For some reason that I can’t figure out, most Americans don’t like to think of the rest of the world as a context in which the United States exists as one among 193 (or 203[1]) sovereign nation states. Or, when that majority of Americans do consider the rest of the world, it is usually done by looking down Uncle Sam’s long nose and declaring that the United States is the greatest country in the world.
This arrogant, kingly attitude is reminiscent of that of Yertle the Turtle[2]. If your parents didn’t read Dr. Seuss to you, or if you haven’t read Dr. Seuss to your own children, then let me remind you that Yertle the Turtle was the king of the pond, that is, the king of all the other turtles in the pond. And his vanity and self-conception were such that he decided he needed a throne other than the stone upon which he habitually sat, and from which he hoped to sit high enough to survey all that was beneath him, all that was his.
“I’m ruler,” said Yertle, “of all that I see.
But I don’t see enough. That’s the trouble with me…
If I could sit high, how much greater I’d be!
What a king! I’d be ruler of all I could see!”
So Yertle obliged the other turtles in the pond to climb on top of one another’s backs and in this way those he ruled over lifted him higher and higher, until he could see almost a mile.
“I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!”
Unfortunately, there was one turtle who stood on the stone that was Yertle’s former throne, and all of the other turtles stood upon this turtle’s back. And because it was such hard work for this turtle—whose name was Mack—to support all that weight and glory, he dared to complain.
“I’ve pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?”
But this legitimate complaint only enraged Yertle, who demanded that even more turtles be piled on Mac’s back so that he, Yertle, could stand even higher—high enough to see forty miles away.
But down at the bottom of that stack of turtles Mack, who didn’t like to complain, felt obliged to speak up for his comrades.
“I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can’t stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides we need food. We are starving!” groaned Mack.
But this temerity only enraged Yertle further, and he told Mack to shut up and declared,
“I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There’s nothing, no, NOTHING, that’s higher than me!”
And that’s when Yertle saw the moon. And, flabbergasted that anything should be higher than he was, demanded still more turtles, so that his throne could be raised higher and higher. And once Yertle had managed to stand upon the backs of hundreds and perhaps even thousands of turtles, Mack burped—he couldn’t help it—and that burp shook the throne, and Yertle the Turtle came tumbling down. So that nowadays Yertle the Turtle is king of nothing but the mud.
Dr. Seuss published this fable in 1958, during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War. The condemnation of political tyranny is obvious, and spot-on, but the socioeconomic critique is no less incisive or accurate.
It was an editorial in the Spanish daily El País that made me think of Yertle the Turtle. Many Americans have heard the often repeated comment (on Fox News in particular) that the top 1% of Americans pay about 40% of all income tax receipts[3].
I doubt many Americans are aware of the fact that, about twenty years after Dr. Seuss published this story, the top 1% of the American population brought home just 9% of the nation’s income. By 2009, that same 1% of the American population was bringing home 24% of the nation’s income.
This statistic alone places the United States among Third World countries, defined in part by an undue concentration of wealth and income in the hands of relatively few people. If we use a Gini coefficient, just one of several widely employed statistical measures for inequality of income distribution, the U.S. ranks midway between the most egalitarian societies (Sweden or Denmark) and the least egalitarian society, that of Namibia, where half of the population lives below the international poverty line[4].
But even worse than this single fact is the trend. The Gini coefficient was first applied in 1967, and since 1968 (when the U.S. coefficient was 38.6) income inequality in the United States has steadily grown greater (46.8 in 2009; compared to 23 in Sweden, 24.7 in Denmark, and 70 in Namibia).
Economists feel at ease among such statistics, and even they can pick and choose which ‘facts’ they will present in their research and writings. But at least they are guided, in most cases, by a relatively scientific criteria, whereas those who bandy these numbers about—usually politicians and their supporters or detractors—are not.
My point is, a sound statistical argument, based on hard data, can be made to suggest that the United States of America is not by any means the single greatest country in the world. And when it comes to income and wealth distribution, the U.S. ranks closer to the bottom than to the top.
But despite these ‘facts,’ and despite the positive correlation noted in a number of economic studies between a Democratic White House and less income inequality (or at least a slower growth in that inequality), Americans—or at least those among them who make the most noise—tend to associate the political left in the United States with less than satisfactory economic performance, and sometimes even disaster[5].
In a democratic system of one man—or one woman—equals one vote (which is not the same as the electoral college that elects the president of the United States), every man or woman has a right to choose and determine for themselves whether or not they are interested in a more egalitarian society. When I look at the United States I witness an almost blind disregard, and even disdain, for a social value that is shared by the majority of the 6,000,000 people in the world who are, in most ways, most like us: the Europeans. This, coupled with the American dismissal of European thought and opinion, a relatively recent phenomenon, makes me wonder what will happen in the States when Mack burps again.
[1] Including states that claim sovereignty and have control over part of or all of their claimed territories, but due to disputes over their legitimacy, do not have normal diplomatic relations with the majority of sovereign states and are not members of the United Nations: Abkhazia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Palestine, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Taiwan and Transnistria.
[2] Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, Dr. Seuss (Random House)
[3] According to the National Taxpayers Union it was 38.02% of Federal Personal Income Tax revenues in 2008. But the people who repeat this statistic as if it were a mantra never mention the relative contributions—the percentage of adjusted gross income—paid by this top 1% of the population, as compared, say, the bottom 50% (which contributed a mere 2.7% of Federal Personal Income Tax revenues in 2008, but no doubt paid a larger percentage of their adjusted gross income in taxes!).
[4] On $1.00 to $1.25 per day.
[5] And this when the two greatest economic depressions—or recessions—in living memory occurred under the watch of Republican leadership: that of Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush.