10 Reasons America Should Look To The World For Help Immediately

I love America. I really do. But, I’m not so blinded by nationalism that I can’t see where America falls short. As Will McAvoy said in the first episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, “America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” Whether it be college education, entertainment, or even the state of democracy, the United States finds itself slipping when compared to other developed nations.

Here are ten things the world does better than us.

1. In Japan, tipping a service employee is considered kind of rude. They’re paid well and the value of the service is covered in the cost. In America, service employees are paid $2.15 per hour and must survive on tips.
2. European nations, on the whole, have low rates of teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. This is due to a less conservative attitude toward sex and comprehensive sex education programs. The United States has one of the highest teen birth rates in the developed world, as well as one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the developed world.
3. In Stockholm, Sweden, obeying the speed limit can earn you cash. Those that speed are fined and those who obey speed limits are entered into a lottery where they can win a portion of the collected fines. As of 2014, around 41 million Americans are cited for speeding each year, resulting in over $6 billion in collected fines.
4. Several nations around the world — including Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, and India — offer “third-gender” designation on official documents for those who do not identify as male or female. In the United States, there exists widespread, idiotic argument over transgender bathroom access.
5. Great Britain has a game show called 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, a challenging game show that combines math and word problems with comedy. The game show is hosted by comedian Jimmy Carr and stars Rachel Riley, who has a master’s degree in mathematics from Oriel College, Oxford. In America, game show contestants have competed by buying groceries, trying not to throw up, picking briefcases, and being smarter than a 5th grader.
6. All but two nations around the world offer paid maternity leave, the United States being one of them. Slovakia offers the most at 164 weeks. The United States, on the other hand, does not even have measures in place that guarantee mothers will keep their jobs after having children.
7. In 1991, when Estonia regained its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, less than half of its population had a telephone line and its only independent link to the outside world was a Finnish mobile phone hidden in the foreign minister’s garden. Now, Estonia has free WiFi all over the county with one of the fastest broadband speeds in the world and operates an “e-government.” Hell, you can vote online in Estonia. In the United States, however, cell phone bills are becoming more expensive, coverage is sketchy in many major American cities, and internet connection speeds are falling behind the rest of the world.
8. In Germany, people pay money to have their trash thrown out. The costs can be as high as $2 per pound. Because of this, Germans are composting and recycling, which has led to a 50 percent decrease in per-capita waste since 1994. The United States is ranked second in the world in municipal solid waste generation at over 228 million tons per year and as of 2011, less than 35 percent of American households and less than 10 percent of American businesses recycle. These percentages have barely moved since the late-1990s, despite billions of dollars being spent on awareness campaigns, symposiums, sorting technologies, and competitions.
9. There’s more diversity in democracy around the world. In Israel, six political factions are represented in their national government, the Knesset. Similarly, the Oireachtas in Ireland has representation from 11 parties (excluding independents), the South African Parliament boasts 13 political parties currently holding positions within their government, and Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies features representation from a whopping 28 different political parties, with one independent. In the United States, the 114th Congress is composed of just Democrats and Republicans (save for two token Independent senators) and currently has an 11 percent approval rating, just barely higher than the 113th Congress’ record-low of 9 percent.
10. In nine countries, it costs literally nothing to get a college education. In the United States, however, college costs have gone up 1,122 percent since 1978 and student debt sits at over $1.2 trillion nationwide. Those rates are continuing to climb.

Change may not come easy for a lot of these, but that doesn’t mean change isn’t needed. We need to look really hard at our national identity and realize that we’re losing pace with the world. Significant portions of the world are looking to the future instead of existing with one foot in the past and another in present-day complacency.

We should be doing the same.

Featured image by Kevin McShane, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical license.