The Public Attitude to Politics
The British don't usually go so far as to say politicians are thieves, but they do look on them as dishonest and lying people. Even in a satirical way, British say that the first rule of politics is never believe anything until it's been officially denied, implying that the truth is exactly the opposite to what they claim. Furthermore, the British are generally indifferent to politics, and rarely become passionate about it. Politics is for them a boring topic of conversation. This lack of enthusiasm is reflected in the general ignorance of who they are.
The Style of Democracy
In many aspects of life the British manage with a relatively small set of laws, and so there are few rules telling people or the government what they must or must not do. In fact, a distinctive characteristic of the English democracy is the traditional idea that people and the government should leave each other alone as much as possible, which is why people are not obliged to vote at elections. Additionally, people aren't really involved in governing or lawmaking, and the government can make drastic changes without having to ask them for it. Here democracy never meant that people were involved in the running of the country, but rather that they only had to choose who is to govern the country, and then let them get on with in.
The Constitution
As opposed to almost all modern countries, Britain doesn't have a constitution. However, this doesn't mean that it doesn't have rules, principles or procedures, but that there's not a single written document which can be considered as the highest law.
Instead, the principles, procedures and people's rights come from other sources. Some of them are written down in laws agreed by Parliament, some have been spoken and written down (for example judgments made in a court), and some others have never been written down at all, but are effectively set by custom and practice.
The style of politics
Politics in the UK is conducted in a rather informal way. Important decision are preferably made at lunch and even over some drinks rather than at official meetings. However, the parliament is run with a greater degree of formality as its members are obliged to proceed honoring some ancient traditions of procedure.
Another distinctive feature of politics in the UK is that politicians are very often willing to cooperate with one another. They see the advantages of this, and even when they support different parties they are always open to cooperate if there's mutual benefit.
The party system
There are two big dominating parties in he UK: the Conservative party and the Labour party. A third option is the Liberal Democratic party but it hasn't been all that relevant over the last few decades, time during which the Labour party replaced the Liberals as the second most popular party. The Labour party, as opposed to the other two, was created outside the parliament when an increasing number of urban workers (proletarians) needed a political force to represent their interests.
Out of the two most important parties, the one that doesn't control the government often presents itself as an alternative government, ready to step up at any time it is needed. In order to keep up this appearance of readiness they try to look as low-drama as possible. There are more often that not internal conflicts, especially when the leading MP doesn't get to be reelected, but they don't want everybody know about such things.
The organization of the American government
The American government is divided into three branches:
the legislative branch,
the executive branch and
the judicial branch. The Congress (legislative branch) has two houses:
the Senate, which consists of two senators from each state; and
the House of Representatives, which is made up of 435 representatives divided among the fifty states by population.
The president heads the executive branch, which has the responsibility to carry out the laws.
The Supreme Court and
lower national courts make up the judicial branch, whose function is to settle disputes about the meaning of the law through court cases.
The Election of the President and the Congress
The president and both houses of Congress are elected separately. The presidential elections are held every four years, while in the Congress the Representatives's term last two years, and the Senator's six. It's worth noting that either one of these three fragments of the government can be occupied by any of the two most important parties.
The system through which the president is elected is called electoral college. With this system, people are actually voting for representatives called electors, and it is these who officially choose the president. The winner of the plurality of each state's popular votes gets all of that state's electoral votes.
The development of Big Government
The Big Government is a type of government which regulates businesses, protect consumers and workers, and solves social problems. It was, not surprisingly, a Democratic president the one who presided over the creation of "big government." This type of government was born with the Depression of 1930, when individuals' ability to support themselves was greatly compromised. Even after the return of prosperity after the Depressesion and the World War II, the government's role in helping to provide security for individuals did not end. As some have feared the over-dependency to the government damages the value of self-reliance and even freedom. For this reason, changes (mainly introduced in 1996) have come about to limit people's rights to welfare.
