{"id":51,"date":"2007-02-16T00:14:35","date_gmt":"2007-02-16T00:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2012-06-05T08:18:30","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T08:18:30","slug":"crule-britannia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/?p=51","title":{"rendered":"Crule Britannia!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday's UNICEF<\/a> report makes a "comprehensive assessment of the lives and well-being of children and adolescents in the economically advanced nations". It makes interesting reading. Unless you happen to live in the UK, in which case you'd shrivel up into a tiny ball of embarrassment and reel in jaw-dropping incredulity.<\/p>\n

The report attempts to quantify "well-being" into six categories. Out of 21 countries studied, here's how us plucky Brits faired:<\/p>\n

materialism: 18th
\nfamily and peer relationships: last
\nhealth and safety: 12th
\neducation: 17th
\nbehaviour and risks: last
\nsubjective well-being: last<\/p>\n

Overall we came, unsurprisingly, last, just below USA. Hardly a glowing endorsement of capitalism. If there was a league for capitalism, we'd both be at the top.<\/p>\n

We've become a nation of "haves" and "have lots", which appears to have taught kids that success can be measured by the quantity of 'stuff' one can amass in a lifetime. It starts with a pair of trainers, then to mobile phones, iPods, holidays, cars and eventually houses (London in particular where it's not so much live-to-work but live-to-pay-the-bloody-mortgage). Capital subjugation that's hard to escape when your environment blasts you from every angle to expose your material inadequacies. The consequence infects family structure, culls aspirations and blunts social mobility.<\/p>\n

From a kid's perspective, it's all quite clear: issues of morality can be replaced with concern of individual wealth. So for some green-eyed kid with phone envy, theft is, on balance, justified. The more wealth to taunt your peers, the higher your standing. I doubt this will have been missed by the Marxists.<\/p>\n

And I wonder how much well-beingness will be apparent as consumerist kids grow into capitalist adults. What was started by Thatcher has been perfected by Blair, and between them they have made this country a pretty sorry place in which to live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday's UNICEF report makes a "comprehensive assessment of the lives and well-being of children and adolescents in the economically advanced nations". It makes interesting reading. Unless you happen to live in the UK, in which case you'd shrivel up into a tiny ball of embarrassment and reel in jaw-dropping incredulity. The report attempts to quantify […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}