The USA is the richest country on earth, with 24% of GDP, 32% of investable wealth with a population of just over 4% of the worlds. By most metrics that measure health & wellbeing, it's far behind other developed countries. Extreme individualism reigns, the concept of any collective responsibility is gone, sacrificed for more profits for the corporations.
Maybe one should ask how the USA became the richest country on earth? It just might have to do with freedom, self reliance, individualism and many other aspects of American culture and rights.
In the USA, you have the choice to become what you choose, it can be a drug addict homeless person or the CEO of one of those evil corporations you refer to. One can be an academic, a scholar, a blue collar worker or an engineer. It is the freedom of choice, individualism and personal responsibility that provides that path. It also promotes innovation and efficient use of not only personal capital but also societal capital because there is incentive.
As for those "evil" corporations out there, think about just where the world would be without corporations that produced products that innovated and changed the world. Regardless of your socialist views, corporations provided the needed environment for innovations, efficiency and people to advance civilization. Pooling capital to form corporations has advanced mankind in so many ways. Providing jobs to skilled labor, providing benefits for labor and making products that have changed the world. Look around you, where would the world be without industrial corporations building equipment that built roads, the electrical infrastructure, the buildings you live in. Everything modern in the world is a result of pooling capital, forming a corporation that solved a problem, which raised society as a whole.
Politics is owned by the rich, a true oligarchy has emerged. Some of you have done well from this, but you're a shrinking group, getting smaller, which should tell you something about where it's going. Your society is failing, economic inequity is rising as this current administration strips away what little safety net that's left, further weakening what little H&S or Labour rights that workers have.
If we continued down the socialist path, yes, the USA would continue to see the decline you describe. Socialism doesn't work. The USSR showed that collectives do not work and become non functional. Taking from those who produce to give to those who don't leads to no incentive for those who produce. Why should they? Those who don't produce get the same as those who do produce.
There isn't any incentive to better one's situation which is why socialism always will fail.
Spain isn't a worker's paradise, there are plenty of problems & inequality, but we have a concept of society that means the strong look after the weak, government & business exist to benefit everybody.
I think you have more problems than the USA by far and Spain's socialism will be it's downfall.
This means that people are ready to hold politicians to account, to take to the streets or go on strike. The worst criticism that I've heard from US conservatives is that this "socialism" has made us somehow "weak" or the debunked myth that somehow US spending on NATO funds or generous social programs. Strangely enough, when I ask for actual, verifiable data I'm repaid with insults.
You asked and I shall provide.
This comes from Google AI:
Defense Spending:
- Low Spending:
Spain has historically been among the lowest defense spenders within NATO, with its spending at 1.28% of GDP in 2024, well below the NATO target of 2%.
I guess Spain practices socialism when it comes to NATO, they expect others to pay the bill.
From this page.
Spain spent US$22.27 billion on defence in 2024, the 10th largest contribution in absolute terms among the 32 NATO allies, but in relative terms it was the lowest at 1.28% of GDP, according to preliminary figures (see Figure 1). The government disputes that figure but has yet to specify the real one. Sánchez promises to reach the alliance’s target of 2%, set in 2014, by 2029.
So, ask yourself how does Spain, with 1.5 of global GDP afford these programs ? Ordinary US citizens have been constantly told over the last 50 years that doing anything to help the working poor, let alone the unemployed, would make the entire economy weaker, ultimately to the detriment of everyone. The results are clear, working people are barely hanging on & it's about to get worse. The answer from Wall St & the right is that people are stupid & lazy, that there is plenty of opportunity.
Everyone in the USA has the same opportunities regardless of what you think. Some pull themselves up, others pull themselves down.
It is up to the individual. That is the price of freedom. Some make poor choices, others don't.
Meanwhile, those at the top have amassed vast wealth, beyond the wildest dreams of the Robber Barrons. So, how much more intelligent or hardworking is a billionaire than a millionaire ? or is something else happening?
Think of all the things you enjoy today as a result of "robber barons" . They had the capital to make things happen. Because they profited from having a vision and acting upon it makes them a totally evil person? Look at Edison, he profited immensely but what if he hadn't developed the light bulb? Or Henry Ford who streamlined the production process and had a vision to build a car his workers could afford?
Progress creates winners and losers. Some act upon their vision and ideas and they make things happen. They take risks, they could fail. But yet they persevered because they understood it comes down to the individual.
Those of you some years from retirement face the real possibility that there will be no Social Security or public healthcare once you retire.
If the government continued to waste money by filling the pockets of the grifters in politics, yes, it most definitely will be broke. Those grifters managed to get into a government job in some agency, had travel expenses to conferences paid by the taxpayer while they go ski in winter at taxpayer expense or enjoy great accommodations in the summer. Go look at Liz Cheney as an example. Her father made sure she got a government job and enjoyed the "connected" lifestyle off the US taxpayer. Then elected to Congress and grift some more.
Meanwhile, in Spain, pensioners enjoy subsidised holidays.
We shall see how that plays out in the future, won't we?
In the 2023-24 season there will be an increase in cultural destinations and nature routes, as well as rooms for individual use
www.surinenglish.com
There are many positive aspects of American society, my friends from the USA are generally open & friendly, willing to help, as are many on this site who give their time to complete strangers without judging or asking for anything in return. I have distant family in Boston & more recently in New York & it's a country I've always wanted to visit. Your contributions to culture, science, medicine and technology are immense. Not everyone can make it to the top & if they did, who would take out the rubbish, clean & serve food? What I find hard to accept is that not only do some of you blame those who are worse off than you, you seem to despise them ? Seeing the human condition in such simplistic, almost binary, terms strips away any context & reduces your society to a rat race, where instead of winners and losers, winner takes all.
No one is asking for a Mc Mansion on minimum wage, just enough to be able to live, not to be struggling constantly. If the richest society can't provide that, it's failed.
You are an outsider from a socialist leaning country looking in and attempting to judge the USA but have no idea what made the USA what it is.
I doubt you will ever understand it.
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