American Government: Not as Bad as You Think

It's easy to be discouraged about the future of the American government and economy with Dubya in charge ... but every once in a while I trip over something that reminds me of why I am extremely fortunate to be an American citizen. In the 1/23/06 issue of the New Yorker, reporter Dan Baum interviewed a Peruvian immigrant whom, at first glance, you might think would be dying to go home. He has a graduate degree in engineering and a much sought after job in Peru, which his employer is holding open for him for a year in the hope that he will return. In the US, he makes the same wages (as he made in Peru) as a food service worker in a supermarket and has to spend far more in living expenses for a much less affluent lifestyle than he had in Peru. But he still wants to stay...

"It's not the money," he said. "I was living much richer there." The word he uses when discussing why he left Peru is desorden--chaos--the terrible combination of the noise and dirt and street crime of Lima, the volatility of the economy, and the corruption of the government. Lima sapped his faith in any institution outside of his family, he told me, and made life feel unpredictable. He emigrated, essentially, to be part of a society in which the public sector is respected.

Trading a job at the pinnacle of his profession for menial tasks at supermarkets has been painful. "At least in the short term, my life in the United States is going to be worse than it was in Peru," he said. "But the future for my son is better."

My first reaction: Public sector respected here? Huh? But the fact of the matter is that despite the corruption of Tom Delay, Cheney et al, most of us expect our government  to perform its basic functions without a bribe, and it delivers. We just have such high standards that most of us can't appreciate what truly poor government really looks like.

Link: http://www.newyorker.com/...