Thread: U.S. Is No Longer Among the 10 Most Prosperous Countries; Norway, Canada, Australia lead

Originally Posted by CatchyUsername

I'm talking about our entire country, not just Christians.

To the household of faith first...

Here's some more data related to the topic of national prosperity: GDP per capita (in terms of purchasing power parity), estimated by World Bank, for the year 2014: (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD)

Norway: $65K
Switzerland: $57K
United States: $55K
Ireland: $48K
Netherlands: $47K
Sweden: $45K
Denmark: $45K
Australia: $44K
Canada: $44K
Finland: $40K
New Zealand: $35K

From a purely monetary perspective, the U.S. is somewhat more wealthy than 8 of the 10 countries that have a higher level of overall prosperity according to the originally-posted article. Clearly, we have enough financial wealth, at a national level, to provide the public goods that the Australians, Canadians, and Northern Europeans provide to their citizens. We just don't want to do it, for various reasons.

However, the original report measured intangible factors such as "willingness to help strangers", and "government corruption" that aren't directly related to wealth, but do have a large impact on quality of life and an overall feeling of prosperity. These kinds of factors address the "national character", and I'm not sure what we can do to improve in these areas. The Australians, Canadians, and northern Europeans are less religious than the U.S. (in terms of going to church and professing belief), so the problem seems to be something other than religion.

njtom, we are still standing on ye shoulders of giants of faith from previous centuries. In terms of deep values, work ethic, integrity etc. That will fade over the next generations and I personally see the signs both in my own country and in other countries in Europe (including originally Catholic ones). Recall that I've travelled every country in Europe except one : Belarus

Originally Posted by Colonel

njtom, we are still standing on ye shoulders of giants of faith from previous centuries. In terms of deep values, work ethic, integrity etc. That will fade over the next generations and I personally see the signs both in my own country and in other countries in Europe (including originally Catholic ones). Recall that I've travelled every country in Europe except one : Belarus

Yes, that is quite true. We can't ignore the historical influence of Christianity on nations that are no longer (for the most) Christian.

However, I sense that there is something more: We in the US seem to lack the concept of "solidarity", that is, a feeling of warmth and concern for our fellow Americans. We're extremely divided, whereas my impression (admittedly mostly from reading) is that in those other countries mentioned, there is more of a sense of unity, even among groups that differ in politics, economics, ethnicity, etc.

Originally Posted by njtom

Just wanted to address this point. Found the following statistics regarding labor force participation by nation. The data is for 2013:

Australia: 65%
Canada: 66%
Denmark: 63%
Finland: 60%
Netherlands: 64%
Norway: 65%
Sweden: 64%
Switzerland: 68%
US: 63%

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.ZS

So we are already a 'socialist' nation..and the powers that be say this ship cannot be turned..

Originally Posted by njtom

Yes, that is quite true. We can't ignore the historical influence of Christianity on nations that are no longer (for the most) Christian.

However, I sense that there is something more: We in the US seem to lack the concept of "solidarity", that is, a feeling of warmth and concern for our fellow Americans. We're extremely divided, whereas my impression (admittedly mostly from reading) is that in those other countries mentioned, there is more of a sense of unity, even among groups that differ in politics, economics, ethnicity, etc.

I think that is extremely difficult to compare. It is possible that America is in some state of upheaval where there is less solidarity at the personal level than before and not much solidarity at the communal level either, rendering societies where there is more communal solidarity as exhibiting more solidarity in general. Communal solidarity is preferable to no solidarity at all.

Maybe socialistic solidarity is as far as a truly secular society can go with solidarity. I'm talking about a truly secular society where religion and religious values have been pretty much eradicated. A high level of solidarity at the personal level is more in line with God's plan but I don't think they are mutually exclusive, I personally believe in communal solidarity to some point but I'm fairly flexible about the specifics.