[graemep]

Its complacency, at least in Western Europe. Centuries of being the world's leading powers have left an underlying sense of being at the top is just normal and is a position that does not need work to maintain.

Even those who might accept this is no longer true intellectually find it hard to internalise.

[ben_w]

I don't think that's the current problem. It was up to, perhaps, the Suez crisis or up until decolonisation, but since then I think we've mostly internalised that America (and more recently China) have been the leading powers.

The current complacency, one which we are currently still in the process of unwinding from (it will take years) is that of trade turning violent enemies into mutually beneficial growth opportunities. Russia was the first wake-up call there (but even then for the current situation not for Crimea), and over the last year also the USA. China is, I think, currently mostly seen as opportunity rather than threat.

War is expensive, and not doing it is good when possible. It is bad for everyone that we now feel the need to put 5% or whatever of our GDP into defence when it could have been spent on infrastructure, education, healthcare, or even startup grants.

[kakacik]

War is very expensive, but it also creates tons of jobs in supply. In ideal world its a fools errand, in reality if you dont have a mighty force to defend yourself and deter enemy, you can be easily taken over. Even a big well funded military is a paper tiger at best if it never experienced complex combat, maintaining supply lines etc.

Thats the only thing that works for the likes of russia (or anybody really) who is by far the biggest threat to Europe and would love to see it subjugated.

That was also the only reason Switzerland wasnt taken over by nazi Germany like Austria was, they mustered up to 800k voluntees/draftees in a country of 5 million, fortified and made it clear that Germany would bleed hard to gain that territory (they would invade anyway after defeating russia that was clear also from hitler&himmler's writings, top german brass hated Switzerland, what it represented and considered it a mortal enemy to 3rd reich but I am going off topic here).

5% is nothing if there is enough motivation. Overbuilt bureaucracy for nothing juse employing tons of rather useless paper pushers, ineffective social systems that are abused hard by those really not deserving it, bad budget management by politicians, corruption in megaprojects and ao on. Its really nothing.

[graemep]

While Europe internalised that the US was the super power, it did not internationalise that the West was no longer dominant. It has also not understood its diminishing importance to the US in the world in which its economy is proportionately so much smaller, and the rival superpower is in Asia, not Europe.

Spending on defence is expensive, but its a lot cheaper than an actual war - "if you want peace, prepare for war"

[ben_w]

> it did not internationalise that the West was no longer dominant

Given "the West" means so many different things (sometimes including Australia), I'm not sure what you're aiming for here? Rise of China? Certainly this has been recognised. If you mean all of Asia, in the same way that the UK is in Europe but not part of the EU, then I agree: I don't think many have fully internalised how important India, let alone Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, have become.

> It has also not understood its diminishing importance to the US in the world in which its economy is proportionately so much smaller, and the rival superpower is in Asia, not Europe.

The phrase "when America sneezes, the world catches a cold" comes to mind. I'm told that dates to 1929. More recently, my understanding of the Suez crisis was that the US convinced the UK to back down just by threatening to flex one economic muscle; by some measures, that point represents the end of British dominance on the world stage.

But I would say that here, it is America rather than Europe which does not understand its ranking in the world: two of the common ways of measuring economies are nominal-GDP and PPP-GDP, by the former the EU is comparable to China with the US way ahead, by the latter the EU is comparable to the USA with China way ahead. In both cases, the EU knows it's not #1.

That said, during Brexit, there did seem to be a lot of unrealistic exuberance from Leave voters, so perhaps the lack of awareness runs deeper than I perceive…

[zozbot234]

Why should we care to be "at the top"? The average person gets no benefit from this; on the contrary, they would do a lot better if underperforming countries in Europe's neighborhood raised their standards of living.

[graemep]

I agree with you about "at the top" in terms of being a global power. It does people little good.

The problems are security, sovereignty and economic stagnation. Being dependent on super powers and vulnerable to their whims is not good. Weak supply chains are not good. Neither are worsening standards of living.

