Given the choice between living as a “middle class” citizen in a 3rd world country or as a typical prisoner in a US min-security prison with no chance of getting out, what would you choose?
By middle class I mean your not dying of AIDS or starving to death but your also not part of the corrupt elite either.
Shoot the hostage?
Third world country definately. People of some means can live relatively well pretty much anywhere. I stayed with local middle class friend in Zimbabwe (about 10 years ago). She lived in a safe apartment complex, had a two bedroom apartment as nice as anything here, maid, tv … . When I first went to Harare, I felt like I’d gotten of the bus in Toronto. Some of the poorer countries have less luxuries, but in most of these countries there are expats who wouldn’t leave for nothing and they aren’t making more than a local. A lot of the places look like first world areas, just with more poor people on the streets. And to add to that, some of these coutries are gorgeous.
Middle Class in the Third World, for sure.
But we need some clarifications on definitions here. When talking about the third world, “middle class” usually doesn’t denote the middle of the income spectrum, it means being able to afford consumer goods. There are relatively few people in this position, and in relative terms they are rich.
For example, a middle class home in India probably has running hot water, a maid and perhaps a driver, a car, a refrigerator, air conditioning in a few rooms, money to send the kids to school and perhaps train them in the arts, and a television. They have access to near-Western quality healthcare. They shop at malls, wear western clothes to work (including some name brands) and go to restraunts and air conditioned movie theaters for entertainment. It’s not quite up to Western standards (the stove will be propane, the electricity is iffy, beggars come up to your car at intersections) but it’s not a bad life at all. It’s better than the poor in America for sure.
A middle income home probably has a cold tap- perhaps shared with a neighbor, a motorcycle, the ability to send one of the kids to school and maybe one large appliance. They wear nylon sari and cotton trousers. They eat at home or at street stalls on special occasions. They go to religious events, dank movie theaters and play impromptu cricket games for fun. They have access to some clinics, most cheaper perscription medicines and not-so-hot govnerment hospitals. It’s a lot different than what we are used to, and has much fewer creature comforts than your average American at the poverty line. But it’s still a lot better than prison.
If you throw in wars, political instability and epidemic disease, it gets a bit murkier, but not everyone in the third world is affected by these issues.
I meant middle class closer to your second example. Basically, not the absolute horror stories you hear about in world vision and oxfam commercials but not much above that.
I think you have a very skewed vision of what middle class would be in the Third world… it quite comparable to middle class in the US actually. Do remember that living costs in the US are expensive… so being middle class there means you actually may manage less creature comforts than someone in Brazil for example.
I’m upper middle class and we have a full time maid/cook for example… even middle middle class manage to have maid or a very regular cleaning lady.
Now if you don’t want to work at all… then I suppose prison in some scandinavian country might be “nice”
Shalmanese, apparently, has never been in prison nor to the “Third World.”
The horror stories in World Vision ads are, I’m guessing, refugees from war & economic upheaval (which is like “soft” war, but inflicted on the people by the government or upper classes). Those are not the typical “poor” of the “undeveloped world.” And I’ve lived in Haiti, which is pretty freaking poor.
And prison? Even a minimum-security prison? Well, would you give up all freedom of movement & self-determination for–what? Air conditioning? No, wait, you probably don’t get that, even.
Given a choice of being stuck in a U.S. hospital psych ward (which is a lot nicer in creature comforts than any prison) or living without shoes or plumbing in a village in West Africa, but being free, I’ll take Africa. I can get over the freakin’ culture shock. It’s objectively better.
I’ll take my chances with the 3rd world middle-class. It may be a bit easier to escape from.
Somebody I know has done quite a bit or research in various African countries. She talked to one group about why they are always producing flyers and advertisements that show sickly, starving children instead of the interesting development projects going on. Their answer: “It’s what the west expects to see, and if they don’t see it, they assume you don’t need money.”
If this had been posted in Great Debates, I think a moderator would soon be along to say that the question has been answered. And the answer is “False dilemma, based on lack of information.”
I don’t blame the OP, however. We get so overloaded with propaganda about how much better the U.S. is than every other country in every respect that such misapprehensions are understandable.