 
  lower lifespans than many other major countries (source: 1987,
  1988, 1989 OECD stats).    We have an appalling rate of unwed 
  motherhood (25% overall, 60% among blacks, source: CDC, 1991) 
  We have a 7.8% and growing unemployment rate (generally considered
  to be an underestimate since it only counts those who show up at
  the Unemployment office) -- Business Week predicts it will exceed 
  8% before the election.   We are losing our innovative edge: 4 of
  the top 5 **US** patent grantees in 1991 were Japanese, Eastman
  Kodak was the only exception.  We have a homeless problem, a serious
  drug addiction problem, and a truly astounding level of personal
  and corporate debt (people sometimes overlook this when talking 
  about the government budget deficit -- US financial irresponsibility
  is not limited to politicians).   
  
>Twenty years ago, only a fraction (I would guess 15%) of the people
>in the world lived in democratic countries, and socialistic
>central planning was the modus operandi of most third world countries.

  That socialism collapsed is a bit of a straw man since anyone with
  half a brain could see that it was a failure from the beginning; 
  it was only supported by fanatics and maintained at the point of a
  gun.   Nor is it clear what is replacing it:  Are you willing to
  predict with confidence that the XSSR and eastern European nations
  will maintain their little democratic and capitalist experiments?
  I'm sure not.

  Also, while socialism collapsed, the social-democratic nations of
  western Europe such as Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, etc, all
  best the US in a number of important measures of social success
  and progress.   And more troubling, at least to individualists like
  myself is the rise of the Pacific Rim economies.  Singapore has the 
  the fastest growing economy in the world today and many other such
  nations are not far behind.  But their social philosophy is quite
  alien to the individualistic American one, which they regard to be
  a kind of quaint affectation. 

  
>In the next twenty years, most countries will embrace democracy and
>will develop market-oriented economies.   American ideals
>will increasingly become world-wide ideals. 

  See the above.  Our success in spreading our ideals will be a direct
  function of our success in *making our society work*.  It isn't enough
  just to point out that we outlasted the USSR; foreigners can read
  their papers or turn on their TVs and see the urban hell that once
  great US cities like New York or Detroit have become; they can see
  thousands of people lines up for a handful of jobs at new shopping
  malls, they can even see the decadance of US popular culture (I should 
  point out that I travel a great deal and I can assure you that our
  culture is no longer universally admired and emulated as it may have
  been a few decades ago).  Newly emerging democratic nations have a
  lot of models to choose from, not just the US one:  Western Europe,
  Japan, Singapore, and others

  So rather than breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back, we 
  should take a sober look at the serious problems that confront us.


---peter
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.invest