USonians used to be more community-focused. In the 1950s polio was eradicated due to massive community efforts, showing that they were willing to do things to benefit their community.
Nowadays they won’t even do the same to benefit their extended families.
I think all “western” countries were considerably more community focused in the past.
I am in rural Australia and as a kid our supermarket and hardware store were owned by farmer’s co-ops and the hotel is still community owned and puts profits back into local sporting clubs. I have old pictures of some of the community fund raisers in the past and they looked extravagant for the time for a small population. Everyone pitched in to help building sporting clubs or other community facilities or to fight natural disasters. One old timer said they thought the US influence of entrepreneur clubs (Rotary, Lion’s, Apex) was one of the first things to divide the community as the shop owners started to do their own thing separate from everyone else. We still have local community run child care, aged care and hospital. Increasingly people send their kids to the religious private school for social signalling despite the government school being well supported by parents and having excellent facilities and standards. The US funded churches are everywhere competing for customers and preaching hate and division. The disconnect between how people here naturally chose to build a community and what they are told to believe is interesting. I saw a silly old bugger wearing a MAGA hat last year. His parents probably came back from fighting fascists and helped build this community through unimaginable hard work and sacrifice.
back in the 80s my father worked for the largest state-owned bank here in brazil. apart from all benefits and a generally more laxed culture back then (goals were not that enforced, for example), the employees were more of a closely-knit community. they had clubs and were involved with it (the bank still has but not everyone care for it, the one we had in my home town was closed), organized a coop supermarket in state capitals during the inflation years, they were friends usually helped and cared for each other, the families used to visit each other, organized parties for the children, barbecues and the sort. in the 90s, there were heavy talks of privatization, people were fearful for their jobs, layoffs, and the bank generally had a lax policy on security at a time when robberies became more common. the employees slowly began to leave the bank and the few who were admitted to their places had not that culture, were more individualistic. it happened to other state owned companies, and all hell broke loose when many of them were actually privatized (state-level banks, telephone companies, electric distributors were among the most significant examples). now it seems that we’re getting more and more individualistic and losing the meaning of community and society.
USonians used to be more community-focused. In the 1950s polio was eradicated due to massive community efforts, showing that they were willing to do things to benefit their community.
Nowadays they won’t even do the same to benefit their extended families.
I think all “western” countries were considerably more community focused in the past.
I am in rural Australia and as a kid our supermarket and hardware store were owned by farmer’s co-ops and the hotel is still community owned and puts profits back into local sporting clubs. I have old pictures of some of the community fund raisers in the past and they looked extravagant for the time for a small population. Everyone pitched in to help building sporting clubs or other community facilities or to fight natural disasters. One old timer said they thought the US influence of entrepreneur clubs (Rotary, Lion’s, Apex) was one of the first things to divide the community as the shop owners started to do their own thing separate from everyone else. We still have local community run child care, aged care and hospital. Increasingly people send their kids to the religious private school for social signalling despite the government school being well supported by parents and having excellent facilities and standards. The US funded churches are everywhere competing for customers and preaching hate and division. The disconnect between how people here naturally chose to build a community and what they are told to believe is interesting. I saw a silly old bugger wearing a MAGA hat last year. His parents probably came back from fighting fascists and helped build this community through unimaginable hard work and sacrifice.
back in the 80s my father worked for the largest state-owned bank here in brazil. apart from all benefits and a generally more laxed culture back then (goals were not that enforced, for example), the employees were more of a closely-knit community. they had clubs and were involved with it (the bank still has but not everyone care for it, the one we had in my home town was closed), organized a coop supermarket in state capitals during the inflation years, they were friends usually helped and cared for each other, the families used to visit each other, organized parties for the children, barbecues and the sort. in the 90s, there were heavy talks of privatization, people were fearful for their jobs, layoffs, and the bank generally had a lax policy on security at a time when robberies became more common. the employees slowly began to leave the bank and the few who were admitted to their places had not that culture, were more individualistic. it happened to other state owned companies, and all hell broke loose when many of them were actually privatized (state-level banks, telephone companies, electric distributors were among the most significant examples). now it seems that we’re getting more and more individualistic and losing the meaning of community and society.