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【中文标题】六点说明美国就跟一个第三世界一样 【原文标题】SixWays America Is Like a Third-World Country 【原文作者】Sean Mcelwee 【原文链接】http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-ways-america-is-like-a-third-world-country-20140305 【译者】nanotube 【翻译方式】人工
我们的社会在教育，医保，犯罪和更多的方面落后于其他发达国家
肖恩.麦克尔威 2014年3月5日下午12:00 ET
尽管美国是史上最富有的社会之一，它仍然在人类发展的许多重要指标上落后于其他发达国家– 很关键的指标，如我们如何教育我们的孩子，我们如何对待我们的战俘，我们如何照顾病患等等。在某些程度上讲，美国的表现简直是糟糕透顶，远远差于被人们冷嘲热讽的“第三世界国家”。这里举出六点最令人震惊的例子来显示我们的差距有多远：
1 。刑事司法公正
我们都知道美国的刑事司法系统是有缺陷的，但很少有人会意识到它相比世界其他地区是多么的糟糕。据国际监狱研究中心估计，美国每10万人中有716人关在监狱里。这比俄罗斯（每10万人484名囚犯） ，中国（ 121 ）和伊朗（ 284 ）都显著恶化。唯一关押人口比例高于我们的国家是北朝鲜。美国也是执行死刑的唯一一个发达国家 – 而且我们的死刑有一个严重的种族偏向：42％的死刑犯是黑人，而黑人只占总人口的不到15％ 。
目前超过两百五十万美国孩子的父母身陷囹圄。被关押在美国监狱中的人，多达60 ％的人是非暴力犯罪者，其中许多人因为吸毒而入狱（绝大多数是黑人）。甚至当我们的犯罪率已经在下降的时候，我们关押的人口还在攀升。截至2011年，每年约有21万7千名美国囚犯在监狱被强奸 - 每天有600新的受害者，非常可怕的数字。 2010年，司法部发布了关于青少年犯拘留中心中虐待的报告。该报告发现，所有青少年犯中12.1％的受访者经历了性侵犯，被关押7~12月之间的青少年犯报告了14.2％的受害率。
2 。枪支暴力
美国枪支有关的谋杀案领先所有发展国家，不是略有领先 - 更像是一条鸿沟。根据联合国的数据，美国的谋杀案比发达国家平均水平高20倍。我们的谋杀率也让许多发展中国家相形见绌，比如伊拉克的谋杀率不到我们的一半。近50年来在世界各地发生的最致命的大规模射杀案件有一半发生在美国，而在美国的枪支杀人犯有73％是合法得到他们的武器的。另一项研究发现，美国用枪自杀的比例也是全球最高之一。枪支暴力的程度在美国各地各不相同，但有些城市，如新奥尔良和底特律能比得上最危险的拉美国家，在那些地区枪支暴力是全世界最高的水平。
3 。医疗保健
去年的一项研究发现，在美国许多郡，特别是在南方，人均寿命比在阿尔及利亚，尼加拉瓜或孟加拉国更低。美国是唯一没有对本国公民普及医疗制度的发达国家，即使在奥巴马的医疗改革法通过以后，仍然有数百万贫困的美国人没有医疗保险，因为某些州的州长，以共和党人为主，拒绝配合奥巴马的医改法扩大医疗补助，为低收入的美国人提供健康保险，尽管联邦政府将全额支付他们扩大医疗补助的开支。许多州长用成本作为原因，即使扩张实际上是节省行政开支的。美国有数万穷人因为缺乏医疗保险而死亡，在发达国家中这是独一无二的，哪怕我们花在医保支出上面占GDP的比例比国际经合组织（OECD）国家的平均支出要高出两倍多 ，那些可都不是穷国啊。美国的婴儿死亡率远高于对应的国家，青少年怀孕率在发达国家中是最高的，主要是因为保守派出于政治动机让避孕措施在很多地区非常少见。
4 。教育
美国是世界上仅有的三个不保证带薪产假的国家之一（其他两个是巴布亚新几内亚和斯威士兰）。这意味着许多贫困的美国妈妈们必须选择养活自己的孩子，还是保持他们的工作。美国的教育体制有很多结构上的种族偏见，这体现在学校经费出于地方居民，而非国家层面。这意味着，贫困黑人上的学校比富裕的学生就读的学校拿到的经费少得多。教育部数据已经证明这一点，贫困学生集中的地区的学校拿到的经费较低。这也难怪美国在高收入和低收入家庭的学生之间的成绩差距是经合组织国家中最大的。今天的学校实际上比他们在20世纪70年代更有种族隔离。我们的高等教育系统的学生也是在发达国家中独一无二的，几乎全部是学生自己掏腰包，欠债来上。在一般的经合组织成员国，学生可以期待他们的大学学费的70％由政府资助，在美国，教育成本仅约40％是由公共资助。这就是美国在经合组织国家中有着最高学费的一个原因。
5 。收入不平等
说到收入不平等，几乎每一项指标，美国都在OECD国家中名列前茅，主要是因为美国是发达国家中最吝啬福利的国家。这种不平等对美国社会造成深刻和深远的影响。例如，虽然美国自己对自己社会猖獗的收入不平等的解释理由是底层民众有动力向上流动，美国的许多社区根本没有向上流动的可能。出生在最贫穷的五分之一家庭的人口一辈子只有不到3％的几率能爬到最富有的五分之一。不平等损害我们的民主，因为富人可以施加一个超大的、超比例的政治影响力。例如，谢尔登·阿德尔森这一个人在2012年大选掷的金，比12个州的居民加起来还要大。不平等也撕破了社会结构，有大量的研究表明不平等的与低社会信任水平有关联。在他们的著作《精神层面》里，理查德·皮克特和凯特威尔金森表明，各种各样的社会指标，包括健康和福祉是跟不平等程度紧密联系在一起的。
6 。基础设施
美国的基础设施正在因为老旧慢慢崩溃，现在迫切需要进行维修。一项研究估计，我们的基础设施体系需要在未来六年耗资36万亿美元的修葺。在纽约市，第二大道地铁线的开发最初是因为第二次世界大战的爆发而推迟了，它至今仍然没有完成。在南达科他州，阿拉斯加州和宾夕法尼亚州，水仍然是通过有百年历史的木质管道来输送。美国大约45％的人没有公共交通。美国很大一部分的废水处理设施有超过半世纪的历史，在底特律，一些下水道可以追溯到19世纪中叶。根据国家桥梁调查，在美国九个桥里面就有一座被认为有“结构缺陷” （66,405座桥）。所有这一切都意味着美国已在基础设施的国际排名中迅速下降。
