Glenn Greenwald points to a study that further documents the steady collapse of the US from within. One indicator is life expectancy but Greenwald points to many others.
In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands. The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world. As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined.
The slide is quite rapid. In 1999, the US was 24th.
But not to worry. When it comes to incarcerating prisoners, selling arms, and starting cruel and unnecessary wars, we’re still #1! And we have risen to #5 in executions, just behind China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Who would not want to be in such distinguished company?
Mano,
Maybe you have covered this before, but how is it possible that the US still allows capital punishment? Democrats are supposed to be against it and Republicans are supposed to respect life no matter what? Again, hypocrisy rules the day. I guess this is another issue where we would hate to follow in the footsteps those commie Europeans. I know there are more important issues to deal with (by “important” I mean issues that affect more people), but the fact that we stand up and pretend to be a world leader but allow the death penalty in our own country is crazy and embarrassing.
There’s a famous result in psychology that incompetent people actually have MORE confidence in their abilities than competent ones. I guess that applies to countries as well, or at least to the “USA! USA!” crowd within ours.
Mano,
I don’t think relative rank in life expectancy is a meaningful measure here. Couldn’t it be that our life expectancy is rising but that other nations are rising faster?
So decline is OK as long as it’s relative decline? That’s some quality special pleading right there.
Oh, and this quote from the study ought to make you ponder, as well: “Meanwhile, per capita health spending in the United States increased at nearly twice the rate in other wealthy nations between 1970 and 2002.”
Robert,
Even if that is the case, it means that the benefits of modern science that are increasing longevity are not being utilized as well as other countries are doing.
Matt,
I am of course opposed to capital punishment but have not addressed it directly because I think that support for it is so irrational that there is no reasoning with the people who support it.
Steve:
Re mindless flag-waving -- you’re absolutely right. As a naturalized citizen myself, I cannot say anything “negative” about the US without inviting the predictable rejoinder, “So why did you come here, then?”. Those of us who came from elsewhere are well-qualified to assess this country objectively. Identifying deficiencies does not bespeak lack of fondness for one’s chosen country; rather, it is the prerequisite for solving problems and realizing potential.
On the larger issue of life expectancy, it would help if Americans could wean themselves off their diets of burgers, sodas, sugars, and highly processed convenience foods, all of which are presented to American children from an early age, especially in poorer households. As the excellent documentary Food, Inc explained, the economic incentives in agriculture are completely perverse, resulting in a lower price for a hamburger than for a head of broccoli. The industrialization of agriculture in America is every bit as disturbing as the military-industrial complex, and yet another example of the pervasive, corrosive influence of big business on our polity.
Health outcomes in this country could be improved tremendously with simple changes in diet (and exercise). These changes would not require multi-billion dollar investments in medical technology, to which we currently turn for fixes for our degenerative diseases. But these changes would take a lot of profit away from certain actors within our economy, wouldn’t they? It’s going to take more than a vegetable garden in the First Lady’s back yard to address this systemic sickness.
And of course, we all know that’s what’s really important! Well, that and tax cuts for billionaires.
Your diagnosis is accurate, not only for the food supply, but also for many other issues. Ignorance is being actively promoted in this country by those who profit from it. And that wonderful “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision is only going to make this easer and more effective.
Indeed. But I am at least old enough to compare the US I grew up in to the US I inhabit now. And I’d like to have my country back, please!
Life expectancy at birth is not as meaningful as life expectancy at 1 year old -- that is the statistic I’d be interested to see. Birth outcomes are predictably not as good in the US because of rising numbers of neonates.
So could finally someone tell the US-government to take care of its own internal social problems instead of permanently manifesting its military world position? I mean what needs to happen to make authorities understand that some things are going the wrong way?
Robert,
One of the lessons that I learned from Jared Diamond’s book Collapse is that as long as the decay and decline are slow, societies have a remarkable capacity to ignore all the warning signs until it is too late and there is a catastrophic end.
Diamond’s book dealt with past societies that collapsed largely due to environmental degradation but I suspect that it is more generally true.
He gives a poignant story about Easter Island which once had forests of big, thick trees that were systematically cut down until there were none left, just bushes, and says he wonders what the person who cut down the very last tree was thinking as he did so. He probably thought it was too late and he might as well benefit.
@Steve
>So decline is OK as long as it’s relative decline? That’s some quality special pleading right there.
Relative decline for those who are currently ahead is unavoidable if all nations are to eventually have equally high life expectancy. Relative decline for us equates to relative increase for others. I think we all hope that our lead in quality of life will slip, not because we are doing worse but because others are doing better. We want others to catch up, don’t we?
Mano,
I agree with your point. I just don’t think our global rank is nearly as important as our absolute level when it comes to evaluating whether our life expectancy is sliding. We aren’t quite at the point where life expectancy is a zero-sum game, after all. According to Wolfram Alpha, our life expectancy has been steadily rising over the past 70 years (I typed “life expectancy in the united states” into alpha). The fact that out global rank has dropped is thus misleading when presented by itself, and is not evidence of an impending collapse. At the very least, you should mention that American life expectancy is increasing, and show how that fits into your theory that our country is slipping.
-Robert
RA,
Can’t fault your reasoning, but Mano also pointed out that (many) other nations had not just gained in life expectancy relative to the U.S., but surpassed it. So for whatever reason, other countries are doing better at keeping people alive. I would agree that junk food and sedentary habits probably play a much larger part than medical technology in this shift. Could one come up with a sort of quality of life taking into account the prevalence of junk food vs. education levels, I wonder?
But I resist any suggestion that the “government” should take more aggressive steps to mandate anything. One thing that has inversely mirrored the decline of the U.S. position in the world is the size and scope of government, which has steadily expanded at the rate our performance in the world has declined.
Sorry, no. It’s great when nations that were behind us catch up. But it’s not acceptable when they go on to surpass us by a significant margin. The inescapable implication of that is that we’re seriously underperforming compared to what we could and should do- if we had our priorities straight.