Anglo philosophy leads to Anglo statistics

[imomus]

Two things Click Opera is always banging on about -- how money doesn't equal happiness, and how life in the Anglosphere sucks (largely because money doesn't equal happiness) -- were underlined this week by two reports about the quality of life in Britain and America. First, on Wednesday, U-Switch released their European Quality of Life Index, a survey of life in ten European countries ranking them according to 19 variables, including income, tax, the cost of essential goods and services, and the weather. Despite having the highest household incomes in Europe, Britain and Ireland were ranked lowest for quality of life, at 9 and 10 respectively. France and Spain came highest.



Life in Europe's two English-speaking countries -- which both saw huge market-driven economic booms over the last decade -- was rendered miserable not just by poor weather (Britain gets 17% less sunshine than the European average) but by diesel prices 18% above average, Europe's second-highest unleaded fuel prices and its third highest gas (49% higher than the European average) and electricity prices, as well as by Europe's highest food and property prices. So although British families earned £35,730 (more than £10,000 above the European average of £25,404) per household per year, high prices ended up putting them way behind the lower-earners on the continent in terms of quality of life. Winning the money race, it seems, isn't at all the same thing as winning at life.

Of course, how you spend your money is key. Britain spends less on health and education than its European neighbours; just 8.1% of British GDP goes on health, compared with over 10% in France and Germany. As a result, Britain has only 2.5 doctors per 1000 residents, compared with 3.4 in France and 3.5 in Germany. As for education, Britain puts 5.5% of GDP towards that; the Danes, for instance, spend 8.6%. British people retire later than anyone else in Europe and get fewer holidays (just 28 days a year, compared with Spain's 36). They live shorter lives -- life expectancy in the UK is 78.9 years, compared with 80.9 in France and 80.7 in Spain.

So there it is. Britain and Ireland have the highest average incomes in Europe, but come bottom in terms of quality of life. British households earn £35,730 but are miserable. Spanish households earn on average just £16,800 a year, but low taxation and cheaper prices make that money go a lot further, and other factors -- sunshine and a whole different approach to priorities, let's call it l'art de vivre -- make life much better in the Latin countries. "Clearly, when it comes to the good life, income is less important than free time, sunshine and cheap commodities," concluded one report of the findings.



America also scored poorly this week, this time in a report entitled The Measure of America funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation. In a piece entitled US slips down development index, the BBC summarised the report: "Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed nation... the US ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy despite spending more on health care per person than any other country." The US has a life expectancy of 78 (the same as Britain's), but vast inequality between its richest and poorest groups. It has more children (15%) living in poverty than any other advanced nation, and the most people in prison. One in four Americans are now officially obese. They also underperform educationally: "25% of 15-year-old students performed at or below the lowest level in an international maths test -- worse than Canada, France, Germany and Japan".

"Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living," wrote Sarah Burd-Sharps, the report's author. Asian-American males have the best quality of life and black Americans the lowest. The place with the highest human development index in the US is Manhattan, the place with the lowest is Mississippi -- which also happens to be the state with the highest obesity levels.

The exact relationship of money to the problem is ambiguous. For American website ZDNet Healthcare "the bottom line is that in the U.S. your lifespan is closely correlated with your bank balance". For UK newspaper The Independent, "despite an almost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities".



What the newspaper reports didn't go into is the wider question of how philosophy has shaped these results -- specifically the philosophy underpinning Anglo-Saxon capitalism. For that, you need to turn to Tristram Hunt's BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature about Adam Smith, Ideas -- The British Version: The Free Market. Standing in front of Bank station and the Bank of England, Hunt describes "a landscape of commerce and enterprise -- high end restaurants, chic retail boutiques, corporate HQs, and the sense of money at work. What this landscape is about is the free market.... The wheels of commerce are at work; a de-regulated process of exchange and contract that's creating wealth all around me." It's also creating poverty, and not just the financial kind.

Comments

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

Oi! C#nt! Who are you calling f#cking miserable?

marvelous night for a moondance

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Yes to everything 'cept the sunshine. I moved from Maryland to Washington in part to escape the oppression of living always under the baleful eye of a nuclear chain reaction. If you could promise me a developed urban area in a part of the world that never got more that 50% well-diffused sunlight or had temps higher than 62F, I'd be there in a flash. Give me breezy and cool overcast days and clear crisp nights.

Re: marvelous night for a moondance

[the23.livejournal.com]

glasgow comes very close except on the development front....

