Erika Chappell on The Simpsons:
As an image:
(via Astral Codex Ten’s Book Review: Fussell On Class)
This is, unfortunately, right. Homer Simpson is an average person, not particularly well educated or intelligent, and the lifestyle people like him has access to in 1989 when the series started is considerably better than they would have in 2021, despite per capita GDP being a lot higher now than in 1989, and despite all the technological advancxes than have happened over the last 32 years.
What a damning indictment of US society, and particularly of how the ruling class have misruled that country! (Or rather, how the ruling class has ruled in their own interests only and not those of wider society).
Moving from people’s economic status to geopolitics, the picture is the same: the USA has moved from winning the 1st Cold War, against Russia, and being in a position of absolute global dominance, to being at the start of the 2nd Cold War, against China, in a worse position: China has a higher GDP at PPP than USA, is catching up on GDP at current exchange rates, and exports more goods than the USA.
The USA is a country that has lost its way. This isn’t because it’s population or even its leaders are particularly bad people, it’s because the incentives driving everyone in the system are pushing people in directions that make things worse.
The task therefore is to identify what things need to be done to make the situation better, and then identify what incentive gradients are acting on the system to prevent these policies from being enacted.