Written 4/10/2016. Here’s another post I never finished. I’m posting it as-is because it informs and might give someone something to think about. And, I finally get it out of my Drafts folder. (LSE is London School of Economics.)
I watched a YouTube video which featured, as speaker, BBC journalist Justin Webb. It was hosted by chairperson Kirsty Young and taped at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Justin spent 8 years in America, from 9/11 to the election of Barack Obama, as a journalist. From her remarks, Kirsty seems to have traveled throughout America as well. There was an audience who were there, apparently, to learn more about America. There was a discussion session in which Justin, prompted by questions from Kirsty, remarked on the various differences between America and England, and talked about some things that might surprise Europeans traveling to America. Their observations provide insights into America that we who live here often don’t see.
When Justin first went to America, his young son said to him, “America is rich, right? But it doesn’t look it.”
Kirsty added,
What a brilliant observer he is, because, of course, if you spend any amount of time in America at all, you find your cell phone communications don’t work, your cell goes down, the roads are filled with potholes, the ambulance will not take you away, there are all sorts of things about America that border on the third world just clinging on to the first world, in some respects, with its fingertips.
My comment: I’m sure Munich and Singapore and Beijing have gleaming new airports along with a lot of other shiny new infrastructure. Those things cost a lot of money. Americans could pay more taxes and build our own shiny new infrastructure. Or we could pay less taxes and keep the old infrastructure a while longer. We could put the money we would have paid in taxes into our own pockets.
America is a wealthy country, and I think tourists from other countries have an expectation that American highways, bus stations, train stations, and airports will be at least as modern as those that are in their own country. And there are places in America that are as good as any you’d find outside of America. But America also has plenty of places where people live in poverty.
Justin said,
Infant mortality is bad, especially considering how wealthy the country is. Those Americans who travel discover that their infrastructure is staggeringly bad. Americans are embarrassed when they travel to Munich or Singapore and see how other people have rebuilt and revivified their public spaces. There are pockets of extreme poverty. I just made a road trip through West Virginia. There are people there who live in trailers beside the road, pretty much eating road kill—it doesn’t quite come to that, but it’s a really rough existence—the awfulness of life in America if you’re poor. And the question is, does one lead to the other; does the fear of failure push the nation into being so staggeringly wealthy, and successful, and full of ideas, and buzziness? I think Americans themselves believe very strongly that part of the strength of their society is the poverty. They wouldn’t put it like that, but there is a sense that you can climb very high, and you can fall very low, and if you stop people falling very low, you stop people climbing very high, as well.
My comment: Americans believe in social mobility—the belief that one day things will work out for them and they will be on top, they’ll have the big house and the new car. It’s a great belief to have. Unfortunately, social mobility is becoming more difficult.
Wikipedia offers more information on social mobility in the US here.
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