The political landscape of the 2000s
In the 2000s the Republicans continue to stress pro-business ideas as the Democrats keep emphasizing the idea of a government-controlled business market. The Republicans have put in motion efforts to attract minority groups by including women, blacks and Hispanics in their cabinets. A third party -the independent- has been trying to become a force in the political scene, but failed in doing so. However, it has captured enough votes to have a decisive role in the outcome of elections. Nowadays, both the Republicans and Democrats fight to attract independent votes by moving toward the center.
Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?
Some scholars hold that the many races, nationalities and religions have combined into one culture in a process called "melting pot." Conversely, other scholars describe this process as a "salad bowl," stating that the various groups have remained different from one another, creating a richly diverse country.
SECOND
The Monarchy
Appearance and reality
There's a willingness to glorify the royal family and make it seem as if the Queen was actually the most important person in the government. There's even the custom to pretend that the country is very undemocratic and that it's "her" country rather than the "people's". Additionally, she is even *supposedly* qualified to dismiss anyone from the government, and choose anyone she likes to fulfill any kind of official duty. It is she who summons the Parliament, and she who dissolves it. And if that wasn't enough, she is also who chooses the Prime Minister.
However, the reality is that the Queen has no real control over the running of the UK. The Primer Minister can't be anyone, but only the leader of the strongest party in the Commons. As for the Parliament, the Prime Minister will talk about "requesting" a dissolution of Parliament when it is impossible for the monarch too refuse this request. What in theory is "her" government, in practice the reality is that she can't stop it from going ahead with any of its policies.
Roles of the Monarch
Three roles are often mentioned. First, she's the symbolic representation of the government. She is as representative of the UK as the country's flag. Second, in the event of the transition to a dictatorial country via the passing of an undemocratic bill, she has the authority here to disapprove that law. Third, she can lead ceremonial duties on behalf of the government, allowing the real one get on with the actual job of running the country.
The Parliament
The atmosphere of Parliament
The internal architecture of the building where the Parliament works at has a particular layout. It was deliberately built with two clearly separate rows of benches, which visually makes it seem as if the MPs are either for or against the government as there's no room for any sort of neutral or consensual viewpoint. Another feature of this place is that MPs don't have a desk but just a seat, and it's been built like that to allow MPs to leave and come back to their places with much more ease than if there was a desk kind of in the middle of the way. Moreover, this keeps them from taking notes and so speeches tend to be brief and succinct.
Although these and many other odd features contribute to a rather informal atmosphere, there are rules and ancient habits still at play, such as the fact that it's forbidden for MPs to address one another by their names. In its place an MP must address another MP by "the honorable member for Winchester" or "my right honorable friend."
Parliamentary business
The everyday routine of the Parliament comes down to debates about bill proposals that the members of the Commons hold, and then coming to resolutions which either accept or reject said proposals. That's the chief activity they wake up for everyday. Now, the way they express their acceptance or refusal is by walking through either the corridor of the "Ayes" or the corridor of the "Noes". Apart from this, they're also expected to investigate the government in certain areas, and to this end they have the power to request the presence of certain people to answer to their questions.
The party system in Parliament
There's like a rule between MPs and their parties in which, every now and then, the MPs have to vote the way their parties tell them to, regardless of whether they like it or not. In fact, there are people whose job is to make sure the message gets passed down from the party to the MPs. These people are called whips, and they're the reason why rebellious demeanor (not voting in accordance to their party) is very rare. They also act as intermediaries between the frontbenchers and the backbenchers. However, this doesn't mean MPs are always obliged to vote what they're told to. Sometimes, they're allowed a free vote with which they can either support or go against a bill according to their own believes.
How a bill becomes a law
If it is a government proposal, either a Green Paper (which explores the background and ideas behind the proposal) or a White Paper (the same thing but more explicit and committed) are published and drafted into a bill. Most bills begin in the House of Commons, where they go through a number of stages:
First reading: formal announcement, no debate.
Second reading: debates about the principles of the bill, and in most cases, votes are taken.
Committee stage: A committee of MPs examines the details of the bill and votes on amendments (changes) to parts of it.
