Saturday, 24 May 2025
America Age
  • Trending
  • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Real Estate
    • Money
    • Crypto & NFTs
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Fashion / Beauty
    • Art & Books
    • Culture
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
Font ResizerAa
America AgeAmerica Age
Search
  • Trending
  • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Real Estate
    • Money
    • Crypto & NFTs
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Fashion / Beauty
    • Art & Books
    • Culture
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
© 2024 America Age. All Rights Reserved.
America Age > Blog > World > US is becoming a ‘developing country’ on global rankings that measure democracy, inequality
World

US is becoming a ‘developing country’ on global rankings that measure democracy, inequality

Enspirers | Editorial Board
Share
US is becoming a ‘developing country’ on global rankings that measure democracy, inequality
SHARE
<img class="caas-img has-preview" alt="People wait in line for a free morning meal in Los Angeles in April 2020. High and rising inequality is one reason the U.S. ranks badly on some international measures of development. Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/a2VolFYod9HKqFp4ozalmw–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTM5Ng–/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/DwsClyN3Xk9T0jnAhCh7Lg–~B/aD04MDk7dz0xNDQwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_conversation_us_articles_815/8168076e20be29c61465bba86d1001cd” data-src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/a2VolFYod9HKqFp4ozalmw–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTM5Ng–/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/DwsClyN3Xk9T0jnAhCh7Lg–~B/aD04MDk7dz0xNDQwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_conversation_us_articles_815/8168076e20be29c61465bba86d1001cd”>
People wait in line for a free morning meal in Los Angeles in April 2020. High and rising inequality is one reason the U.S. ranks badly on some international measures of development. Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images

The United States may regard itself as a “leader of the free world,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list.

Contents
‘The other America’Declining democracyAmerican exceptionalism

In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to 41st worldwide, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology – an expansive model of 17 categories, or “goals,” many of them focused on the environment and equity – the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.

The U.S. is also now considered a “flawed democracy,” according to The Economist’s democracy index.

As a political historian who studies U.S. institutional development, I recognize these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.

‘The other America’

The Office of Sustainable Development’s rankings differ from more traditional development measures in that they are more focused on the experiences of ordinary people, including their ability to enjoy clean air and water, than the creation of wealth.

So while the gigantic size of the American economy counts in its scoring, so too does unequal access to the wealth it produces. When judged by accepted measures like the Gini coefficient, income inequality in the U.S. has risen markedly over the past 30 years. By the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s measurement, the U.S. has the biggest wealth gap among G-7 nations.

These results reflect structural disparities in the United States, which are most pronounced for African Americans. Such differences have persisted well beyond the demise of chattel slavery and the repeal of Jim Crow laws.

Scholar W.E.B. Du Bois first exposed this kind of structural inequality in his 1899 analysis of Black life in the urban north, “The Philadelphia Negro.” Though he noted distinctions of affluence and status within Black society, Du Bois found the lives of African Americans to be a world apart from white residents: a “city within a city.” Du Bois traced the high rates of poverty, crime and illiteracy prevalent in Philadelphia’s Black community to discrimination, divestment and residential segregation – not to Black people’s degree of ambition or talent.

More than a half-century later, with characteristic eloquence, Martin Luther King Jr. similarly decried the persistence of the “other America,” one where “the buoyancy of hope” was transformed into “the fatigue of despair.”

To illustrate his point, King referred to many of the same factors studied by Du Bois: the condition of housing and household wealth, education, social mobility and literacy rates, health outcomes and employment. On all of these metrics, Black Americans fared worse than whites. But as King noted, “Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America.”

The benchmarks of development invoked by these men also featured prominently in the 1962 book “The Other America,” by political scientist Michael Harrington, founder of a group that eventually became the Democratic Socialists of America. Harrington’s work so unsettled President John F. Kennedy that it reportedly galvanized him into formulating a “war on poverty.”

Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, waged this metaphorical war. But poverty bound to discrete places. Rural areas and segregated neighborhoods stayed poor well beyond mid-20th-century federal efforts.

<img class="caas-img caas-lazy has-preview" alt="Camp Laykay Nou, a homeless encampment in Philadelphia. High and rising inequality is one reason the US rates badly on some international development rankings. Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images” data-src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/V3RYzqsAvaabKNKeJSWTFQ–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQ2Ng–/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/G7xJTrgb893ELjINW6VSsw–~B/aD05NTE7dz0xNDQwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_conversation_us_articles_815/7043a20d04a838b248ea9ac60e12bd4f”><img alt="Camp Laykay Nou, a homeless encampment in Philadelphia. High and rising inequality is one reason the US rates badly on some international development rankings. Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/V3RYzqsAvaabKNKeJSWTFQ–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQ2Ng–/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/G7xJTrgb893ELjINW6VSsw–~B/aD05NTE7dz0xNDQwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_conversation_us_articles_815/7043a20d04a838b248ea9ac60e12bd4f” class=”caas-img”>
Camp Laykay Nou, a homeless encampment in Philadelphia. High and rising inequality is one reason the US rates badly on some international development rankings. Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In large part that is because federal efforts during that critical time accommodated rather than confronted the forces of racism, according to my research.

Across a number of policy domains, the sustained efforts of segregationist Democrats in Congress resulted in an incomplete and patchwork system of social policy. Democrats from the South cooperated with Republicans to doom to failure efforts to achieve universal health care or unionized workforces. Rejecting proposals for strong federal intervention, they left a checkered legacy of local funding for education and public health.

Today, many years later, the effects of a welfare state tailored to racism is evident — though perhaps less visibly so — in the inadequate health policies driving a shocking decline in average American life expectancy.

