US political discourse is characterized by deep resignation about the high costs and mixed outcomes of our health, housing, education, and childcare systems. But these issues aren’t unfixable — in fact, many other countries have already fixed them.
In an America where health care costs bankrupt families, where housing costs consume half of many workers’ incomes, and where politicians disingenuously maintain that paid family leave is beyond our capacity as the wealthiest nation in world history, we clearly need a more ambitious policy vision. Likewise, at a specific juncture when many voters who are concerned about the economy cast their ballots for a billionaire who has now set about eviscerating public programs and favoring the ultrarich, we clearly need messengers to carry that vision to the public.
Other countries have solved many problems considered unsolvable in the United States. But in a fog of recent demoralization and age-old American exceptionalism, Americans are apt to shrug and say, “That is there, and this is here.” Natasha Hakimi Zapata’s Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe, which explores where some of the world’s best social policies came from and how they work, is a necessary intervention. Hakimi Zapata’s book makes it abundantly clear that other countries have faced challenges and choices just like ours and have elected to pool their resources — which are usually considerably less than ours — to provide a higher quality of life for themselves.
Hakimi Zapata methodically examines how other nations have found ways to ensure basics like health care and education to more eclectic social provisions like digital rights and pension equality. From Norway’s generous family policies to Singapore’s innovative…
Auteur: Natasha Hakimi Zapata
