An Immodest Proposal: How to Fix the World

Therefore the corporations can lower the prices of items, resulting in a more competitive corporation. However, there are flaws: in the case of the United States, jobs are outsourced to countries that have less or no restrictions on the working conditions and minimum wages. Frequently, these countries have corrupt or nonexistent unions, so workers cannot defend themselves against corporate greed. Often, the results are that Americans lose otherwise decent-paying jobs to sweatshop workers who are overexploited for a fraction of what the payment would be in the United States. Therefore, Americans become poorer and poorer within their own country and foreign workers stay poor, while American corporations become increasingly wealthy. This is the wealth inequality that sets up the United States and the rest of the world for a future Great Depression. If the people from the undeveloped/developing countries were given the opportunity to elect the American government, they could encourage the government to be aware of their needs and put restrictions on outsourcing to corporations.

They could also encourage the government to tax corporations more heavily instead of giving them tax cuts. Even better, they could encourage the government to put restrictions on the practice of exploiting people for a very low wage. This would not only benefit the poor, but it would prevent the wealth disparity from taking place. Consequently, this would create more jobs for both the foreign workers and Americans.

The American notion of manifest destiny (think of the popular phrase in American politics "God Bless America") and the military strength acquired by the United States has resulted in the arrogant belief amongst many Americans that they have the God-given right to invade other countries and intervene in conflicts (usually when it is convenient for them). The United States has set itself up as a global authority and a model for first world countries to follow. As a consequence, Americans are shielded from the rest of the world and few care about the horrors of extreme poverty and religious fanaticism as long as it does not affect them.

An obvious symptom of this thinking is the inability of the average American to identify even the countries that make up North America (Canada, the United States, AND Mexico, for those who think North America ends at the southern border of the US). Another symptom is the warlike attitude of attacking countries with different ideologies or countries that do not provide aid in times of war; on a more individual level, this attitude presents itself as violence towards people of different ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, culture, etcetera. As a result, the only people who would be able to speak for the disadvantaged nations of the world, simply do not, because they do not care.

Americans lack the empathy and tolerance to sympathize and accept people who are different from them. Allowing people from all over the world to have a hand in electing the American government would give people from different nationalities, ethnicities and religions a voice, and provide American citizens with new perspectives and ideas. This would not only reduce the incidence of war between the United States and other countries which could potentially escalate to an international conflinct, but it would also work in a more individual level, allowing Americans to become more tolerant and understanding of different people.

A win-win situation for both the United States and the rest of the world, allowing people from other countries to have a voice in what gets done in the United States government is a single solution to more than one problem. The American economy and consequently the world economy would benefit from this solution. So would the problem of poverty and starvation in undeveloped/developing countries disappear. Most importantly, the attitude of the United States would change, making the world a much safer place than it currently is. These are but a few of the beneficial results of this proposal and it is yet to be determined if there are more.