AMONG THE WORLD'S COUNTRIES, AMERICA'S RANK IS PRETTY GOOD, BUT IT COULD BE BETTER

by Tom Kando

                                        Introduction: The Social Progress Imperative

Once again, I am writing  about one of those international rankings, focusing on the US= comparative  position, and adding comments which no doubt will aggravate some of you.

The ASocial Progress Imperative@  is a British outfit that ranks 132 of  the world=s countries on  a  composite index measuring Asocial progress.@
 http://www.socialprogressimperative.org

The factors are grouped into three broad categories: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well-being and Opportunity. They include such items as basic medical care and personal safety, health, wellness and ecosystem sustainability, and personal rights,  tolerance and inclusion.  In sum, countries are ranked in terms of Ahow good@  they are  overall, how well off their people are in all aspects of their lives.

Obviously, a country=s rank will vary from one indicator to another. For example, the US ranks as the best country in the world  in terms of access to advanced   education,  but a dismal #70 in health and wellness (below Mali, which ranks #69).

                                             The Twenty Best Countries in the world

Today, space limits me to  dealing   with overall rankings only.  The table below lists the top 20 countries of the world:

The 20 best countries in the world
rank	country	population
1	New Zealand	4.5 million
2	Switzerland	8.1 million
3	Iceland	326,000
4	Netherlands	16.8 million
5	Norway	5.1 million
6	Sweden	9.7 million
7	Canada	35.3 million
8	Finland	5.5 million
9	Denmark	5.6 million
10	Australia	23.5 million
11	Austria	8.5 million
12	Germany	80.7  million
13	United Kingdom	63.7  million
14	Japan	127.1  million
15	Ireland	4.6  million
16	United States	321.5  million
17	Belgium	11.2  million
18	Slovenia	2.1  million
19	Estonia	1.3  million
20	France	65.9  million

The next table lists ten  more countries that are of special interest to me:

25	Costa Rica	best country in Latin America
29	Italy
32	Hungary	my country of birth
39	Israel
54	Mexico
57	Botswana	best country in Africa
80	Russia
90	China
102	India
132	Chad	worst country in the world

                Comparing the US to Some of the ABetter@ Countries is not Entirely Fair

Many of the Acountries that are Abetter@ than the US should not even be on this competitive list:

Switzerland has been competing unfairly for over a century. It has been enriching itself at the expense of the world by providing a secretive banking haven for criminal billionaire tax evaders in the US, Europe, the Middle East, Russia  and other places.

Several small northern European countries have benefitted from the North Sea natural gas bonanza of the past 50 years, becoming - temporarily - very affluent. For example Norway (whose population is smaller than that of greater Boston).

Consider most of these countries= population size: For such a ranking, should  Iceland even count as a country? Its population is smaller than that of Riverside, CA.

Other countries on this list  with populations the size of US cities include: Estonia (= Greater Memphis), Slovenia (= Metro Sacramento), New Zealand (= Greater Seattle),  Ireland (= Metro San Francisco), Finland and Denmark  (= Greater Atlanta)

                           Comparing the US to Some of the ABetter@ Countries  IS Fair

This leaves eleven countries which must be taken more seriously, if you get my drift: The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Belgium and   France. Of these, eight rank higher than the US. Many of these are relatively large. Area-wise, Canada is larger than the US,  and Australia is nearly as large. The populations of Japan,  Germany and the United Kingdom are quite large, and their combined  GDPs nearly equal ours.  The Netherlands, with a population of 17 million people, has the 17^th largest GDP in the world, nearly half that of Russia, in whose territory you can fit the Netherlands  410 times (!).

In other words, these are substantial countries and they are extremely successful.  They must be doing something right. The US might learn something from them. The next table shows America=s strengths and weaknesses.

How does the US rank on the various factors?
Factor	rank	comment
Access to advanced education	1	Very good
Opportunity	5	Okay
Shelter	9	Okay
Tolerance and inclusion	13	Okay
Freedom and choice	15	Okay
Overall	16	Okay
Personal rights	22	So so
Basic Human Needs	23	So so
Access to communication  and information	23	So so
Nutrition and Basic Medical Care	24	So so
Personal Safety	31	Not so good
Water and Sanitation	34	Not so good
Foundations of Well being:	36	Not so good
Access to basic knowledge	39	Not so good
Ecosystem sustainability	69	Very bad
Health and wellness	70	Very bad

                                                                  In Conclusion

As you can see,  America is a work in progress.

Right now, Americans are not happy campers. Many people both on the Left and on the Right feel that the country is in decline.  I wish I could report  trends found in the

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org index. How do we stack up now vs. 30 yrs. ago? There was a time when America was supposed to be ANumber One.@ Have we slipped? Have others (Japan, China, the Asian Tigers, the BRIC, Scandinavia) come up in relative rankings? Alas, the

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org  does not provide longitudinal information, so  I can only comment on 2014.

I have heard it said that the country is returning to the Gilded Age and the era of robber barons. True, American inequality and poverty have been rising. Unions now make up 11% of the labor force, down from 35% half a century ago. Republican obstructionism has produced gridlock in Washington.  A conservative  Supreme Court and House of Representatives have stood in the way of progress and moved the country to the right. Pollsters predict that voters this year will deliver the Senate to the GOP as well. When  I scroll through thousands of Internet comments posted to the latest news article on Yahoo, Internet Explorer, AOL and  other browsers, I notice innumerable sordid, racist,  xenophobic, right-wing diatribes and I wonder whether this is the true pulse of the country.

Yes, there are many mis-guided people who wish to turn the clock back, who want to dismantle the safety net, who oppose minimum wage laws and collective bargaining, who want to reduce  or eliminate  unemployment compensation and  food stamps, who oppose funding for public education, for public works and for infrastructure, especially  visionary projects  such as  bullet trains.  Most perversely, they want the Affordable Care Act to fail.

Yes, 70% of Americans  are struggling with a declining standard of living and a deteriorating  quality of life. 27% of us are holding our own, because we picked up benefits and built our safety net decades ago. 3% are becoming obscenely rich.

But the verdict isn=t in. Back during the Great Depression, Americans came to see that they would benefit from the re-invigoration of the public sector, human services, great projects, public assistance to the needy, a great collective effort to turn the country around, with the key leadership role being played by the only institution that can ever turn any country around: its government.

Americans have always been slow to realize their self-interests. This is part of the charm of this great  and still vibrant  nation. But sooner or later, the realization sets in. Is the glass half full or half empty? You be the judge. I vote for half full.

© Tom Kando 2014 

leave comment here