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12/5/2013 11:45:47 PM
36
Population makes the US different
When it comes to pointing out the issues of the United States, it's not surprising that people will often turn to other countries for solutions. "Why can't we be more like the UK?" "Why can't we be more like Germany?" "Why can't we be more like Canada?"
I'm not criticizing anyone for saying this, in fact I completely understand. If another country has something going on that's better, we should get in on it. The problem however I want to point out is that people seem to think that comparing countries to countries is an Apples to Apples comparison, that's just not right.
When you want to implement something, we can all agree that the larger the population the more chaotic implementing it will become. Small numbers makes things easier cause you can see right away whether or not it will work, and it gives you lee way for experimenting.
So how big of a difference is the population between the US and other countries?
In the United States we have 315 MILLION people.
The population of Finland = 5.4 Million.
How about a bigger country? Germany? 82 Million.
UK? 64 Million.
France? 66 Million.
Sweden? 9.5 Million.
Denmark? 5.6 Million.
Norway? 5 Million.
New York City? 8.3 Million.
Wait, New York City? Yup, not a country. More people live in New York City than Norway. In fact Norway is the Equivalent of Colorado with 5.2 Million.
What about outside Europe? Okay.
Australia? 23 Million.
New Zealand? 4.4 Million.
Canada? 35 Million.
California has 38 Million people which is bigger than Canada.
In fact if you add up all the other countries I just mentioned, it still wouldn't equal the total population of the United States. It would 299.9 Million.
Think about that. So the next time you hear someone say "Why can't we be more like Finland?" tell them because we have 300 Million more people.
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3 RepliesThat doesn't actually explain why we can't be more like (insert country here). Yes, there's way more bureaucracy involved since we do have a larger population, I get it. But this is a strawman. People don't want to be more like a country per se, but they want the US to adopt the policies of said country. Let's ignore the countries and say "Why can't the US have (Insert policies of smaller country)?", it asked the same question, but it's ignoring the country and instead focusing on the policies of said country. You can't really use the "because we have 300 million more people" logic because you're not comparing the US to another country. That being said, should we dismiss what works for the small countries just because we're a large country? I'm just saying, if I ask why can't our economic system be more like the economic system of 1. A small left-wing country 2. a small moderate country 3. and small right-wing country. You can't really dismiss all three of the economic systems since we're going to have to be similar to one of their's. (You can argue that I presented a false trichotomy, but that's not the point)