Report Stage: The House considers the amendments.
Third reading: The amended bill is debated as a whole.
Then the bill is sent to the Lords, where it goes through the same stages. If they make new amendments, these are considered by the Commons.
After both Houses have reached agreement, the bill receives royal assent and becomes an Act of Parliament.
The House of Lords
Out of the two houses that make up the Parliament, the House of Lords is the less significant and influential one. They can certainly delay a bill, but in the end they can't stop it from becoming law. So their role is more of a consultative one. In this house, bills can be discussed in more detail than the busy members of the Commons have time for.
Members of the House of Lords are appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. Some non-party-political members are recommended by an independent body, the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Individual freedom and self-reliance
Freedom is what drove the first settler's to America. Once the British immigrants cut ties with their English kings, they established the United States of America, and wrote the Constitution to preserve freedom from the hands of the Church and of any type of aristocracy. Freedom would later go on to shape the American characters and be one of the most important values of America.
However, the price to be paid for individual freedom was self-reliance. In order to keep one's freedom one must be able to support oneself both financially and emotionally. In today's American society, kids have an urgency to leave their parent's house as early as possible to prove to themselves and to everybody else that they're independent.
Equality of Opportunity and Competition
In the new America, for the immigrants equality meant that regardless of their initial position everyone should have a shot in life to be successful.
The price to paid for this was competition, which very important element that of the American character. Today, Americans enjoy matching their energy and intelligence against others, and from a social perspective those who come up on top are praised and called winners; those who don't, are put down and called losers, and on top of that they feel they don't fit into the mainstream of American life.
Material Wealth and Hard Work
In the prosperous new America, many achieved to go from rags to riches and as a consequence a sense of attachment to material things became a value to the American people. They don't like being called materialistic, but they do appreciate the possession of a large number of material things as it is accepted as a measure of success and social status. Again, to achieve material wealth, Americans need to pay a price: hard work.
THIRD
Elections
The system of elections in the UK
The election system for political representation in the UK is fairly simple. Anyone who wants to be an MP must declare himself as a candidate in one of the constituencies. A constituency is what the country is divided into; each constituency has roughly 90,000 inhabitants. The rest of the election is even simpler. Voters go to polling stations, walk into a dark room and put on a kind of brochure a cross next to the name of the candidate they support.
Formal arrangements
The law states that an election has to take place at least every five years, but usually it takes shorter than this because the government tends to call for elections way before this interval expires.
When a date has been fixed those who want to be a candidate must get their names on the ballot paper for their constituency. To do this they have to deposit 500 pounds, which is returned if they get five per cent of the votes or more.
To be eligible to vote, a person must be at least 18 years old and be on the electoral register. However, there's no obligation to vote.
Polling day and election night
Elections take place on a Thursday and it stretches out from 7 am to 10 pm. People have to work as usual, only schoolchildren have a day off because the schools are used as polling stations. Once the polls close, the boxes are taken to a place with a very big hall where, in a very public event (even with TV cameras sometimes), the votes are counted. In the meanwhile TV covers the happenings exhaustively. By 2 am at least half of the constituencies will have declared their results, which for experts it is enough data to predict the winning party and the PM. However, the official completion of the counting might happen on Friday where the last constituencies announce their results.
The race to declare
Some constituencies take pride in being the first one to announce their results, but in order to hold out any hope of this honor an constituency must have three characteristics: have a comparatively small electorate, be densely populated (so the ballot boxed are transported together quickly) and have a clear-cut winner (so there's no chance of recount).
Cultural Pluralism in the United States
The inevitable question when talking about the large numbers of immigrants arriving in the United States is:
will they maintain their culture or will they adopt that of America? The answer might be: both. Bilingualism and biculturism are a reality in many communities, but there's also the case of many immigrant's grandchildren who simply do not speak the language of their old country and are American by culture. Also in the context of cultural pluralism, it is worth mentioning that all minorities together outnumber the country's majority. In spite of all this diversity, the sense of national identity is still what binds Americans together.
