> >If the USA were really "the greatest country in the world," we'd
>have the shortest hours of work and the highest living standard.
>However,
>we have yet to win the Gold Medal in the Working-Day Olympics, the
>Health Care Olympics, the Education Olympics, and so on and so forth.
>
>It's funny to me that people who can otherwise not go three
>sentences without reminding everyone that the US and the imperialist
>core steal their wealth from the periphery would expect _not_ to see
>this wealth reflected in the relative wages of said evil imperialist
>nations. And how else would you measure the workday relative to
>living standards, if not by wages?
I don't think that the wealth of a nation at the core simply rests on "stealing wealth from the periphery" (though a little of that is still going on, in the form of international debt servitude). Such simple theft was what the Spanish Empire, for instance, practiced very early in its New World colonial career, and it didn't get them very far (it was soon overtaken by England where first capitalist social relations were born). Wealth creation that matters in capitalism is based upon surplus value extraction, and much of surplus value is created & extracted right here.
>As far as health care goes, you're right. But I'd like to know in
>which countries you think the health care problem is solved. As for
>education, you're partly right, tho once again, some comparisons
>would be nice. The US spends less per capita on education (18% of
>per cap GDP) than Japan (19%) or Switzerland (20.1%), but
>considerably more than China (6.5%) or France (15.8%) or Australia
>(14%). As for military spending, etc., Max's point applies: you're
>confusing the evil of the state with the nation itself.
The evil of the US state doesn't say anything about whether "Americans" are "good" or "evil," "lovable" or "hateful" (such adjectives shouldn't be applied to an entire nation); rather, it's a reflection of the _weakness_ of the working class in the USA. -- Yoshie
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