If America were an individual person, would she find that all of her needs are met?
by Mauve Maude
January 6, 2021
Self-motivation is such a prize in American society, isn’t it?
If you’ve looked for a job lately (and more of us have than usual), it probably hasn’t escaped your attention how desired a trait self-motivation is to employers. They not only want you to function well on the job without much pushing from them. They want your own professional success, and their business success, to be the thing that gets you out of the bed each morning, brings you to their table early, and keeps you there into the night, probably checking emails on your phone until you return to bed, to do it all over again, early in the morning.
But what if you don’t have a bed?
The obvious potential problem here is what’s explained by psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs. The idea is that if your basic needs aren’t met, you’ll be forced to prioritize them, you won’t be able to focus on anything beyond them, and you won’t succeed at attaining anything beyond them. Maslow visualized the hierarchy as a pyramid, with the most basic needs (physiological ones) at the broad base, providing the foundation for the narrower levels above: after physiological needs, safety, then love and belonging, followed by esteem, and finally, maybe, if we’re most fortunate, self-actualization, the ultimate fulfillment of human potential. The other end of the idea is that people whose bottom needs are met, are in position to make better decisions about the direction of their lives, which are likely to keep elevating them even higher on the pyramid.
The idea is that if your basic needs aren’t met, you’ll be forced to prioritize them, you won’t be able to focus on anything beyond them, and you won’t succeed at attaining anything beyond them.
If a person doesn’t even have a bed to sleep on (and with that, likely, other significant issues), they won’t be able to achieve the basic well-being at the next level, which would make it impossible to achieve or contribute any of the other things our society values.
And we do very much value the idea and the practice of self, and what we’re able to attain. So what if we looked at America as a person, under Maslow’s study? How well would she be doing, in 2021?
Under Maslow’s theory, the first question would be: are America’s basic needs being met?
Now obviously, America is not one person. America is 300.3 million haves and have-nots. The answer to that question for America as a whole is an obvious no. The real question for a country is, do we consider ourselves successful, and actualized, if only some people are? Especially if it’s just a few people?
As of 2020, the nation’s wealthiest 1% own almost a third of the nation’s wealth. That’s about 3.3 million people, less than half the population of New York City. The rest of the top ten percent (about 30 million people) own another 38% of the nation’s wealth. The remaining almost-a-third of the nation’s wealth is shared by 90% of the country’s population (300 million of us), but most of that is shared by the middle class (or, at least, the rest of the wealthier half of the country, after the top ten percent, which is about 133.6 million people). So that leaves about 2% of the nation’s wealth for the poorer half of the country, about 167 million people.
If the entire United States population were, let’s say, 333 whole people with a pot of money to split between them, three people would get a third of the pot. Another thirty would get roughly another third. And the other 300 would get the last third. But 133 of those would take all but the last 2% of the whole pot. So 167 people would have to split that leftover two percent.
If America were an individual person (population of one), her greatest resource would be her time, and she’d have to decide how to distribute her efforts and capabilities–her functionality–to that time. If she distributed her functionality over a day the way our nation’s wealth is distributed over our population, she’d be spending half of her time at only 2% function. It wouldn’t serve her well to spend twelve daytime hours only functioning at two percent of her capability. Her best choice would be to give that effort to twelve nighttime hours, when she sleeps, and maybe spends a little time with her family (functioning at two percent). The twelve hours she’s awake, she’d spend the day functioning anywhere from 29-38%. No more. Would she be fulfilling her basic needs, beyond sleep? How would you do if 38% of your capability was the most you could ever use (and that only nine percent of the time)? Hopefully she at least has a bed.
But then, maybe wealth just isn’t a good enough indicator of how well America is functioning.
If the entire United States population were 333 people with a pot of money to split between them, 167 people would have to split two percent.
After all, not everybody does have a bed. Not everybody has enough food, or clean, running water. Many scrap for any kind of shelter and have trouble finding clothing. Their health is most likely, understandably, terrible. If not, it will be eventually. So these are people–many of them children who can’t even pursue these needs themselves–who are not safe, are not stable, and are not well. And they won’t be until those needs are met.