美国是一个伟大的国家，它很多的事情办得很好。但它有许多非常大的盲点。近600万美国人，或者适龄选民人口的2.5％无法投票这一事实就是一点。就因为这些人有过一点犯罪的记录，这意味着政治家可以找借口关押越来越多的市民而不必担心失去自己的座位。我们的精英主义和向上流动的想法使我们看不到阶级和不平等的现实。我们的医保体系对一些人提供了很好的照顾，但它是有代价的- 数百万人没有医疗保险。如果我们不仔细研究这些缺陷，我们又怎能希望作为一个社会一起进步？
【原文】
Six Ways America Is Like a Third-World CountryOur society lags behind the rest of the developed world in education, health care, violence and more
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Comment190
The U.S. imprisons a higer percentage of our population than countries like Russia, China and Iran.
Michael Criswell/Getty Images
By SEAN MCELWEE
MARCH 5, 2014 12:00 PM ET
Although the U.S. is one of the richest societies in history, it still lags behind other developed nations in many important indicators of human development – key factors like how we educate our children, how we treat our prisoners, how we take care of the sick and more. In some instances, the U.S.'s performance is downright abysmal, far below foreign countries that are snidely looked-down-upon as "third world." Here are six of the most egregious examples that show how far we still have to go:
1. Criminal Justice
We all know the U.S. criminal justice system is flawed, but few are likely aware of just how bad it is compared to the rest of the world. The International Center for Prison Studies estimates that America imprisons 716 people per 100,000 citizens (of any age). That's significantly worse than Russia (484 prisoners per 100,000 citizens), China (121) and Iran (284). The only country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than we do is North Korea. The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners – and our death penalty has a serious race problem: 42 percent of those on death row are black, compared to less than 15 percent of the overall population.
Over two and a half million American children have a parent behind bars. A whopping 60 percent of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons are non-violent offenders, many of them in prison for drug charges (overwhelmingly African-Americans). Even while our crime rate has fallen, our incarcerated population has climbed. As of 2011, an estimated 217,000 American prisoners were raped each year – that's 600 new victims every day, a truly horrifying number. In 2010, the Department of Justice released a report about abuse in juvenile detention centers. The report found that 12.1 percent of all youth held in juvenile detention reported sexual violence; youth held for between seven and 12 months had a victimization rate of 14.2 percent.