Declining democracy

There are other ways to measure a country’s level of development, and on some of them the U.S. fares better.

The U.S. currently ranks 21st on the United Nations Development Program’s index, which measures fewer factors than the sustainable development index. Good results in average income per person – $64,765 – and an average 13.7 years of schooling situate the United States squarely in the developed world.

Its ranking suffers, however, on appraisals that place greater weight on political systems.

The Economist’s democracy index now groups the U.S. among “flawed democracies,” with an overall score that ranks between Estonia and Chile. It falls short of being a top-rated “full democracy” in large part because of a fractured political culture. This growing divide is most apparent in the divergent paths between “red” and “blue” states.

Although the analysts from The Economist applaud the peaceful transfer of power in the face of an insurrection intended to disrupt it, their report laments that, according to a January 2022 poll, “only 55% of Americans believe that Mr. Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.”

Election denialism carries with it the threat that election officials in Republican-controlled jurisdictions will reject or alter vote tallies that do not favor the Republican Party in upcoming elections, further jeopardizing the score of the U.S. on the democracy index.

Red and blue America also differ on access to modern reproductive care for women. This hurts the U.S. gender equality rating, one aspect of the United Nations’ sustainable development index.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republican-controlled states have enacted or proposed grossly restrictive abortion laws, to the point of endangering a woman’s health.

I believe that, when paired with structural inequalities and fractured social policy, the dwindling Republican commitment to democracy lends weight to the classification of the U.S. as a developing country.

American exceptionalism

To address the poor showing of the United States on a variety of global surveys, one must also contend with the idea of American exceptionalism, a belief in American superiority over the rest of the world.

Both political parties have long promoted this belief, at home and abroad, but “exceptionalism” receives a more formal treatment from Republicans. It was the first line of the Republican Party’s national platform of 2016 and 2020 (“we believe in American exceptionalism”). And it served as the organizing principle behind Donald Trump’s vow to restore “patriotic education” to America’s schools.

In Florida, after lobbying by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state board of education in July 2022 approved standards rooted in American exceptionalism while barring instruction in critical race theory, an academic framework teaching the kind of structural racism Du Bois exposed long ago.

With a tendency to proclaim excellence rather than pursue it, the peddling of American exceptionalism encourages Americans to maintain a robust sense of national achievement – despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Kathleen Frydl, Johns Hopkins University.

Read more:

Kathleen Frydl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Share This Article
Twitter Email Copy Link Print
Previous Article EDITORIAL: Ukraine Only victory can bring peace EDITORIAL: Ukraine Only victory can bring peace
Next Article Russia’s harsh purge against alleged ‘Nazis’ in occupied Ukraine follows Soviet playbook for rooting out real Nazis from Germany after WWII Russia’s harsh purge against alleged ‘Nazis’ in occupied Ukraine follows Soviet playbook for rooting out real Nazis from Germany after WWII

Your Trusted Source for Accurate and Timely Updates!

Our commitment to accuracy, impartiality, and delivering breaking news as it happens has earned us the trust of a vast audience. Stay ahead with real-time updates on the latest events, trends.
FacebookLike
TwitterFollow
InstagramFollow
LinkedInFollow
MediumFollow
QuoraFollow
- Advertisement -
Ad image

Popular Posts

Israel to chop off electrical energy in Gaza in obvious effort to drive hand of Hamas

Israel is to chop off any remaining electrical energy provides to Gaza in an obvious…

By Enspirers | Editorial Board

Astronomy for Teenagers: Galactic Odyssey – Inspiring Tales of Celestial Trailblazers

This book, stemming from Prof. Robert Stewart's profound engagement with Astronomy at U.C. Berkeley, culminated…

By Enspirers | Editorial Board

NASA needs to understand how a lot life it is venting into area

Astronauts will wriggle into their spacesuits subsequent week to swab exterior the Worldwide House Station…

By Enspirers | Editorial Board

Diddy Needs ‘Mann Act’ Federal Cost Dismissed, Calls it Previous, Racist Regulation

Diddy Feds Making an attempt to Nail Me with Previous, Racist Regulation!!! Revealed February 18,…

By Enspirers | Editorial Board

You Might Also Like

Kids with particular wants in England could lose authorized proper to high school assist
World

Kids with particular wants in England could lose authorized proper to high school assist

By Enspirers | Editorial Board
‘Something has gone very wrong’: how the carers scandal was uncovered
World

‘Something has gone very wrong’: how the carers scandal was uncovered

By Enspirers | Editorial Board
Intense, nerve-racking, pivotal: we’ve seen some agonisingly tight elections, however Bradfield might surpass all of them
World

Intense, nerve-racking, pivotal: we’ve seen some agonisingly tight elections, however Bradfield might surpass all of them

By Enspirers | Editorial Board
Netanyahu accused of slander after criticising Macron, Carney and Starmer
World

Netanyahu accused of slander after criticising Macron, Carney and Starmer

By Enspirers | Editorial Board
America Age
Facebook Twitter Youtube

About US


America Age: Your instant connection to breaking stories and live updates. Stay informed with our real-time coverage across politics, tech, entertainment, and more. Your reliable source for 24/7 news.

Company
  • About Us
  • Newsroom Policies & Standards
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Careers
  • Media & Community Relations
  • WP Creative Group
  • Accessibility Statement
Contact Us
  • Contact Us
  • Contact Customer Care
  • Advertise
  • Licensing & Syndication
  • Request a Correction
  • Contact the Newsroom
  • Send a News Tip
  • Report a Vulnerability
Terms of Use
  • Digital Products Terms of Sale
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Settings
  • Submissions & Discussion Policy
  • RSS Terms of Service
  • Ad Choices
© 2024 America Age. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?