As someone who currently spends time on two continents it's always jarring to return to the USA. The first thing that hits you is the wealth. The second is the wealth disparity. The third is the dysfunction.
It's truly a remarkable place but often feels like a rocket ship pulling itself apart at the seams—a lot of exceptional velocity and a ton of social problems that just no one can seem to get a grip on.
In America you’re expected to be your own king. Any problem with public spaces, public transit, etc. is deemed a personal failing because you aren’t able to afford your own limousine to shuttle you from your castle to your friend’s.
Something I’ve always noticed across the US political landscape: people really don’t like spending money to directly help people (mental health care, institutions, public housing, addiction recovery programs) but are fine with wasting money in weird ways like having this non profit travel the world to learn how to put up a sun shade.
It’s like the thing Americans dislike isn’t spending the money but the idea of helping the wrong sorts of people.
I’m sure that non profit was full of mostly white college graduates. Tossing money their way is fine even if it doesn’t accomplish much or anything. Let the addicts die on the street.
The US political landscape does a great job of creating problems that then need an incredible amount of expenditure to address(not even to solve, just to plug holes). This can be seen in exponential rise of diabetes, the opioid crisis, and homelessness, just to name a few. No one wants to pay to prevent a problem from happening, but the system will gladly throw billions to “try to solve one”.
Indirect, I think you mean, and probably because people generally don’t trust their money to be spent well by institutions, and it’s not hard to figure out why.
Americans lead the world in charitable giving and much of that is more direct - anonymously giving money to help a church member or giving money to local charities both are avenues with more visible impact.
It's not hard to figure out why, this is the Southern Strategy in action. After decades of dissolving institutions in the US and handing over the power to corporations we're finally getting our comeuppance.
Idk if anyone is fine with those examples you mentioned. Unelected bureaucrats get to pick where this money goes. Also, not sure why you had to throw out race.
Somehow, we Americans always prefer our government pay some entity to indirectly work towards a goal, than to simply use that money to directly achieve the goal. Direct action is so much more efficient, but we insist on doing it the worse way. Paying some non-profit, with executives, and PR people, and lobbyists, and administrators, and administrators-to-administrators, all soaking up the money that could have been applied directly if we weren't so stupid. Even for things that are not philanthropy. We're always insisting that government hire contractors to do this and that. Contractors whose executives and shareholders soak up much of the funding, who then turn around and hand the work to subcontractors with their own executives and shareholders and administrative staff, and sub-sub-contractors...it's grift and inefficiency all the way down. By the time a dollar gets from the government's hands through all the layers of money-sponges, only a cent or two go to the people who need it.
I think that may be a legacy of the Reagan era when the horrible inefficiency of government was roundly panned and there was a huge push to outsource everything to contractors and non-profits for the sake of “efficiency.”
The US switched to direct cash block grants for low income folks. The program is called TANF. How you get that money however is left up to the states. Some use it to fund things like religious summer camps. If you read the following article you will see why.
Red states also introduced a lot of red tape under the guise of preventing fraud. It instead prevents qualified folks from getting the help they need!
I think we've become increasingly anti-human. Everything must be monetized and transactional including basic interactions. We argue that everything has a cost instead of growing the pie.
To be human is to be connected in our shared humanity. Instead we build walls or worse, fail by default design to build 'connections' between us and prefer to insulate and isolate ourselves in socio-economic psychological safety.
My belief is a lot of this can be traced back to bonkers and completely discredited theories like social Darwinism, behaviorism, post Keynesian Economics. Mix those in with greed, cold war nihilism, and various ethno-supremacist ideologies and here we are.
You wrote the blog post I've been thinking about writing for years. It's clear and simple and to the point. What you describe occurs constantly in every American city.
I’m sure some aspect of this is the North American culture of high credentialism. Everything must be done by “properly trained” “experts” and whatnot. During the pandemic people on Han were talking about how N95 masks need you to be trained by professionals in a fit test. It’s a 15 min video on the 3M site…
Here’s the facts: I can do almost any job well without needing extensive training. But credentialism gets in the way of my helping myself and others.
Agreed. I recently had a conversation with an immigrant nurse from Bosnia, but in the US, her credentials only allow her to be a CNA. She literally had the same nursing job in Bosnia but now gets 1/4th of the pay to clean up poop. There's a nursing shortage too. The higher education system in the US is insanely corrupt and has massive reach with licensure.
Ah but here's the thing: for things that affect me alone, perhaps just let me do it. An alternative, that I believe could be effective, is a bond that is paid into and managed in a similar way as 401k plans are.
E.g. say I want to try heroin. I furnish the $250k into the fund, get to try it, and 4 y later I get my money back if I pass a heroin drug test.
Thanks for writing this, I like the trust/regulation mental model. I can also use it to explain my experiences as a European immigrant in the US. One of the biggest differences I feel is how belligerent and litigious American society is. Would you say this is one of the causes of this outcome? (i.e. when people are worried about being sued, they'd do the smallest and safest thing possible).
Anyway it'd be great to read more posts on this topic, and see examples of cultures you consider low trust/low regulation.
In some sense U.S. regulation is the best in the world in that we’ve led on many health and safety issues such as suppressing tobacco smoking, nutritional labeling, airbags in cars, airplanes, etc.
As Argentinian, and particularly, from Buenos Aires, one thing that I hate from US is the lack of public transportation network, bus stops and people that don't know the concept of line-up.
Readit News
It's truly a remarkable place but often feels like a rocket ship pulling itself apart at the seams—a lot of exceptional velocity and a ton of social problems that just no one can seem to get a grip on.
It’s like the thing Americans dislike isn’t spending the money but the idea of helping the wrong sorts of people.
I’m sure that non profit was full of mostly white college graduates. Tossing money their way is fine even if it doesn’t accomplish much or anything. Let the addicts die on the street.
Indirect, I think you mean, and probably because people generally don’t trust their money to be spent well by institutions, and it’s not hard to figure out why.
Americans lead the world in charitable giving and much of that is more direct - anonymously giving money to help a church member or giving money to local charities both are avenues with more visible impact.
https://daily.jstor.org/when-cities-closed-pools-to-avoid-in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_v._Thompson
Red states also introduced a lot of red tape under the guise of preventing fraud. It instead prevents qualified folks from getting the help they need!
https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/temporar...
Deleted Comment
To be human is to be connected in our shared humanity. Instead we build walls or worse, fail by default design to build 'connections' between us and prefer to insulate and isolate ourselves in socio-economic psychological safety.
Thank you.
Here’s the facts: I can do almost any job well without needing extensive training. But credentialism gets in the way of my helping myself and others.
E.g. say I want to try heroin. I furnish the $250k into the fund, get to try it, and 4 y later I get my money back if I pass a heroin drug test.
Anyway it'd be great to read more posts on this topic, and see examples of cultures you consider low trust/low regulation.