[ernst_klim]

> The average person gets no benefit from this

You are proving the point. The avg. person gets an enormous benefit from it, even in countries like USA, Japan or Korea with far less generous welfare. The gap in standards of living of somebody in the US and somebody in Georgia or Vietnam are ridiculous.

[vinaigrette]

Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search. Mean standard of living is a poor way to calculate inequality. If you have a link to a median one it would help to compare.

[joe_mamba]

>Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search.

How is this an argument? A poor person in the US has a massively better standard of living than a poor person in Vietnam.

Poverty is relative. If you have a small apartment in a city of McMansions, you're poor, but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich.

[nisegami]

I always found it interesting that homeless folks in the US seem to live in tents a lot of the time, but in my country they rarely have more than a piece of cardboard. I don't know if my perception is incorrect, or if I'm ready too much into this, but my conclusion has been basically what you said: at every socio-economic level, the people at that level have higher standards of living in developed countries than in developing countries.

[bombcar]

It’s really hard to compare when you get down to it, even if you ignore “homeless” as a category.

Using money as a proxy doesn’t work perfectly because things can be more expensive, and trying to normalize with things like “living sq ft” doesn’t calculate externalities.

The best I’ve found is to track relative migration pressure - where do people want to go?

[TeMPOraL]

> Poverty is relative. If you have a small apartment in a city of McMansions, you're poor, but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich.

That worked before globalization. Nowadays, having a small apartment in a city of McMansions means you're upper middle class. Poor people in the west have no apartments and no goats.

[hhlevnjak2]

Not sure if up to date anymore, but if you look at some samples like here, at equivalent adjusted income levels, people across the world have similar standards of living regardless of where they live.

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street

[ernst_klim]

> at equivalent adjusted income levels

What is equivalent adjusted income level? PPP between Russia and USA is around 1.8. Median annual salary in the US is $57 ($1196 per week), median salary in Russia is $13200. Even if you adjust it, it's roughly two times smaller.

As someone who lived in a bunch of countries, some rich and some poor, no, living standards among the avg. Joes of the world are not even remotely the same.

[thaumasiotes]

> but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich

No, you need more than one goat if you want to be rich, regardless of what other people have. Really, you need a few dozen.

One goat can't do anything but age and die.

[graemep]

Relative poverty is real, but absolute poverty is a whole lot worse.

I choose to live in a richer country where I am relatively a lot poorer, but overall the advantages of a rich country outweigh the disadvantages.

[ernst_klim]

> Poverty levels

Poverty levels are measured relative to median. Poverty in US and poverty in Bangladesh, Russia or Vietnam are completely different things.

In the US poverty line is about $16k, while in Russia for example it is $2300. Even considering the PPP it's like 4 times the difference in living standards. I guess Vietnam or Bangladesh are far worse.

Upd: downvotes with no counterargument. Orange site is becomming more and more a reddit.

[jiriknesl]

"The average person gets no benefit from this" this is a very bad take.

In Europe, innovation in the end help everyone. Better healthcare starts with the rich, and ends distributed to everyone. The same is true for everything else.

[bregma]

Ah, the good old "trickle down" theory of Thatcher and Reagan. Remember how much better off we became when we gave more to the wealthy?

[marcosdumay]

Do you have any evidence that new products don't start expensive and become accessible when they mature?

[plastic-enjoyer]

> Its complacency, at least in Western Europe. Centuries of being the world's leading powers have left an underlying sense of being at the top is just normal and is a position that does not need work to maintain.

I wouldn't say it's a matter of complacency, but rather a convergence of problems. To solve those problems, there need to be radical changes, but radical changes are not popular. Politicians win elections by promising stability, not by disrupting lives. The politicians that rise to the top are the ones that don't have any visions for a better future nor the desire to make a difference, because the system does not reward that.

[graemep]

I think a lot of people would welcome some disruption. This is why there has been a rise in populist parties which appeal because they promise something different.