In pursuit of those needs for themselves and their families, and their needs on the next level, seeing no other options, many will find themselves resorting to crime, putting everything at risk. Black men, women, and children fear every interaction with police officers. Women and children are too often preyed upon. Homosexual and transgender people are under constant threat of attack. Refugees flee their lifelong homes for our borders on foot, so they can have a chance of escaping crushing poverty, or to avoid becoming victims of unregulated, violent crime. Even Americans are fleeing their homes to escape wildfires, hurricanes, and massive flooding. And our country still isn’t fully accessible to people of all abilities.
If people can’t find safety, stability, or well-being, how do they create or sustain healthy, fulfilling relationships? How can children be properly educated? If they have none of these things, how can they have any self-esteem? The top of the pyramid gets hidden in clouds; it’s not even visible.
In addition to the people who were already in this trouble before COVID-19, people who were getting by are now in danger of losing food, shelter, and health, or they’ve already lost it. For them, that potentially means a loss of functioning relationships, and that means a loss of self-esteem. Down it all goes.
From the top, usually, everything looks pretty good. That’s why people want to be there. For people who stay there, it might be easy to forget, or ever even know, what things look like on the bottom. And a full pot of money is a pretty sight too. But if we’re looking beyond her overall wealth, how well can America be doing? It’s a question worth asking. How many more people need to find themselves at the bottom of the pyramid, before we realize we’re not meeting our needs?
What do you think? We would like to hear from you, but you won’t find the typical Comments section here. If you have given the issue some thought or have an experience to share, please enter it here, or send your response to Maude@mauvereport.com. We would like to share viewpoints from all sides. You can read what other readers had to say below.
Commentary
“Thoroughly enjoyed your ‘Maslow Looks Us Over’ piece. It begs the question:
From an intelligent/liberal?/common sense/American standpoint, should/should not those of us who are able to, given our more fortunate position on the pyramid (however fleeting that may be given the current pandemic/political/cultural landscape) . . . are we not somehow responsible for lifting our fellow man/woman/child/other out of the depths of poverty and despair? Could/would we not increase our collective wealth, thereby improving the lives of more people, more of the time? After all, the cornerstone of liberal political thinking is progression for all of the populace, with a constant and concerted effort to bring (lift, invite) all who wish to enjoy the basics (at base of pyramid: food/bed) and the liberties, freedoms, and all basic human/social rights afforded to her under the original documents drawn up at the founding of this so-called Great Democracy which we all hold so dear?
The very notion of Democracy, and all of its lofty ideals and comfortable assertions are certainly more enjoyed by the haves, than the have nots (obviously). For the have nots busy themselves with basic survival and the squirreled search for a bed to rest thy weary head. The majority of their time is spent in the pursuit of survival. Now the haves, they are altogether more freed to decorate their lives with ‘lofty’ ideas of equality, spiritual realization, political freedoms/ideals of choice and chatter, to be born, celebrated and also chastised. They have the time to pursue the ability to reach a higher level of their functioning selves–to attain an enlightenment that crystallizes their world, and their word . . . and their lives . . . But I would argue that it does all of these things, whilst doing nothing at all.
A world/country where one person sleeps on a cold floor and another rests on a feather bed, is not a balanced bowl for anyone. It’s more of an unbalanced set of spinning plates, set to dizzying music of total chaos, as seen in Cirque Italia.
When viewed as more of a collective societal home and its myriad issues and strife (Maslow’s Pyramid) sees that those on the bottom (and below that even) can be lifted up by their neighbors just above them, and above them, etc., and widespread, at a federal government level–wow. More than spare change indeed. We would/could have a hierarchy of hope and help and health and wealth, with NEED and GREED being replaced by a lasting and grasping warm hand that could usher in a new country/new world of understanding, compassion, and security. A strengthened base–replacing the bottom completely.
In an effort to capture and cover all of the truths of your piece, I veered around a bit. It was a frozen and icy lake of social commentary that a man/woman could glide around on all day–finding both a crunching and crushing frustration, and a hopeful freedom for a better tomorrow.” Patrick Miller, Texas, January 9, 2021