Making generalizations about American beliefs
The context of traditional American Values: Racial, Ethnic, Religious, and
Cultural Diversity.
The United States has always been a breeding ground for diversity. In the beginning, its society was made up of Native Americans, Spanish and Dutch settlers, French missionaries, African slaves, and British colonists, who were the ones who provided the foundation for the political and economic systems in the US. In this scenario, accepting diversity was the only viable option. In all this diversity what made it possible to make a homogeneous society was a definite set of rules and the same values.
Freedom of religion in the United States
Due to the great number of ethnic backgrounds existent in the United States there are a lot of different religions in the country, and the right that every individual can choose among these is the center of the religious experience in the United States.
The development of Protestantism
The development of Protestantism started when the Protestant branch of the Christian faith broke away from the Roman Catholic church in Europe in the sixteenth century. After this happened, the Protestants found that they themselves couldn't agree in many points regarding beliefs and for this reason many "denominations" were born, such as Baptists, Methodists, Lutheran, etc. This separation stirred up strong emotions and led to the persecution of some denominations and to many people even being killed. As years went by, however, the adoption of the Constitution and its lack of affiliation with the church brought new airs of tolerance and the Protestant denominations adopted an "live and let live" attitude toward the others.
The protestant heritage: self improvement
Self-improvement is one of the most important values associated with American Protestantism. It's also part of the legacy this religion has introduced into society. Americans constantly seek to improve as human beings and the thousands of self-help seminars and support group meetings are proof of this.
FOURTH
Education
Modern times: the education debates
There have been for a long time three ongoing debates over education.
Quality: There's a widespread feeling that British students aren't as well taught as those in other European countries. Employers even complain that new recruits don't possess the necessary basic skills such as those related with the three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic.
Equality: The fact that some pupils are regarded very highly just because they go to a good school, and others who go to less prestigious ones are seen as failures, has led to the implementation of many measures intended to level off this imbalance. An example of this is that in poor areas some students are awarded with money if they pass their exams.
Freedom of choice: It implies a limit to what the government can impose over schools. As many details as possible are left up to the institutions to decide.
Public means private
In the UK schools can be divided between state schools and independent schools (not founded by the government). What usually leads to confusion is that some independent schools are known as public schools. However, they're still private in the sense that they don't receive any founding from the government.
Style
British schools have always been more interested in personal development rather than in training for a particular practical purpose. Also, the development of understanding and sophistication of approach is given more emphasis than the accumulation of factual knowledge. Moreover, educational institutions tend to give high priority to sports; in fact, some students with poor academic records are accepted at some universities just because they're good athletes.
Public exams
Public exams are exams involving knowledge and skills which even though are specified by the national curriculum, they're separate from the school system. They're not organized either by schools or the government. Any individual can take a public exam. Moreover, these exams are set and marked by largely independent examining boards.
Education beyond sixteen
When compulsory education ends at this age, about a third of students start to work while taking part-time college courses. The rest devote themselves full-time to passing an A-level exam, for which they study 2 years. Very few students with no A-level marks are granted access to a university. Another characteristic of education beyond sixteen is that students typically live on campus, and in this case they also have to take part-time jobs in order to pay for their expenses.
Types of universities degrees
There are three kinds of university degrees:
Bachelor's Degree: The general name for a first degree, most commonly a BA or a BSc. Most people get honors degrees, awarded in different classes. These are Class I, Class II.I, Class II.II, and Class IIII. A student who is below one of these gets a pass degree.
Master's Degree: The general name for a second degree, most commonly MA or MSc. At Scottish universities, however, these titles are used for first degrees.
Doctorate: The highest academic qualification. This is usually has the tile PhD (Doctor of Philosophy). It generally takes thee years of more-or-less full-time study.
Types of universities
We can distinguish a few broad university categories:
Oxbridge, which stands for Oxford and Cambridge. These two universities, as we know them, are the two foremost educational institutions in Britain. Their prestige and quality of education clearly sets them apart from the rest, and probably by a long gap.
