Sometimes I latch on to an idea and can’t let it go until I let it out. Maybe it’d be better if I kept this opinion to myself, (it usually is) as posting it here won’t change anything, but putting my thoughts into words usually makes things clearer to me. Also, there’s something about having a blog that makes me feel entitled to express myself. If you don’t agree with me, feel free to let me know why. I like hearing the counter argument.
If I am in my apartment and I am not reading, I am usually listening to music or a podcast. For the past six months my listening tastes have leaned more heavily towards the podcast side. BBC. NPR. NBC’s Nightly News (because that one is a video and I like to watch it in the mornings while eating my eggs-in-a-basket). Meet the Press. Slate. Philosophy Bites. Stuff You Should Know. WTF? (What’s that food?). The Economist. This American Life. And there are more. I don’t focus on one genre necessarily, but I do really enjoy news podcasts. As a result, I have recently realized that, without meaning to, I am more knowledgeable and aware of American politics and the American economy than I ever was while actually living in America.
There is no way you can listen to that much talk about the state of America and not know that our economy is struggling. The American related news I tune into seems to focus largely on the economy, but also the Republican presidential candidate campaigns, recently, Occupy Wall Street, and always, the weather.
Somewhere in the mix of those topics, I got really annoyed.
I’ve been searching for a diplomatic way to say what it is that bothers me. This entire post will be my attempt at such diplomacy, but I’ll ruin all that work right here and say this: it sounds like a lot of complaining.
I know that the biggest reason I feel this way is because I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. Because I’m experiencing worse. Because I live with people living through worse. Because I know that people are living with worse than my worse. And to hear someone complain about life in America just rubs me the wrong way. But, I also know that I don’t want to be that Peace Corps Volunteer, who got her naive self out of America for 2 years and now all the sudden wants to criticize everything that blessed her for the previous 22 years of her life.
I’ve been thinking about this for months. Why it is that this bothers me so much? Because the thing is, I think most of the complaints are justified. Americans have lost their jobs. Children are hungry. Schools are struggling. Politicians are playing games.
So what am I looking for?
Recently, I’ve been just on the edge of articulating what I feel is missing in all these legitimate complaints. Until today, it was a feeling. A feeling that America is pretty damn good, and Americans aren’t quite seeing that. The feeling that, as bad as things are, there is a lot we have to be thankful for, and it’s not iPads or high-speed internet or a grocery store with food from all around the world. That’s not the crux of what America seems to have forgotten. The best I could get to making that feeling I felt tangible was to say that in America, we have trust.
But telling America to be thankful for trust doesn’t really get my point across.
Today I found the words for that point, and I found them in an economics book.
I’m taking an online Introduction to Economics class, and if I’ve learned anything 17 chapters in, it’s that economists aren’t satisfied with using their words. They always insist on turning words into numbers, and then graphing those numbers, even if their method of finding those numbers is imperfect and sometimes questionable. This is actually more of an English major’s rant, but in short, people trust numbers. And in this case, I found that numbers gave me the words to describe what it is that I think America is forgetting.
Here’s a section of an article by Ronald Bailey called “The Secrets of Intangible Wealth” that was in The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 29, 2007 and my Essentials of Economics book by N. Gregory Mankiw:
“Two years ago the World Bank’s environmental economics department set out to assess the relative contributions of various kinds of capital to economic development. It’s study, ‘Where is the Wealth of Nations?: Measuring Capital for the 21st Century,’ began by defining natural capital as the sum of nonrenewable resources (including oil, natural gas, coal and mineral resources), cropland, pasture land, forested areas and protected areas. Produced, or built, capital is what many of us think of when we think of capital: the sum of machinery, equipment, and structures (including infrastructure) and urban land.
“But once the value[s] of all these are added up, the economists found something big was still missing: the vast majority of [the] world’s wealth! If one simply adds up the current value of a country’s natural resources and produced,or built, capital, there’s no way that can account for that country’s level of income.
“The rest is the result of ‘intangible’ factors–such as the trust among people in a society, an efficient judicial system, clear property rights and effective government. All this intangible capital also boosts the productivity of labor and results in higher total wealth. …
“Once one takes into account all of the world’s natural resources and produced capital, 80% of the wealth of rich countries and 60% of the wealth of poor countries is of this intangible type. The bottom line: ‘Rich countries are largely rich because of the skills of their populations and the quality of the institutions supporting economic activity.’
“What the World Bank economists have brilliantly done is quantify the intangible value of education and social institutions. …
“The rule-of-law index was devised using several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The latter include civil society groups (Freedom House), political and business risk-rating agencies (Economist Intelligence Unit) and think tanks (International Budget Project Open Budget Index).
“Switzerland scores 99.5 out of 100 on the rule-of-law index and the U.S. hits 91.8. By contrast, Nigeria’s score is a pitiful 5.8; Burundi’s 4.3; and Ethiopia’s 16.4. The members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—30 wealthy developed countries—have an average score of 90, while sub-Saharan Africa’s is a dismal 28.
…
“The World Bank’s pathbreaking “Where is the Wealth of Nations?” convincingly demonstrates that the ‘mainsprings of development’ are the rule-of-law and a good school system. …”
Alright. So, that definition of intangible capital (the trust among people in a society, an efficient judicial system, clear property rights and effective government), that is exactly why I think America is so great.
And the kicker is that Americans wouldn’t really, truly appreciate “trust among people” unless they experienced a lack of that trust.
(If you happen to feel like having that experience, you have one more month to come visit me in Ukraine….)
This is the part where my argument gets tricky. I think it is absolutely, 100%, without a doubt necessary that we push our country to achieve the maximum possible amount of intangible capital. Unfortunately for intangible capital, it gets no credit. You don’t think of intangible capital as the reason you have food in your kitchen. You think it’s the money you make from your job that puts that food in your kitchen. And if you don’t have a job, you don’t have money, and you don’t have food in your kitchen. So of course you won’t be too worried about intangible capital under those circumstances.
And of course the news is going to focus on the lack of jobs. And the horrible weather. And the stupid things politicians say.
Meanwhile, those qualities responsible for 80% of the rich world’s wealth, aka our wealth, is hardly an issue.
Actually, I’m not trying to argue that, as a country, we should think more about the ways to increase intangible wealth. I am trying to say that, hey America, we have a vast amount of intangible wealth. We are so freaking lucky to trust our neighbors in the general sense of the word. We check “yes” for organ donation on our drivers’ licenses because we believe the doctors won’t kill us to make money off our organs (many Ukrainians would never consider such an option). We spend months, years even, arguing about the 2 people we want to compete for president (for contrast, check out Russia). I could go on, but I think once you start looking you’ll find the things that America does right. So yes, please, criticize, improve, seek for better, but think about what you are saying. Think about your words. Think about where you live. Think about the foundationally rich society you live in and what you are capable of because of it.
And maybe try to be a bit more productive when voicing your complaints.