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

But seriously, folks. Why does it hurt when imomus lays into the UK for the umpteenth time? Because it doesn't really serve any purpose. Essentially, he's saying: "Look at me, I was clever enough to get out of that shithole, and today I can wander down to up-and-coming Weichselplatz, sip green tea and totally fail to get called a wanker or get stabbed to death, while you lot will slip in some dogshit on the way to work and then get sacked."

Many of us, for whatever godforsaken reason, have either chosen to live here or have no choice other than to live here. Some of us think it's lovely. Some of us suffer from fleeting anxiety and depression that might well be brought on by the fact that it's shit. Then again, some of us might suffer from fleeting anxiety and depression if we were in Berlin, Tokyo or f#cking Never-Never Land.

But the main reason we end up feeling annoyed, angry or even ashamed of where we live is purely because everyone keeps going on about the fact that it's shit. It's relentless. Believe it or not, imomus's contribution to this is but a infinitessimally meagre fraction of a percentage point.

The papers can't stop. Yesterday's Mail headline: "KNIVES: NOW NO PART OF BRITAIN IS SAFE". To which I replied with devastating wit on strictlytrue's blog: KNIVES: THEY'RE IN YOUR KITCHEN. The Times, meanwhile: "Fall in crime rate masks fear of guns and knives". Whoah! Hang on. You've got that the wrong way round, Mr Harding. Two comments from underneath that blog entry:

The [right-wing] "Broken Society" rhetoric just wouldn't mean anything in Ireland. Nobody in Ireland wants to be told that their society is broken. Fine Gael tried to run a "God, isn't it all AWFUL?" campaign for the election last summer, but it just didn't ring any chords at all. But for some reason, British people just lap it up, and it'll probably win the Tories the next election.

And:

The papers are negative because the public are cynical, and the public remain cynical because the papers remain negative. The business model of the cynical media reinforcing the public negativity in a way that allows them to never challenge public perceptions while at the same time portraying themselves as righteous campaigners for truth, is a safe and unchallenging one.

Everyone's telling us that it's shit. It most certainly is not shit. I went to Denmark, once. Jesus.

Despite being an apparently whiny, miserable sod, my life's terrific. I don't earn much, but I don't have to work too hard to keep a roof over my head, and I've not been properly skint since about 1995. I live in a fairly grotty corner of London (Tooting) but have never once felt threatened when walking home a bit pissed at 1am. There are thousands of magnificent people doing offbeat, unusual, magnificent things. Oh, and we grow excellent peas.

So lay off, imomus. You're no worse that the Daily f#cking Mail. You c#nt. Etc.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

Absolutely spot on.

[masnomas.livejournal.com]

"Why does it hurt when [info]imomus lays into the UK for the umpteenth time?"

Because you've elected to ignore what he wrote and rant about your perspective instead. using tangents and things that seem related to his points, until actually examined.

What you've done here is a clear example of what's wrong in america. and if you're doing it then maybe it's part of what's wrong in england too. people claim to disagree and then talk about different things that seem connected but aren't. This is no better than word association.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Nick complains because he thinks the UK is too right-wing; the Daily Mail complains because it thinks the UK isn't right-wing enough. An important difference.

For the record, I can't stand Britain, and would move to Berlin tomorrow if I could speak a word of German (as it is, I can barely speak English). It's people complaining that changes things - Britain's "musn't grumble" attitude is what's allowed it to become the fanatical right-wing hell-hole that it is (compare with the "love it or leave it" attitude in the USA). If England becomes independent it'll make the US look like Sweden by comparison.

[georgesdelatour.livejournal.com]

Coming back to London after three months I was really struck by how it's the most racially mixed, multicultural place - certainly in Europe, and maybe on earth. Officially one third of Londoners are non-White (the real figure's almost certainly higher). The UK has a very high rate of mixed black-white marriage, especially compared with the USA. By 2010 there will be approximately a million UK mulattos. It's quite heartening to see Indian- and Sri Lankan - owned corner shops with notices saying "Polish food sold here".

Immigration does have costs - it drives up property prices even more, increases the demand on services like health and education, and arguably depresses the wages of poor Brits, by making them compete in the jobs market with even poorer workers from overseas.

It's a tricky balance.

I wonder if the virtuous, low-Gini society you advocate has to be, like Japan, a monoculture. It will be interesting to see if increased ethnic and cultural diversity in places like Sweden makes them less socialistic and more selfish.

I want both - the gentler, kinder socialistic politics, and the dizzying 24-hour excitement of the global bazzar. Is that possible?

[bonsai-human.livejournal.com]

it's the most racially mixed, multicultural place

London has always struck me as somewhere with many cultures, but next to no cultural exchange or mutual acceptance from any side. Less a melting pot than a pot full of ball bearings hitting each other and causing sparks.

