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MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

theintellectualist.co

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Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#31

Post by vorotato »

kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

Ah but you're assuming that the problem is not enough wealth when actually America is incredibly wealthy. The problem isn't the democratic system, it's income inequality.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#32

Post by xg15 »

nirav72 wrote: post #6

I'm thinking MIT economists haven't lived in a third world. (I was born in one) The U.S is not even remotely close to being a third-world or will be one anytime soon.

Read the article. The title is click-bait, but the actual claim is that the social and economic structure has changed in such a way that, increasingly, it fits economic models reserved so far for third-world countries. ("dual economy", power imbalance, etc.) That's a more nuanced but imo not less worrying claim.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#33

Post by vacri »

kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

> The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution

The US is not the first democracy or democracy-style entity. The US constitution was certainly something interesting and with new stuff for its day, but democracies had been around in various forms for a while. But yes, a large part of the problem in US politics is the inevitable two-parties, which engenders a 'with us or against us' mindset. I wouldn't lay the blame for 'most of the problems' on that, but it seems to be significant.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#34

Post by jhbadger »

kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

There's nothing in the Constitution about political parties, two or otherwise. In fact, the initial idea at the time was that the US wasn't going to have political parties and that voters would focus on individuals instead.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#35

Post by yorwba »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #12
kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

> while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness. Disagreement is a human condition, not a democratic one. Democracy is just a way to let some ideas win some of the time. There isn't a system in the world that's freed pe…

Disagreement != divisiveness.

E.g. I disagree with you on that point, but I'm not using my hypothetical army of sock puppets to downvote every single of your comments into oblivion from now to eternity. Sometimes, US politics feels more like the latter.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#36

Post by StevePerkins »

Has any one actually read this book, and can confirm how substantive it is?

You see a post with a title like, "Study by MIT Economist: U.S. Has Regressed to a Third-World Nation for Most", and you naively assume that the link will take you to... a study. By an MIT Economist. With actual data, about how the average or mean American has recently crossed some number of economic metric thresholds.

Instead, it's a book review. Really just a collection of mushy factoids (e.g. social mobility is lower today than it was just after WWII)... and political talking points worthy of a Facebook or Reddit comment (e.g. rich people are awful, and putting criminals in jail is racist).

Is the actual book a bit more data-oriented, or is the whole thing just ideological comfort food?

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#37

Post by mxtt »

324343245 wrote: post #21
nunez wrote: post #4

While I don't think the US is, de jure, a third-world country, I completely believe that it is, de facto, for many. I am on my way back from Memphis and onto Detroit, and both of these cities and their home states have plenty of areas that look unbelievably impoverished. Based on what I've seen from my years of traveling the country, it would not surprise me if most of the country had this problem. It's really sad.

What countries don't have any impoverished neighborhoods?

https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-slums-in-Switzerland

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#38

Post by prawn »

Another story about the same person and topic that I found insightful: "America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People" - https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-r...

I have visited the US most years out of the last 5-10, including a trip through 25ish US states a couple of years ago. It's easy to get the impression that competing interests maintain a problematic or worsening status quo - infrastructure that has to be OK until it collapses because no one wants to prioritise the money to fix it (many roads in California are shocking). A voting system (as mentioned by @kristofferR) that makes it difficult for a viable third party to emerge. Health, education, private prison industries, etc.

There are parts of the United States that feel like they are struggling to survive - including areas that are quite eye-opening like Bombay Beach and Wonder Valley.

In Australia, we see lobbying groups dictate terms increasingly often too and I don't know that our country is better for it.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#39

Post by ptaipale »

jameshart wrote: post #30
324343245 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? Almost certainly. The US was doing fine for most of the 20th century. Globalism is what has brought wages down. Globalism combines the economies of the richest countries with the economies of the poorest in an attempt to "help" poor countries. As rich countries and poor countries combine economies, they mo…

The idea that globalism is an attempt to 'help' poor countries needs evidence to support it - I think there are plenty of ways in which globalism has benefitted wealthy countries at the expense of poor ones. In fact, the idea that globalism is 'an attempt' to do something, i.e. a conscious agenda to change the world, rather than just something which just emerged out of commercial activity, also seems a bit of a leap.

I think that we can once again be reminded that there is only one thing that is worse for poor nations than being exploited by global capitalism.

It's that poor nations are not exploited by global capitalism.

Then you can look up TED talks by Hans Rosling, and the follow-up reports for UN millennium development goals.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#40

Post by xg15 »

H4CK3RM4N wrote: post #24
kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

I feel like this is a more general symptom of attempting to apply a democracy where every citizen's is valued equally in a very large population. At some point, it's simply impossible to have a whole population which is both properly educated and able to voice it's opinion. This line of reasoning is a large part of the reason that Rousseau suggested that societies would be best served by an educated aristocracy[1]. A…

> societies would be best served by an educated aristocracy

And what goals and principles would that aristorcracy govern by? Who is deciding about the goals and who makes sure they are actually enacted?

What if said leaders decide that, in order to combat overpopulation, parts of the "surplus class" need to be removed?

The reason many people migrated to the US centuries ago was to get away from aristorcracy. So how do you avoid repeating the problems?

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