Giving Up Something

THERE ARE MANY WAYS to measure wealth, and compare nations, one of them being mean per capita income; what is the income of the person above whom half of his coutnrymen live, and below which the other half live?

The mean income in the united states, it turns, out, is number twenty seven in the world; there are twenty six countries in which the mean income, expressed in U.S. dollars, is higher than in america.
But, remember, there are many ways to measure wealth.

IN terms of total national wealth, gross domestic product, the united states remains in first place, with china at number two, japan at number three, and germany number four. But the chinese are gaining, rapidly, and there is no way to stop them, short of nuclear annihilation. They will pass us.

Countries ahead of the united states in mean income include the usual wealthy suspects, the united arab emerates, monte carlo, etc, and the big industrial socialistic european countries. But there are some surprises on the list; spain and portugal, countries which we thought to be poorer than we.

IN terms of paer capita standard of living, which might seem a better measure of national wealth than mean income, the united states has never fared very well, barely eeking into the top twenty. There are just too many very poor people in america, the sheer number brings the average income down.

America's extremely wealthy do indeed have humongous incomes, but there simply aren't enough of them to compensate for the tens of millions of dirt poor people in america. Half of all stocks and bonds in america and twenty percent of all household wealth is owned by the top one percent.

The concentration of wealth has never been greater, anywhere, and is growing, rapidly, in america.
Deregulation in business and industry, stagnating wages for the workers for several decades, and the ripping up of the social safety net  together have made powerty a national epidemic.

Programs like head start, aid to dependant mothers, disability insurance, unemployment insurance have not created poverty, contrary to an often heard conservative fable. In america the masses of fully employed impoverished continue to grow, and it is inevtable that as this new class grows, it will become restless and, to some extent, organized.

For the poor to gang up on the wealthy and try to squeeze a little wealth out of them seems, on the surface, the most natural thing in the world. It would certainly be more in keeping with human nature and normal human behavior than failing to do so. Confiscation of resources by brute force is the usual mode of operation for homo sapiens, let's face it.

And it will come to that, if things get bad enough for enough people, and it doesn't seem so impossible nowadays. We can avoid self destruction only by cooperation, never by competition. Cooperation means some people, most people, have to give up something in compromise, and that won't be easy for americans in particular. The future is frightening.