Oct 14th 2012, 3:12:38
I can't speak for Twain, Outlaw, but I decided not to address your last post mainly because there was no concise way in which to address everything I think needs to be addressed and because there was another discussion which I was far more interested in having. Don't read ignorance into a decision to move in another direction.
If you like, though, I can do this dance with you on your terms.
I have no real notion of who you are or what you do in life -- but you write like an academic whose only interest is in assuring himself of the singular importance of his field of study and isn't willing to express an opinion without a cite-able source whose skirts he can run and hide behind if he's challenged to think outside the narrow spectrum of his studies.
I say that without meaning to belittle economics (an important field of study, of which I am not wholly ignorant) or imply citations and sources are without their worth. But there is a world beyond them which matters.
Context is a part of that world. You want to equate strong economic indicators directly and exclusively with greatness. By extension you want to to equate "greatest nation" with "nation with the strongest economic indicators". In some, very limited, contexts you may be right to do that. But the context of this thread is not one of them. This is demonstrated by making that substitution in the first sentence of this thread:
"This is America, arguably the [nation with the strongest economic indicators //] And the BEST we can come up with to run for president are Barack Obama (already tried and failed) and Mitt Romney (thieving, lying pig."
This is a clear non sequitur. The link between strong economic indicators and an expectation of strong political candidates is, at best, tenuous. Therefore it does not make sense to make exclusively, or even primarily, link national greatness with economics as you've attempted to do.
I also believe (though can't demonstrate) that if we conducted a similar substitution in most common uses of the term "greatest nation" we would find that such a substitution would be similarly inappropriate.
This may, or may not, make me guilty of attaching emotions to the word "greatness", but if that's the manner in which it's most commonly used then I think this strengthens my argument rather than diminishes it. However, even if we're speaking purely in terms of quantitatively, your argument for an exclusively economic basis or greatness falls apart.
You began your case for economics being a reasonable way to quantify national greatness with a list of economic indicators. The issue is, of course, that no single nation is at the top in all of them. This is why I, facetiously, suggested that Liechtenstein (which is at, or near, the top of many of them) is therefore the greatest nation in the world.
(As an aside, your suggestion that the results are "skewed" in their favor because of tax policy and population are complete malarkey. Tax policy is a huge part of economic prosperity in every country, and so claiming that a country's economic results are illegitimate because it has a tax policy which encourages economic growth is ridiculous. You might as well say that America's results are skewed because its tax policy is more favorable to growth than Botswana's. The exact some argument applies to population; saying its labour force participation rate is inadmissible because it has a low population is akin to saying America's GDP is inadmissible because it has a high population)
I think you understood my point, because immediately after your ludicrous arguments attempting to dismiss Liechtenstein (the reasons you gave were ridiculous, not the actual dismissal of Liechtenstein) you seemed to switch tacts and settle on a single reference point when you stated "this is why GDP is the better indicator".
The problem with this is, of course, that GDP on its own is a trailing indicator. It's a far better indicator of how strong a nation's economy was a year, decade, or half century ago than it is of the economic strength today. Because of this, it's easy to conceive of a nation which has by almost any other economic indicator been overtaken by other nations, and yet still has the largest GDP by a wide margin. Or, alternately, a nation whose huge population base allows it to outstrip other nations in GDP while any per capita indicator lags far behind. Or a hundred other circumstances. I'm not convinced that even inside your narrow definition such a country would qualify as the greatest.
You see, Outlaw, that your quantitative approach really doesn't work?
If you try to reduce greatness down to a single economic indicator, it's easy to concoct situations in which that one indicator in isolation is mis-leading. On the other hand, if you try to give a more complete picture by offering a number of indicators you find that no single nation leads in them all... and so even if the values of each indicator are quantitative, the manner in which you balance them against one another cannot help but be entirely subjective.
And of course, the trumping argument, neither the context of this thread nor the most common context in which the term "greatest nation" is used can be exclusively, directly or primarily linked to economic strength.
-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.
EE Patron