Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Government Assistance and Protection: Here and There

The United States was the most wasteful society that ever existed, and for a long, long time, it remained militantly so. Nobody could tell Americans anything, because if anyone dared criticize any aspects of the society, the response would be flaunting the enormous and unprecedented power and wealth that the young nation had produced. The message between the lines was clear: we're better than you, so sit down, take some notes, and learn from us.
That is a privilege that Americans got a little too used to, and which they now have to adapt to having lost. No longer is the country the young and vibrant place that it once was. Many other countries have more or less caught up with the individual wealth of Americans in terms of living conditions, and some have even moved past it. Australians have larger homes on average, and they have adequate healthcare for their people, as well as a month and a half worth of vacation time. It is seen as a sunny paradise and place that is filled with natural wonders and immense beauty, to boot, and is an enviable model for the rest of the world.
Australia's not quite neighbors, New Zealand, have also produced a decent standard of living for themselves. Yes, famously, this is a tiny country, and there are more sheep than people here. It is also a country that has been very blessed with tremendous natural beauty, attracting such epic movie franchises like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to film in their country for some amazing scenes in natural beauty that nowhere else in the world can perhaps compare to. It was the first country with a mixed economy to try what Americans often derisively label “socialized medicine”, and they have many government programs, like all other industrialized nations, that provide their citizens with significant benefits that assist them in their living conditions.
Canada does not have the sunny paradise image, but there is plenty of natural beauty that the country has in abundance, and the living standards are on average higher in recent years than they have been for their southern neighbors. Canadians have wealth, even tremendous wealth, in places, much like exists in the United States. But they do not have such extreme polarities between rich and poor. They do not have slums and broken down inner cities like their American counterparts. Canadian cities tend to be much cleaner and safer, and reflect a rich mosaic of cultural diversity. They also have adequate healthcare for all, despite imperfections in their system.
Scandinavian countries have reached the very highest standards of living in the world, and remained there perennially now for many years. These are countries that have, like Canada, also been blessed with incredible wild beauty and open spaces and, also like Canada, have surpassed Americans in terms of living standards. They also have a good healthcare system that covers everyone, and enjoy much more vacation time than Americans. There are government assistance programs that would surely shock and appall Americans, and the system of justice and prisons is a radical departure in their approach than what we Americans have seen.
These are smaller countries, but there might be a point about that which needs to be made: these Scandinavian countries, as well as Canada and Australia, do not have the same weight of high expectations and the burden of carrying the weight of their history like Americans do, and this has been freeing to them, I think. They have been willing and able to learn from the examples of other countries, and to benefit from this. They have been cast in the shadows often times. Australia is half a world away from almost everybody else in the world, of course. Canada is overshadowed by their much larger, more powerful, and more famous neighbor, to the point that former Prime Minister Trudeau compared it to sleeping next to an elephant, where every little noise made by the larger neighbor grabs your attention, by necessity. Similarly, the Scandinavian countries are smaller, and often the forgotten part of Europe, in the shadow of the larger – and warmer – countries to the south. Yet, each of these nations have learned to make do on their own, and quietly have raised their living standards to such an extent that they have become the envy of other nations – including those much larger nations. Maybe it helps that they do not carry the same arrogance of the larger nations, who have histories and traditions that they feel attached to, and feel the need to continue along. Even when it perhaps does not serve in their best interests anymore.
Other countries have certain advantages over the United States as well, and much of it has to do with the dreaded government assistance programs that Americans have such an irrational phobia about. I already mentioned that Australia has six weeks vacation, but so do Germans. France has five weeks vacation, and the French also enjoy affordable childcare, as well as a healthcare system that goes far towards meeting the needs of it's citizens in a timely and affordable manner. Great Britain also has an affordable healthcare system for it's citizens, with strong price control measures that keep medicine and treatment at affordable rates for it's citizens. In fact, healthcare is pretty universally viewed as a right, not a privilege for those who can afford it, in almost every industrialized country – with one notable exception. That would be right here in the United States. I wrote a rather impassioned blog entry about that very topic called “The Criminalization of Affordable Healthcare in America” (April 6, 2012), because providing your citizens affordable healthcare has long been viewed by me as the truest measuring stick of how generous a country you are. Say what you want to disagree with me if you will, but the fact that the United States has simply failed to provide that for it's citizens, I think, speaks volumes about the way it treats those who are less fortunate. For a country that is often viewed as very religious, this contradiction is hard for me to swallow, and I say that as an American.
But it is not just restricted to healthcare. In other countries, they have higher minimum wages, more vacation time, more affordable options for childcare and education assistance, not to mention a higher quality of education. This is because these are higher priorities in those nations, and they recognize the necessity of providing that for their citizens. Governments are seen, rightly, as representatives of the people, and they do a bit more than we do here to provide assistance for their people. Even in private enterprise, their seems to be a focus on friendlier accessibility to things for the common folk, such as good public transportation, like they have in Europe and Japan. They protect their citizens against pollution and environmental degradation far more than Americans tend to, because they do not equate government prevention of corporate irresponsibility and reckless plundering of resources as somehow limiting “freedom”. What kind of “freedom” is that, in any case? How much “freedom” did the people of Love Canal or Rocky Flats, or Times Beach have? Famously, in Hinkley, California,the residents there were powerless to fight the criminal actions of a powerful local company before Erin Brockovich met with her incredible success in forcing corporate PSE&G to stop hiding behind their well-funded legal team and to take ownership of their irresponsible actions and provide some compensation for those affected. That was made into a feel good movie, of course, which really just illustrates how rare a triumph that was. In fact, things like that seem to be happening all of the time, yet rarely does it end on such a bright and positive note, with Julia Roberts in the starring role. I used to work for a few days at a site that was affected like that. It was Pepe Field in Boonton, and Drew Chemicals had generously provided this slot of land for the township, being praised for their generosity, until it was discovered that they had been illegally dumping chemicals there. Suddenly, there were concerns about health and cancer rates, and there were houses on stilts, much like you might see at a beach. Yet, even that seemed to have a happy ending, thanks largely to the EPA's Superfund activity there. But when Americans tak about blaoted government and wasteful spending, many would not hesitate to view these things as perfect examples. That is a dangerous road we are traveling, if we continue down that path.
I am not saying that government is the cure all, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I think I tend to be more skeptical of government than most, and feel that they are public servants, and are owed nothing. There should be strong and sharp public scrutiny of all government officials and agencies, and they should be held accountable for their actions in ways that they simply are not right at the moment. That is another discussion.
But governments are the common person's best tool to keep other strong institutions in heck, in a de facto system of checks and balances that allow people to live their own lives. Reagan famously cited government as being the problem, and it sounds great in speeches, and he is often quoted to the present day. However, he seemed a lot less critical of private and corporate irresponsibility, and in this day and age, we cannot afford to focus on the image and ideal words that Reagan represented, when the reality is that those very policies of weakening government that Reagan initiated have directly led to a lower standard of living for the American people. Much like with McCarthyism and Cold War extremity, we have to get over our phobias and look at the whole picture, or we will figuratively and, increasingly, literally be impoverished for our own blindness and arrogance. In fact, we already have been. 

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