Support structures that allow folk to get back on their feet after adversity never developed in the US, leading to what you describe as the "societal bottom (being) essentially kicked away". — Banno

Actually I believe it was SLX who said that, but I definitely agree.

I've often mused that there's a major omission in the US Constitution - where it talks of 'the pursuit of happiness'. As 'money is human happiness in the abstract', this idea simply morphed into 'the pursuit of the holy dollar'. If only that phrase had been 'the pursuit of the common good'.

Whatever the detail, the fear of collectivism is pivotal to the USA rejecting universal health care, and symptomatic of the mythology of the individual - as the article you cite explains.

Actually I believe it was SLX who said that, but I definitely agree. — Wayfarer

My error.

I understand that it was originally going to read "the pursuit of property". Things could have been worse.

If only that phrase had been 'the pursuit of the common good' — Wayfarer

indeed.

A solution that I thought of many years ago goes like this: amend the U.S. Constitution to say that every congressional district must be drawn with at least one right angle. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle.

The myth of the self-suporting individual strikes me as a potent source for this; in a world were each man (!) looks out only for himself, any common, shared wealth is abhorrent. Support structures that allow folk to get back on their feet after adversity never developed in the US, leading to what you describe as the "societal bottom (being) essentially kicked away". — Banno

Twas me indeed! The history of the public support arm of the US government makes for inordinately depressing reading. Not only because - despite the recent rewriting of history - the upswell against it has only been a relatively recent 'invention' - dating specifically from around the time of Reagan - but because policy initiatives like the New Deal and the Great Society reforms were trending in the exact opposite direction! That is, there was nothing inevitable about the current US malaise, and it was brought about by consciously instigated policy choices set into motion by concrete historical actors. In fact, much of the discourse regarding the 'self-made individual' has been something of an after-the-fact ratiocination that was made to justify policy, rather than motivate it. It was, after all, politically expedient at time when the Evil of Communism - with all it's collectivist ways - could simply be diametrically set against the virtue of the individual. To blame it is again to mistake symptom for cause, although at this point in history, it has become a cause where it was once myth.

Another point about the so-called 'self-sufficient' individual is that at the level of policy, it has everywhere only ever been invoked along with the necessity of family. The logic has been as simple as it has been brutal: having decimated the social state, the burden of social care simply shifts to the family, who is at every point called upon to sustain the 'self-sustaining' individual, without any hint of irony (hence the oft-forgotten second part of Maggie Thatcher's declaration that 'there is no society, only individuals... and their families'). The American obsession over 'good, strong families' is of a piece with it's neoliberal efforts to gut the social state and render hollow the demos, along with any political power it might have to act collectively.

it has become a cause where it was once myth. — StreetlightX

:D

Puts me in mind of Tolkien's "The tale grew in the telling"...

Mmm, and the fucking liberals here - the party - actually believe it; hence their slow but obvious uptake of cancerous American political values into the Australian system.

having decimated the social state, the burden of social care simply shifts to the family, — StreetlightX

I understand the relation between state and family the other way around. The labour of women - grandmothers - in extended families was cheap and experienced. Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked. But families had to become more mobile in order to compete in the jobs market, so they left granny in an old people's home and went to find another job. So the burden of social care went unmet, unless by the state. Hence childcare and old people's homes and payments for stay-home carers.

The local Liberals are a leaderless rabble, reliant on a plebiscite to decide their policies.

US may be fucked up in many ways, but it still has the largest economy in the world. The Marshal Plan is over, and here is one point I agree with Trump, it is time for other countries to ante up.

but it still has the largest economy in the world. — Cavacava

Third to China and the EU, GDP (PPP); The Marshal Plan is over, but one belt, one road has just started. The USA can do its own dirty work.

The following based on World Bank data 2017:

Third to China and the EU, GDP (PPP); The Marshal Plan is over, but one belt, one road has just started. The USA can do its own dirty work.

Funny that's not what EU said when Trump threatened to leave NATO because they were not paying their fair share.

GDP (PPP) measures what that money can actually buy. But that green bit in your picture - what's that?

How much in arrears are the payments from the USA to the UN?

You have an internet, use it,

As do you.

I understand the relation between state and family the other way around. The labour of women - grandmothers - in extended families was cheap and experienced. Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked. But families had to become more mobile in order to compete in the jobs market, so they left granny in an old people's home and went to find another job. So the burden of social care went unmet, unless by the state. Hence childcare and old people's homes and payments for stay-home carers. — Banno

Hmm, I have in mind other criteria though, such as declining family welfare support, deepening asset debt lubricated by low interest rates (particularly over family homes), student debt (in the US, a family matter), the fragmentation of the Fordist family wage into precarious low-level jobs so that wealth has to be pooled, etc etc. Admittedly, I've not looked at investment flows into either childcare or geriatric care, although I wouldn't be surprised to see a withdrawal of the state from those sectors either.

The local Liberals are a leaderless rabble, reliant on a plebiscite to decide their policies. — Banno

What worries me though are things like the recent welfare drug test 'trial', taken straight out of the US playbook for punishing the poor, along with the (Labour supported) flood of 'security legislation', with the parliament house fence being its most egregious and depressing symbol. And don't even get me started on the barely existent energy policy, where what does exist involves doing everything possible to support a dying, dirty, energy form while subsidising foreign investment into a long-term economic black hole that will be the Galilee basin. Aghhhh.

I loved that we buried our parliament house in a hole in the ground so that our kids could fly kites and roll down the grass over it. The fence shows that our politicians take themselves far more seriously than we do. Bollards to them all, says I.