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm excitable this morning -

I also think that this would make a magnificent postcard. I laughed out loud when I saw it.



It sums the glory of British life almost as magnificently as this:

[charleston.livejournal.com]

Now I've got the giggles as well...

Time to die

[(Anonymous)]

Well with it being so bloody awful in the UK, the shorter life expectancy ( 78.9 years, compared with 80.9 in France and 80.7 in Spain) may come as blessed relief.

Re: Time to die

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

But we cram a lot into our 78.9 years. It takes a lot out of you, vomiting, shitting and pissing everywhere, not to mention punching strangers in the face. The French would do well do join us on our rollercoaster ride of puke, blood and violence, and as for the Spanish, well, 0.05 years of tapas, sunburn and flamenco guitar is enough for me. I don't know how the poor f#ckers manage. They want to whack the air conditioning up, turn a hose on themselves, drink 14 cans of San Miguel and kick their partners to death. Only then will they truly appreciate modern life.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

WUT YOU SAY, MONEY DOES NOT EQUAL HAPPINESS??!!

NO WAI!!!!!!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's bigger than that. Capitalism does not improve your quality of life. Obvious, isn't it?

[(Anonymous)]

The original uSwitch report is here: (PDF) http://www.uswitch.com/Press-room/Index.aspx?downloadfile=UK-AND-IRELAND-RANK-BOTTOM-IN-EUROPEAN-QUALITY-OF-LIFE-INDEX

And guys, I really find it ridiculous to be bickering over whether one *should* enjoying living in a certain place. The real reason one likes a place or not is always personal and psychological, rooted in one's life experiences and history and unalterable by reason alone. I live in Taipei, Taiwan, and I have all the objective, quantifiable data to show you what a fucked-up third world s**thole this is, but I still have all the reasons to find it preferable to live here than in Toronto, which according to many "quality of life" indexes is one of the best cities on the freaking earth.

No index can measure everything everyone finds important to his or her own life; value judgments are unavoidably implied in in what way the measurements are slanted. Indexes are "objective" in that they are "quantifiable," not that they are "True." The uSwitch report is just one way to draw the picture. It's not the whole picture. And neither is "Anglo philosophy sucks" the whole picture.

What I've said is strictly kindergarten banality, but perhaps you are too old and sophisticated for kindergarten rationality?

And if the UK is such a wonderful, multicultural place, don't Britons have better tolerance for different opinions? Like, allowing others to hate what you like?

For goodness's sake.

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

Who's bickering? I thought we were having fun. Whoops.

Low Absolute Poverty vs "Equality"

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Relative poverty, to my understanding, is when someone believes they're being deprived of something to which they're entitled. Relative poverty is about envy and jealousy in the hearts of men. Relative poverty in countries where absolute poverty is very low should for the most part be treated as a problem with people worldviews and their sense of entitlement as opposed to a problem with the distribution of wealth.

Britain's absolute poverty level is extremely low, and for that I think we should be thankful. I genuinely feel lucky to be born British.

That's not to say I think wealth shouldn't be redistributed in certain circumstances, but the problem is trying to decide what someone's manpower or skills are worth to a society.

I don't believe everyone should be equal in terms of wealth purely because not everyones input into a society is of equal measure. How can it be fair that someone who has spent their whole lives toiling and grafting should have an income no higher than someone who's had their wealth pretty much handed to them on a plate? there will always be lazy good-for-nothings, and for this reason there will always be poverty, even in a Utopian society where everyone has perfectly equal opportunity to better their lives. Thats not to say all poverty is the result of idleness, but in countries like Britain where we have free education and a benefit system, I think a large part of it is down to that.


In terms of absolute poverty, Britain's population live very good lives.

Re: Low Absolute Poverty vs "Equality"

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But what do you think of high prices in Britain?

The Gordon Brown Death Toll is Incalculable

[(Anonymous)]

Is "getting tough" in Britain a term for "burying guilt"?

Get tough on deserting black fathers = bury the guilt of providing the worst childcare in the western world.

Get tough on welfare scroungers = bury the guilt of adding to a society built on monarchy and aristocracy with a generation of lazy buy-to-let psychopaths.

Getting tough with immigrants = bury the guilt of kicking people in the face, screwing them over and then telling them that the good times are coming to an end – all from the safety of a second home in Tuscany.

Re: The Gordon Brown Death Toll is Incalculable

[(Anonymous)]

BOWIE + DAILY MAIL / MISHIMA = MOMUS

Please don't come here

[mattfishbeck.livejournal.com]

(http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b117/mattfishbeck/?action=view&current=surfing-01302858b.jpg)

Re: Please don't come here

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

That looks a bit wet and dangerous.

