From Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five:
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
To put it in context, the poor elsewhere were poor by class. No attempt to become rich was permissible by law so it was key that this supermajority of the population did not believe they were downtrodden, and unfairly opposed.
Claiming the poor have more virtue, but only in their class status, is one way to do it.
Consider how many caste systems claim the farmer is the highest status, the wisest, the most virtuously hard working … but well still needs a good noble king to lead them.
Things have changed a lot since Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five in 1969. Now even people in the poorest US state have higher incomes than the UK. America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, and its people are mainly rich (relative to global standards).
We should do more to help the underclass and remaining desperately poor citizens to lift themselves up. But it's amazing what we've accomplished since 1969. Let's celebrate that.
> Now even people in the poorest US state have higher incomes than the UK.
Higher income does not mean higher quality of life.
I'm an American who has spent the majority of my adult life living abroad, and much of that time has been in developing countries.
I have no illusions about poverty and am not going to pretend that the US isn't a "rich" country. But I've also noticed a very stark trend in the past decade: fewer and fewer people express interest in emigrating to the developed world.
I currently live in one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. Its per capita GDP PPP is about a fifth of the America's and...the number of people I meet who say they'd want to live in the US is tiny.
People around the world are increasingly hip to the reality: the US is still the land of opportunity. But opportunity is more and more difficult to come by. The country is expensive, has massive social problems and lacks attributes (such as safety nets provided by family) that make life in poorer countries feel better to many people.
Even your idea that the "underclass and remaining desperately poor citizens" need to "lift themselves up" is a distinctly American idea. There are tons of working poor in the US. They are trying to "lift themselves up" but can't afford a $1,500/month apartment, $30,000 starter car, $5+/gallon gas, $5,000 health insurance deductibles, etc.
Hear, hear. It would be good for more people to travel abroad and experience firsthand how much better we have it in the US than most other places. The concern is that we actually have it better than most yet too many actually want to replace our current system with something else that has a horrible track record.
If many of our welfare programs actually helped their intended recipients we would be able to help those in need get to being self sufficient instead of the fraudsters stealing all that money.