Stick that in my ASIO file.

The history of the public support arm of the US government makes for inordinately depressing reading. Not only because - despite the recent rewriting of history - the upswell against it has only been a relatively recent 'invention' - dating specifically from around the time of Reagan - but because policy initiatives like the New Deal and the Great Society reforms were trending in the exact opposite direction! That is, there was nothing inevitable about the current US malaise — StreetlightX

Depressing, indeed.

There was strong opposition to social welfare legislation from the beginning. Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare--every single piece of legislation building a social safety net was opposed in Congress, and once passed, hindered--where possible--by local implementation.

There isn't much mystery about who opposed social welfare: conservative business interests, reactionaries, propertied elites, and so forth. Where these groups have the most power -- generally in the south and west, opposition and resistance is strongest.

Sometimes the reactionary elites have been proactive. Beginning in the 1930s, there was explicit policy in Federal housing and welfare programs to keep black and white people from living in the same neighborhoods, and to maximize the poverty of blacks. Of course this policy was challenged, but to little effect until the 1970s-1980s. By then the separation was pretty well cemented into place.

What was done to blacks is being done to the white working class as well, though slightly different means have been employed. Tax law, downward pressure on minimum wages, anti-union laws, trade law, etc. have combined to enrich the elite and impoverish the working class.

For the millions of the baby-boom who grew up in the years when the Great Society legislation was passed, and the economy was strong, all of this seems unreal and inconceivable. "It wasn't supposed to work out this way." No, it wasn't, but progressive politics was beaten in the 1980s, and it has not recovered.

GDP (PPP) measures what that money can actually buy.

Nope:

gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita, i.e., the purchasing power parity (PPP) value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given year, divided by the average (or mid-year) population for the same year.

Using GDP (PPP) Qatar is top country for the IMF & World Bank, your claim is ludicrous.

Who is missing from this list?
http://www.un.org/en/ga/contributions/honourroll.shtml

You are looking at per capita. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

We need not go back to Warren G. Harding (1920) for examples of bad presidents. We have Richard Nixon (1968), — Bitter Crank

Was Nixon a bad president - aside from being a crook? From what I've heard of historical accounts of his presidency, there were some good and unexpected things that came out of it. I was under the impression that he founded the EPA and started the process of rebuilding a relationship with China - in fact that as far as policy went, he was quite good on a number of fronts.

Maybe I'm trying too hard to be generous to somebody on the 'other side of politics' (as if there were only two sides, hah!) I'm happy to be corrected by people with tales of terrible policies he promoted. Well, actually I won't be happy. It's always sad to hear bad things about somebody - anybody. But I'll accept it.

with the parliament house fence being its most egregious and depressing symbol. — StreetlightX

Yes it's disgusting. I wish they'd be honest and concrete over the lawns so that the building really looks like the fortress of paranoia it has become, rather than the celebration of democracy and egalitarianism that it was designed to be, and of which the freely accessible lawns rolling over the top were such a potent symbol.

I'll stick with GDP, it gives a clearer picture of size than Purchasing Power Parity, which,

takes into consideration the relative costs of local goods and services produced in a country valued at prices of the United States. It factors in exchange rates and the inflation rates of each country. Further, GDP at PPP reflects the purchasing power of a citizen in one country to a citizen of another. For example, a pair of shoes may cost less in one country than another, so purchasing power parity is needed for fairness in the calculation.

It is not measuring size, it is measuring purchasing power.

What? You are agreeing with me? Where's the fun in that?

(Y)

Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked. — Banno

As tradition had it, dad went off to work while mom cared for the kids. That granny (as opposed to paw paw) was at home is evidence that that was her traditional role.

I don't harken back to the old days of relegating women to the domestic role, but see that as a shared role. I do believe, though, that the drive to work harder, which results in less parenting, is less driven by survival needs than it is consumerism and the desire for more stuff. The material expectations of the average guy have increased dramatically in my lifetime.

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle. — Pierre-Normand

Priceless.

I think some of what's happened socially is just a numbers game. There was a time when a white guy competed for the best jobs with the best pay and benefits only with other white guys. Now he competes with women and non-white guys. When the economy was growing, you could pretend this was not going to be an issue. Now you've got some pretty unhappy older white guys who don't understand why their lives aren't going as planned.

Every country has social problems, but you address those politically. It's a simple fact that in the US today, you've got one party that spends a lot of time enrolling voters and trying to increase access to the vote, and one party that spends a lot of time restricting access to the vote and diluting the power of those voters they can't disenfranchise through the most extreme gerrymandering this country has ever seen. There is more than policy difference between the two major parties in the US. One of them has gradually become an anti-democratic institution.

As it happens, that party is now laser focused on those white guys from the first paragraph.

What makes you think that anything "went wrong"?
We are a nation of ideas Banno and best I know, there is no manual nor map for this road less taken, that we as a collective union have chosen to walk down together. I am interested in what you can see from Australia that appears to have "gone wrong" in the USA that I am not able to see from within her borders. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Yes, I agree. I'm very liberal and unhappy that Donald Trump was elected. On the other hand, Obama was the best president in my adult lifetime. As far as foreign policy is concerned, which is what it makes sense for people in other countries to care about, I think the openings to Iran and Cuba are worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize they gave him previously for no reason. He made significant errors in foreign policy: I count Syria, efforts to undermine the fairly elected pro-Russian Ukrainian president, and the erratic response to the crack down in Egypt among them, but generally he started turning the US in a better direction.

Although there are definitely signs of danger, the world has become a better place in the past 20 years in terms of the important criteria - the security and well-being of the people of the world.