2. Gun Violence
The U.S. leads the developed world in firearm-related murders, and the difference isn't a slight gap – more like a chasm. According to United Nations data, the U.S. has 20 times more murders than the developed world average. Our murder rate also dwarfs many developing nations, like Iraq, which has a murder rate less than half ours. More than half of the most deadly mass shootings documented in the past 50 years around the world occurred in the United States, and 73 percent of the killers in the U.S. obtained their weapons legally. Another study finds that the U.S. has one of the highest proportion of suicides committed with a gun. Gun violence varies across the U.S., but some cities like New Orleans and Detroit rival the most violent Latin American countries, where gun violence is highest in the world.
3. Healthcare
A study last year found that in many American counties, especially in the deep South, life expectancy is lower than in Algeria, Nicaragua or Bangladesh. The U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee health care to its citizens; even after the Affordable Care Act, millions of poor Americans will remain uninsured because governors, mainly Republicans, have refused to expand Medicaid, which provides health insurance for low-income Americans. Although the federal government will pay for the expansion, many governors cited cost, even though the expansion would actually save money. America is unique among developed countries in that tens of thousands of poor Americans die because they lack health insurance, even while we spend more than twice as much of our GDP on healthcare than the average for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a collection of rich world countries. The U.S. has an infant mortality rate that dwarfs comparable nations, as well as the highest teenage-pregnancy rate in the developed world, largely because of the politically-motivated unavailability of contraception in many areas.
4. Education
The U.S. is among only three nations in the world that does not guarantee paid maternal leave (the other two are Papua New Guinea and Swaziland). This means many poor American mothers must choose between raising their children and keeping their jobs. The U.S. education system is plagued with structural racial biases, like the fact that schools are funded at the local, rather than national level. That means that schools attended by poor black people get far less funding than the schools attended by wealthier students. The Department of Education has confirmed that schools with high concentrations of poor students have lower levels of funding. It's no wonder America has one of the highest achievement gaps between high income and low income students, as measured by the OECD. Schools today are actually more racially segregated than they were in the 1970s. Our higher education system is unique among developed nations in that is funded almost entirely privately, by debt. Students in the average OECD country can expect about 70 percent of their college tuition to be publicly funded; in the United States, only about 40 percent of the cost of education is publicly-funded. That's one reason the U.S. has the highest tuition costs of any OECD country.
5. Inequality
By almost every measure, the U.S. tops out OECD countries in terms of income inequality, largely because America has the stingiest welfare state of any developed country. This inequality has deep and profound effects on American society. For instance, although the U.S. justifies its rampant inequality on the premise of upward mobility, many parts of the United States have abysmal levels of social mobility, where children born in the poorest quintile have a less than 3 percent chance of reaching the top quintile. Inequality harms our democracy, because the wealthy exert an outsized political influence. Sheldon Adelson, for instance, spent more to influence the 2012 election than the residents of 12 states combined. Inequality also tears at the social fabric, with a large body of research showing that inequality correlates with low levels of social trust. In their book The Spirit Level, Richard Pickett and Kate Wilkinson show that a wide variety of social indicators, including health and well-being are intimately tied to inequality.
6. Infrastructure
The United States infrastructure is slowly crumbling apart and is in desperate need for repair. One study estimates that our infrastructure system needs a $3.6 trillion investment over the next six years. In New York City, the development of Second Avenue subway line was first delayed by the outbreak of World War II; it's still not finished. In South Dakota, Alaska and Pennsylvania, water is still transported via century-old wooden pipes. Some 45 percent of Americans lack access to public transit. Large portions of U.S. wastewater capacity are more than half a century old and in Detroit, some of the sewer lines date back to the mid-19th century. One in nine U.S. bridges (or 66,405 bridges) are considered "structurally deficient," according to the National Bridge Inventory. All of this means that the U.S. has fallen rapidly in international rankings of infrastructure.
America is a great country, and it does many things well. But it has vast blind spots. The fact that nearly 6 million Americans, or 2.5 percent of the voting-age population, cannot vote because they have a felony on record means that politicians can lock up more and more citizens without fear of losing their seat. Our ideas of meritocracy and upward mobility blind us to the realities of class and inequality. Our healthcare system provides good care to some, but it comes at a cost – millions of people without health insurance. If we don't critically examine these flaws, how can we ever hope to progress as a society?
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