Nation states largely exist to protect the power of their respective elites. No country is immune, but there are shining examples in the world, like the nordic model, that other nations choose to ignore because, unlike those nations, most nation’s decision maker’s goal isn’t to maximize the well being of their people, but to maximize their own individual power, which capital is a form of.
The problem with your analysis is that it views each country as an island and imagines that they have no effect on the world around them. The Nordic countries are indeed very good places to live for the people who live there, but they are also participants in the international system of unequal exchange that sees trillions of dollars in wealth siphoned away from the global south every year, contributing massively to unhappiness in those countries which are victims to it.
Is it worth keeping ten Africans in perpetual poverty for each European who gets to live a comfy life? I would say “no”, but…
This is seeing the wood for the trees.
Nation states largely exist to protect the power of their respective elites. No country is immune, but there are shining examples in the world, like the nordic model, that other nations choose to ignore because, unlike those nations, most nation’s decision maker’s goal isn’t to maximize the well being of their people, but to maximize their own individual power, which capital is a form of.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
The problem with your analysis is that it views each country as an island and imagines that they have no effect on the world around them. The Nordic countries are indeed very good places to live for the people who live there, but they are also participants in the international system of unequal exchange that sees trillions of dollars in wealth siphoned away from the global south every year, contributing massively to unhappiness in those countries which are victims to it.
Is it worth keeping ten Africans in perpetual poverty for each European who gets to live a comfy life? I would say “no”, but…