After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward. Here’s Why.

I have no way of knowing, but I suggest that the amount of greed and corruption in the human heart has not changed much over time.
Methinks they likely were well aware of how corrupt and greedy people could be...that is what they (collectively) revolted against in the first place, no?

Have to agree with that one, since the phrase starts with "...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are"
Both parties (assuming two parties in conflict) have the same rights.

 

I dare say that (in my opinion) in a capitalist system nothing can secure the liberty, happiness and economic well-being of all (not even the highest manners). Securing the material well-being of all will necessarily come at the expense of some liberties and the happiness of some. This is generally the situation in Scandinavian countries.

 

I think you've missed the point I was trying to make. These may seem like trivial examples, but they were simply meant to illustrate that there are abundances we take for granted that show how far we've come in actually leveling the lifestyle choices people have. The majority of people can now experience HUGE variety choice in what they eat, how they get around, who they associate with, what education they want to pursue...and within these options the gaps between rich and poor continue to shrink.

Sure, the billionaire may be able to afford Kobe beef, whereas financially I'm more likely to choose a local steak...but at the end of the day, the best meal I can fix for myself is, in all the realms that matter (nutrition, flavour, variety), not significantly different from that of the billionaire.

My point is opposite to yours: I think the focus should NOT be just on the dollars and math.

If college costs too much, is the solution to pour in more tax dollars? ...or is it perhaps time for people to step back and assess the cost-benefits of the education they choose to pursue?
Is a fine arts degree really worth $50k+ in debt? ...apparently a lot of people think so, and it's THIS that is the underlying problem.

In my view the issue of college debt is more a problem of society encouraging people to make poor financial decisions leading to debt burdens. By subsidizing college education, you are not addressing this. Students will simply continue to make poor financial decisions...the only difference is that the resulting debt burden is distributed.

...and it's not like there aren't other options. The market is stepping in to address a demand for affordable, valuable education. Already you can see an emerging trend of affordable online courses in job-specific disciplines, and industry taking less-and-less stock in degrees/certificates, preferring instead experience and certain personality traits.

Again, I don't know that it's possible to clearly correlate to what degree these are due to government policy versus factors such as culture and population densities/diversities.

For example, 17 times the AIDS deaths? There is no cure, only treatment. So this must mean that significantly more people are contracting HIV in the US versus Norway. Why is this? Is it due discrepancies in government healthcare spending? I don't see how it could be...

(also as an aside, I admit I'm not familiar with these statistics, but given that US has over 60 times the population, I'm wary when stats are phrased as "17 times the deaths", or "5 times the debt", as opposed to "twice the rate". I'm presuming you mean per-capita in these cases...but I only point it out because there are a lot of advocacy statistics out there that seem to ignore the difference, and this is a minor pet-peeve of mine. )

 

The cycle of poverty and (in my opinion) its relationship to the Declaration of Independence, was best summarized as follows:

"When you live in a poor neighborhood, you’re living in an area where you have to have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. With a poor education, you can only work on a poor paying job. That poor paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So it’s a very vicious cycle." Malcolm Little (Malcolm X).​

Are we really meeting basic needs? How do you define those? Isn't happiness a "basic need." Shouldn't we make that our priority? I think Scandinavians have taken equality more seriously, and that's the reason for the greater perceived happiness in those countries compared to ours.

Sometimes, we must avoid arguing over interpretations and just do what's right. All men ARE created equal, and the fortunate MUST lend a hand to the unfortunate, whether it be through capitalism or socialism or a hybrid of the two. My apologies to Gordon Gecko and his ilk, greed (the accumulation of wealth and possessions) is not good.

 

I just wanted to comment that "the right for happiness" and "the right for the pursuit of happiness" are two (very) different things. I believe that there was a lot of intention in calling out one and not the other. Having the right to pursue one's happiness doesn't provide any guarantee for success. Seriously, I don't think that any system can guarantee happiness for all, not even minimal. Maybe we should be talking about basic (material) well-being, which may be more realistically expected to be clearly defined and measured. As an aside, many eastern cultures argue that happiness is in one's mind and can be improved (or eroded) without any change in the physical settings.

All this talk about "the basic right for happiness" makes the crowds think of happiness as a commodity that can be purchased for money, thus thinking that if they're deprived of monetary abundance they must have also been directly deprived of a basic human right.

 

I agree with you Ronen E. I should have said "Isn't the freedom to pursue happiness a 'basic need'?"

 

I imagine that opinions abound on that one...regardless (here in the USA anyway) it is a basic right. Difference is subtle, but immensely profound...

A "Need" must be pursued and may oblige others to help.
A right requires a choice in order to pursue and does not oblige others.
Semantics? Yes, probably...but fairly important ones IMO

 

I think that these statements highlight our disagreement.

In my opinion your last sentence is an example of how blurred terminology can create the confusion your referred to. A basic right can't be impaired by anything, provided a wide agreement that it is indeed a basic right (which is given for "the pursuit of happiness" in the US). The only exception is being overridden by a higher basic right. Socioeconomic conditions can affect one's situation or state of exercise of a given basic right, but not the right itself.

American history is full of stories of individuals who pursued their happiness / dreams from virtually nonexisting wealth, and against very harsh conditions, to great accomplishment. True, many others have failed to accomplish some or all of their dreams, but it wasn't because they were banned from trying.

Your mention of castes is a very good illustration for the subject. In such a system an individual can never rise above and beyond the caste they were born into, no matter what. They just don't have the right to pursue this path. In the US, on the other hand, economic and social mobility still exists to a large extent, I believe.

Putting this scholar debate aside, my more important point was that it's more practical and sustainable to focus on basic (material) well-being than on happiness. Norwegians may in average be happier than Americans and French. They might also be less happy than Indians and Singaporians. I don't know, and I'm not sure anyone knows for sure, let alone can reliably pinpoint the reasons. There's likely to be some correlation between physical well-being and happiness, so if the first is taken care of, the second might follow to an extent. However, I would be very happy to live in a country where most are fairly physically well, while the majority still whinges about "how tough it is these days"...

 

I just want to clarify (before we part?...) that my reference to the constitution (or the Declaration of Independence for that matter) wasn't intended to be too specific. Maybe it stemmed from my lack of intimate knowledge of the US civic foundations. Anyway, what I meant to say is that I believe that the outcome for a specific nation cannot strongly depart from the principles which that nation has set at its core. Leaving some issues to religion or the manners/morality of the general public might have made sense 200+ years ago, but I think it's not a robust way of handling things any more. I think we all agree that humans have already provided plenty of evidence why it can't/won't work.

According to my shallow understanding, the American nation has not set "economic equality for all" as a core principle, to live and die for. It did set other important principles, and these are reflected in the constitution, the Declaration of Independence and probably in other founding documents which I'm not familiar with. At the same time, other nations have set other principles and priorities, and (in my opinion, almost inevitably) ended up with different outcomes (and a different set of trade-offs, not to be ignored). The phenotype is determined - to a significant extent - by the genotype.

I'm not here to make judgements which way or outcome is better. It has been suggested that some nations (Norway et al) are "happier" or otherwise enjoy better outcomes - all I was trying to say is that a 1:1 comparison makes little sense because they set out from a different starting point and followed a rather different path.

Cheers,
Ronen.