Jack Ma's theory of how America went wrong over the past 30 years
What rubbish!<p>This is the thinking of someone that lives in a country with a philosophy that puts country before individuals.<p>By almost every and any measure, we are all better off than 30, 40 or 50 years ago - Chinese, Americans, Indians, Europeans, almost everyone. There IS a subset within those places that has benefited less, or even gone backwards, no doubt.<p>But even for those people, what is the economic value of the wonders of the modern, internet and mobile phone age? When for the cost of an internet connection, people have access to millions of free flash games? Is that a better life than 1970s Harlem? I&#x27;m not sure either way, but it is a lot closer run thing that life is worse for the &quot;losers&quot; of globalization than people realize, and that is the comparison for the small minority that have missed out in the modern world, not the mean or median experience.<p>The only way people are worse off is if they compare the best of 1960s living - e.g. have only the husband work, own a 4 bedroom house in the burbs, make a decent salary without a degree - and ignore the things missing that are present in the modern lifestyle. Because in the 1960&#x2F;70&#x2F;80s west, people ate only basic food (nothing &quot;foreign&quot; like Thai or Indian), very few had cable TV, and went out at most once a week to the movies. They never bought an espresso, never owned a modern electronic device like a computer, never got to use the internet to settle an argument or play a computer game, unless they were extremely well off and got to play Pong circa say 1980.<p>If that sounds like a life people prefer - a big house, no lifestyle, no electronics, basic cable if lucky and only white people food - then I reckon most people could live like that even today if they so chose. But man, that isn&#x27;t a life I&#x27;d be happy with. Not even slightly.<p>If that is &quot;losing&quot; - better lifestyle, better food, better (and cheaper) entertainment and slightly smaller living conditions and more people working, man, &quot;winning&quot; would have been insanely good.