[(Anonymous)]

Anyone can use statistics to mean anything, but let's at least have a little consistency. One moment you're criticising the UK for spending less on health than its neighbours, next moment you're admitting that the US spends more on health than any other nation on earth! Health expenditure as percentage of GDP in developed nations is a truly meaningless statistic. And in that context consider this, as a man staring fifty in the face: you have no health coverage in Germany, unless you are paying into a social insurance scheme, which I doubt, as you are not salaried. And yet in similar circumstances in the UK, you would be covered. Bohemians get a better deal in the UK!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Anyone who's seen "Sicko" knows why the US spends so much on health, yet gets such appalling results. It's all down to the "rigged system" I mention, and that benign Invisible Hand, clawing in money for shareholders any way it can -- even by denying people life-saving operations on a technicality.

[the23.livejournal.com]

so britain gets a kicking for being rich but having a high cost of living while america gets kicking for having poverty which basically amounts to poverty only in a very relative sense since the cost of living is so much lower there. meanwhile the remainder are materially much better off than most europeans. the poor there can afford all the mod cons the poor have here in the uk (except in some cases healthcare paid for by someone else) since they come at half the price.

britain and the us both preach the virtues of capitalism but follow a corporate rather than capitalist ethic. being in with big business has nothing to do with free enterprise. in both countries one sees oodles of poor regulation largely introduced at the behest of big business with a protectionist motivation. is adam smith the right target?

this is long because i am avoiding work, i'm not really arguing.

[arboretums.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree about the relative poverty in the US bit. Having cheap commodities doesn't really go against poverty as defined by either hunger or lack of money/ability to get healthy and stable shelter, especially if you're largely able to get those commodities at thrift stores or as hand me downs from friends and relatives. Though there are idiots who will buy new mod cons, most of them are getting them on credit cards, they don't actually own these things. In addition, even countries Westerners would consider desperately poor have these commodities now.
We don't really have a measure of poverty that's up to date, which means a lot of people who should technically be under the poverty line by the rest of the world's standards are not.
Here is how it's set: "The Department of Agriculture found that families of three or more persons spent about one third of their after-tax income on food. For these families, poverty thresholds were set at three times the cost of the economy food plan." This doesn't really make sense because rent is pretty expensive in comparison, especially if you're attempting to house three people. It doesn't help that overall wages haven't gone up since 1970 either, even though the value of the dollar is 1/5 of what it was then. Yet, somehow, more people aren't in "poverty," as they should be.
The way of setting the poverty line hasn't really changed since 1969, even though the cost of healthy food has gone up (especially in this last year) and processed food has become increasingly cheaper.
This brings us to hunger: Though Americans are generally fat or obese, the quality of food for those who can only buy the cheapest items leaves a certain poverty of nutritional value which could be compared to someone who does subsistence farming and is able to eat healthy foods. Basically, even if you're fat, you can technically be starving. In that, what is the point of having the modern convenience of a microwave if you're subsisting on macaroni & cheese and ramen noodles? How is that not poverty?

Aside from the rant, lack of healthcare is the largest reason that Americans go into bankruptcy and fall into poverty in terms we can all agree upon calling poverty (no food, no shelter). Just having the safety net of healthcare would be a large push up for the poor and middle class.

I've completely lost track of where I was going with this. Basically American poverty isn't quite the whole starving African children with bloated bellies thing, but it isn't exactly a fake poverty either. It's very much so alienating, filled with a certain hunger, and unstable in the way it affects people.

[(Anonymous)]

Seems that if you measure Anglo life from an Anglo point of view, suddenly Ireland and UK ain't doing so bad?

The Economist 2005 Quality-of-Life Index, released in Sept 2007:
http://www.economist.com/markets/rankings/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9753089

Ireland ranks best overall, even though its GDP per capita is only the 4th. Spain holds the 10th place. US the 13th. And, alas, UK still isn't doing so well even by the Anglo Economist standard: 29th best.

The Economist gives its reasons: "Social and
family breakdown is high, offsetting the impact of high
incomes and low unemployment. Its performance on
health, civil liberties, and political stability and security
is also below the eu-15 average."

That the UK is "politically unstable" is real news to me, and I totally don't care for "family stability." Given how much the highly educated work force migrate around the world these days, "family instability" should perhaps be treated as a positive sign -- it's easier to stick together if things aren't moving and changing and progressing. But that's probably only the haute bourgeois prejudice of mine.

