What evidence is there that the US has fallen from first world status? Among other deficiencies (the absurd health care and higher education systems come to mind), the US has virtually no system of high speed rail, an antiquated electrical grid that frequently fails in inclement weather, and highways that are universally unlit, an oddity not found in East Asia or Europe. Almost all roads, and even most interstate highways are potholed. The subway systems in the major cities, San Franciso, New York, Washington and Chicago look grungy and old fashioned. As embarrassing as US infrastructure is today, it will continue to deteriorate into the indefinite future, given that infrastructure funding has fallen to historically low levels: as a share of GDP investment in infrastructure is about a third what the US now spends on defense. China spends more than four times as much and Europe spends more than twice as much. Buildings in US cities mostly look dilapidated and there are large populations of homeless people (at least 650,000) and large numbers of people forced to live in run down shacks and trailer parks (1.4 million US families survive on $2 or less a day).This is an admittedly grim assessment, but it is one that is shared by many foreign and American observers, and was the focus of a front page article in the German magazine Der Spiegel in November 2012. As Der Spiegel's German writers observed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy:
"The power lines in Brooklyn and Queens, on Long Island and in New Jersey, in one of the world's largest metropolitan areas, are not underground, but are still installed along a fragile and confusing above-ground network supported by utility poles, the way they are in developing countries. (emphasis added)"
Comparing Subways: Shanghai versus New York
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| Shanghai Subway (Left) versus New York (Right) in 2012. Notice the marble, and bright lighting in Shanghai and the plexiglass which protects passengers. This difference is a matter of life and death. In New York City, passengers may be pushed (or throw themselves) to their death on the exposed subway tracks. |
Because these are just general impressions, I decided to also look for harder statistical data to see if these impressions might be justified. In terms of high speed rail, the US accounts for a little over 2% of the world total and is far, far behind its aspirational rivals in Europe and East Asia, and (surprisingly) even lags behind countries not historically viewed as US economic peers:
Kilometers of High Speed Rail
China: 6,403 (+4,234 km under construction)
Japan: 2,664 (+424 km under construction)
France: 2,407 (+757 km under construction)
Germany: 1,334 (+428 km under construction)
Saudi Arabia: 550 (under construction)
Turkey: 447 (+300 km. under construction)
Morocco: 200 (under construction)
USA: 362 (+0 km. under construction)
Source: International Union of Railways
In terms of per capita industrial production, the US also appears to be a middle-tier developing country. Though the US is vastly more industrialized than the world's poorest countries (Haiti, Guatemala, Burkina Faso) there is also an extraordinary gap between the US and the world's industrial leaders. As the graphs included in this post show, in terms of per person auto, and especially, steel, production, the advanced countries of East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China) and central Europe (Germany), are in a league of their own.
The US noses ahead of desperately poor developing countries such as Indonesia and India, but lags far behind upper-tier developing world countries like Iran and Mexico. Russians can take special satisfaction in besting the US in both categories by a considerable amount, even though many Americans continue to demonstrate undisguised condescension towards Russia.
An honest assessment of how far the US has fallen is a necessary (if painful) prerequisite to recognizing that US economic policies have largely failed. We should remember that the worst business failures are executives who take world champion companies and destroy them. The same can be said for economic ideologies. US economic policy can thus be viewed as a more dramatic failure than the policies pursued by countries that were poor on independence and have remained poor (most of Sub-Saharan Africa and many parts of Asia and Central America). Whatever the US has been doing over the last generation (and opinions on how to characterize US policy differ) we can agree that the policies of the last thirty or so years have transformed the US from the world's undisputed economic leader into a middling third world country.
A 180-degree course correction is needed. The sooner the better.
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| Not the United States. |
Sources:
International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers
International Union of Railways
World Bank Development Indicators
World Steel Association
American Society of Civil Engineers. 2012. Report Card for America's Infrastructure.
http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
Clyde Prestowitz. May 24, 2011. "First to Third World in One Lifetime." Foreign Policy http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/24/first_to_third_world_in_one_lifetime
Der Spiegel. November 5, 2012. "Divided States of America: Notes on the Decline of a Great Nation." http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/divided-states-of-america-notes-on-the-decline-of-a-great-nation-a-865295.html
Gabriel Thompson. December 13, 2012. "Could you survive on $2 a day?" Mother Jones.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/extreme-poverty-unemployment-recession-economy-fresno
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