The First World World

If all countries were like America, with massive use of technology, industrialization, health care, government, transportation, education, and all other aspects of a first world country, what would happen?  What would go wrong?  How long could such a world sustain itself before resulting in chaos, overpopulation, war, famine, pestilence, and all kinds of destruction of the environment?

In a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004, President Bush referred to the United States as "the greatest country in the world". Certainly this is a sentiment that many Americans share, but what kind of objective basis is there behind the statement? It’s time to take a closer look. Do we make the pronouncement because we are the wealthiest nation in the world? Based on Gross Domestic Product per capita, in 2003 we were not first but fourth. Luxembourg at $43,940 was considerably ahead of the US ($36,000) by a 17% margin. Norway and Switzerland were in between. Most of us believe we have the highest standard of living in the world. But according to the UN Human Development Report of 2004, their list of the world’s most livable countries show the US in eighth place, four places behind Canada, and trailing Norway and Sweden in first and second place.

Is our judgment based on the belief that the US is a paragon of democracy and freedom in the world? In 2003, World Audit, an international non-profit organization, computed the relative level of democracy of 149 countries with population greater than one million. Analyzing data from a number of human rights organizations, they developed a formula that factored in levels of personal, political and press freedoms, as well as human rights. The results? On the list of top ten, the US was last, just behind Canada, and with all three Scandinavian countries leading.

Has our perception been that our democracy means equal rights for all? Economically, the case is hard to make. In the US, over the past thirty years, wealth inequality has nearly doubled. At present, 20 percent of the people control 80 percent of the wealth, and of all the major industrialized nations, we are the most unequal. According to the World Bank’s World Development Index of 2002, the US doesn’t even appear in the top thirty of greatest equality, which includes the three Scandinavian countries and Japan in the top ten.

Worldwide, the proportion of income for the wealthiest one-fifth of the earth’s population compared to the poorest one-fifth dropped from 30 to 1 in 1960, to 59 to 1 in 1989, according to the UN Development Program. This trend has not only continued since then, but is also reflected nationally. The middle class is shrinking. Fact Check confirmed this, and that the lower class is growing as a result.