I agree completely that money can't buy happiness, especially on the familial and personal level. Most of the ultra rich families I know are wretched well beyond the normal range of wretchedness. They're not just "wretched by the traditional standard of 'the perfect family'" kind of wretched; psycho parents and depressed offsprings are more the norm than the anomaly. I have some theories as to why it is so, but I'm not going into those. The point is, when it comes to the national level, because there are more things involved -- more things to measure and more ways of measuring them, it gets a lot harder to generalize.

But of course Mr. Currie has all the right in the world to think that Anglo living sucks to the nth degree of hell, because it's True to him.

[(Anonymous)]

Please feel free to elaborate on your theories.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, you don't do your cause much good by basing it on totally worthless self-serving "research" by a company like uSwitch, which makes money by persuading people in the UK that they are paying too much in energy, banking etc charges . A company that owes its very existence to the privatisation and deregulation of energy markets. A company whose website that you link to was condemned by Energywatch last year for being "biased and not impartial".

Quite apart from the inbuilt bias, what of the other indicators? Is someone who has 36 days a week holiday necessarily happier than someone who has 28 days? It depends on how much s/he likes his/her job, I suppose. And yes, people in France retire earlier, but does this survey take into account the fact that people are often forced to retire before they want to? Etc, etc. There's a whole ideology at work in the framing of these indicators.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Who likes their job enough to turn down the option of an extra 8 days paid holiday a year?

[(Anonymous)]

Your "anglosphere" seems rather restricted. It doesn't seem to include Canada, Australia or New Zealand, all of which tend to score even higher than France, Spain et al. in these quality-of-life and most-liveable-city type surveys.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Until very recently Australia was part of the Evil Anglosphere -- now there are signs of hope. New Zealand is currently a shining beacon of post-Adam Smithism, having renationalised the railway system and Air New Zealand.

So yes, fair point: the Evil Anglosphere is crumbling before our very eyes.

"knife crime"

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry, but as an American, whenever I hear about the prevalence of "knife crime" in other countries, it elicits a small inner giggle. It just seems like such a quaint threat of violence.

When I heard about the recent "stabbing spree" in Japan (Tokyo, I think?), I thought to myself, wow, that's horrible, but at the same time, it felt distinctly like a sign of progress as well. In America, the guys would have had guns, and perhaps a couple dozen people might have perished.

Re: "knife crime"

[(Anonymous)]

Who would you like a seven inch steel steel blade twisting in your guts for nothing more serious than looking at someone's shoes? Would you 'inner giggle'?

Can we trust Momus?

[(Anonymous)]

Fact: lived in Chelsea and Fitzrovia when Hackney was full of starving artists. Spends his time in Tokyo, Manhattan and central London. i.e the expensive places, complaining its expensive. If 'Hairstyle of the Devil' had been a worldwide smash, and subsequent albums sold amazingly, would he be walking around Belgravia in a smoking jacket, with a slave-girl on a leash, saying "Berlin is the last refuge of the crusty" or something.

Re: Can we trust Momus?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

would he be walking around Belgravia in a smoking jacket, with a slave-girl on a leash, saying "Berlin is the last refuge of the crusty"

Damn, I thought I noticed someone recognizing me last night in the lobby of the Sheraton Belgravia. I told the slave girl to yap like a lapdog, but I don't think she fooled anyone. Far too beautiful. That's when I launched into the spiel about Berlin, just to throw you off the scent.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

There was this turn regarding the view on how the economy would be done by 79 onto the most of the 80's while Thatcher and Reagen took power in the Anglo-sphere. I assume their changes made the economic upswing of the 80's possible but also caused the crash later because it's dependency on limitless growth. My bet is that limitless growth needs limitless resources which are often not there (in an unlimited form) and therefore this way of capitalism ultimately fails.

Economy is so much about numbers, and often very small ones. The overall text and writing of this entry says more than the small statistics of the life expectancy of each country.

Let us have unbinarial economies! More writings and less statistics!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

My bet is that limitless growth needs limitless resources which are often not there (in an unlimited form) and therefore this way of capitalism ultimately fails.

My theory is that Adam Smith makes Karl Marx necessary, and that people who endorse narrowly Smithian policies are making Marxism an enduring necessity -- ensuring its future, in other words.

Something interesting

[gemima-obrien.livejournal.com]

Hi Momous, where did you get the statistics from, if you don't mind me asking? I only ask because every newspaper I read in the UK tends to change their fluctuations on percentages to do with the price of life as it were. If you look to this video you will see who I am http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bungifr43fM

Re: Something interesting

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The stats are from the articles I linked in the piece.

[(Anonymous)]

What's blatantly missing though in these surveys is the Sexual Hapiness Index, or - if you have a more pessimistic turn of mind - the Sexual Frustration Index.

[(Anonymous)]

sefano gonna workit zaerelli stlye