Is the US a developed nation?

[Recursion]

This came up in a gun thread but I think it applies to a lot of indicators.

I've been to a lot of countries, and I divide them into three classes: developed, developing, and failed. Where does the US go?

Developed nations have to me these characteristics (there are outliers for some of these):

* An economy bases on sevices, low-employment high-output manufacturing, trade, and significant redistribution.

* Low crime.

* Negligible corruption at local levels -- trust in the concept of government.

* High taxation, generally regressive (based on a VAT) to fund high social spending.

* A largely homogenous population contrasted with relatively "recent" immigrant populations; this contrast is a source of tensions.

Developing countries have these characteristics:

* An economy based on extraction, agriculture, or high-employment manufacturing.

* High crime.

* Lower taxation with more emphasis on income and corporate taxes, paying for a lower level of social spending

* High local corruption that renders that low level of social spending even less effective

* Multiple indigenous or long-term ethnic/religious populations (which causes tension) as opposed to immigrant who generally integrate into the economy quickly.

If you file the US as a developed nation, we're a laggard. We have high poverty, high inequality, long-running ethnic tensions, election irregularities, distrust of government, and an economy based largely on agriculture and extraction. Our crime rate compared to Germany or the Netherlands is astronomical.

If you file the US as a developing nation, we're quite success. Services and high-tech manufacturing are integrated into the overall economy, elections are regular and results are largely accepted, local corruption is rather low, and social spending is high (about 67% of our health care spending is government). Our crime rate compared to Russia or Brazil is miniscule.

Do you consider the US a laggard developed nation or a fairly successful developing nation?

4 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	The US is a developed nation with problems
	3 (75%)
	The US is a developing nation with a lot of successes
	1 (25%)
	The US doesn't fit well into this dichotomy
	0 (0%)
	The dichotomy is over simplistic and few nations fit it
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[1939]

1. We talk about a lot of local level corruption

The US doesn't have this as a real problem. Most corruption at the local level is in the form of "friends and family" contracting. I have never had to "grease the palm" of anyone at city, county, or state level to get day-to-day transactions completed. You don't have to bribe the clerk at the DMV to get your driver's license or car tags (you may have to wait in a long line).

[Recursion]

3. Right. I don't have to bribe the DMV clerk for a drivers license

And a business license I get today will almost certainly be valid tomorrow.

[The2ndWheel]

2. Developed nation economically

With the population of a developing nation. The US is a unique country in that way, and has some unique issues because of it. We're not just going to be Finland or Sweden or anything like that. People always say why can't we be more like them. Well because the context of the country is different. Everything from land area, to population, to history, to anything else you care to name.

[Recursion]

4. I like that distinction (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

5. It's better, but your description of minority and immigrant populations in a 'developing' nation are

not the sort that progress to the state of a 'developed' nation. They are mutually exclusive in your description. If your minorities are long term that defines 'developing' but if they are recent then you are 'developed' means not country with long term indigenous or immigrant populations is ever really 'developed'....

[Recursion]

6. No, look at the Flemish and Walloons in Belgium

They became a more or less homogenous "Belgian", as opposed to an immigrant population. But they started out as a majority/minority religious and linguistic distinction.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. But how does the 'developing State' become developed if part of the definition is about orignins and

not current status. It says 'if they have a diverse population that defines them as developing, but if they have only new immigrants making diversity they are developed'. How does one lead to the other?

[Recursion]

8. So, in Belgium's case, the French and Dutch speaking populations started to see themselves as one po

in contrast to an immigrant population. So Walloon separatism decreased and anti-Islamic animosity from both of them increased. Imagine if black and white Americans started to see each other as equally "native" as opposed to, say, Asian immigrants,

[Adrahil]

9. You dont mention the middle class....

I'd say that developed nations have a reasonably large economically amd politically empowered middle class.

The U.S. Has taken a hit there in the last few decades, but we still have that... At least for a while.

[BainsBane]

10. It is an empire in decline

but yes, developed.

[GeorgeGist]

11. US seems to be regressing.

[Recursion]

13. Is it? What if you don't limit "US" to the white population?

The economic gains minorities have made over the past few decades are astounding.

[Fumesucker]

14. That's not my understanding of the data...

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/

The Great Recession, fueled by the crises in the housing and financial markets, was universally hard on the net worth of American families. But even as the economic recovery has begun to mend asset prices, not all households have benefited alike, and wealth inequality has widened along racial and ethnic lines.

The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010.

Wealth Gaps by RaceThe current gap between blacks and whites has reached its highest point since 1989, when whites had 17 times the wealth of black households. The current white-to-Hispanic wealth ratio has reached a level not seen since 2001. (Asians and other racial groups are not separately identified in the public-use versions of the Fed’s survey.)

[Recursion]

15. I'm talking about the last 30 years

The last 8 years had some backtracks.

[Fumesucker]

16. Back to levels last seen twenty five years ago if I read the article correctly

So twenty years of progress gone in less than half that.

[PowerToThePeople]

12. Where is "failed" choice? n/t

[Recursion]

17. I've been to Rwanda. Not in the same world (nt)

[hobbit709]

18. Developed, probably. Civilized-I'm not so sure of that.