The old Scottish universities, are a group of four institutions founded in the 1600s. The style of education there is closer to that of continental Europe than to the English ones.
The early nineteenth-century English universities, which comprises Durham University and then many colleges of the University of London scattered around the city.
The redbrick universities; these sprang up in the new industrial towns and cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. They were built up out of Brick as opposed to the stone used in the older ones.
Other two types are The campus universities and The newer civic universities
+The establishment of American schools in America
The basic system of public education in the United States was built over the foundation of equality of opportunity in 1825. Schools were made public to all classes of Americans and they were to be financed by tax money collected from all citizens. Their educational approach included the teaching of vocational skills and the duties of citizenship.
+The educational ladder
The concept of the educational ladder is a perfect reflection of the American ideal of individual success and on "
working your way to the top." It can start as early as age three when children attend preschool programs, and then, as they grow up, go on all through elementary school, middle school, high school up until college.
Even though there are private (which are often religious) as well as elite schools, most of the American system is based on state schools, and ultimately it's the abilities of the individual and not their social class what determines how high up the ladder a person can go.
Types of degrees in American Universities:
_
Associate degree: students receive this degree after two years of study at a community college.
_
Bachelor's degree: they're usually earned for an undergraduate course of study that requires three to five years of study.
_
Master's and doctoral degrees: a bachelor's degree can be followed by graduate studies, which are the ones which lead to master's and doctoral degrees.
Attending an American University
All university students must pay tuition expenses in the United States, and this together with the money needed to buy books and live away from home make it difficult for many students attend universities. For this reason many students have to work to help meet costs.
For those who can't afford to pay between 15,000 to 39,000 each year for public or private university, community college programs are an option. They cost 2,000 per year and offer associate degrees.
The monetary value of Education
Americans value education for its monetary value. The belief that the more an schooling individual has, the more he will earn after he or she leaves school is very widely spread in the United States. Professional degrees such as medicine or law are more highly regarded than non-professional ones like art, history or philosophy.
Racial equality and education
Equality of opportunity in education didn't reach African Americans. After the Civil War in the 1860s, the southern states developed a social and legal system which segregated the black from the whites in all public facilities in a practice which was called the "separate but equal" doctrine. In 1954 the Supreme Court of the time held that laws that forced black students to go to racially segregated schools violated the Constitution because such schools could never be equal. In the 1970s a series of court decisions forced the nation to take measures to integrate schools. In recent years, a practice known as
affirmative action has been in use, but this resulted in special treatment rather than equal opportunity.
Multicultural education
FIFTH
The media
The importance of the national press
Newspapers are an important part of everyday life. There are more than 70 regional papers in Britain, but all these combined don't sell as much as the handful of national ones. Out of the seven days of the week, Sunday is the most special day as far as newspaper commercialization goes. Only the national papers are sold on Sundays, and they're much thicker on this day.
There are two types of newspapers, the tabloids and the broadsheet. The former are much more popular and sensationalist, whereas the latter focus on more serious topics. The most popular tabloid paper is the Sun, and the most sold broadsheet is The Daily Telegraph.
The two types of national newspapers
There are two types of newspapers, the popular papers and the quality papers. The popular ones sell to a much larger audience, are more sensationalist, and mostly focus on sex and scandal. They also contain a lot of pictures, larger headlines and a simple style of English. The quality ones are geared towards the more educated readers and develop serious story news.
These two types can also be distinguished as tabloids and spreadsheet, but this doesn't fit reality anymore because in the last decade some of the serious papers have adopted the tabloid format because it's much easier to handle.
The characteristics of the national press: sex and scandal
A lot of copies are sold because of its shallow content and its display of naked woman. The now classic "page three girls" is a section in "The Sun" (though other papers have adopted it as well) exclusively devoted to having a celebrity pose half-naked for the sake of selling more and more copies. Another recurrent theme of these newspapers is the private lives of famous people. This have raised concern about the right to privacy everybody is supposed to have but that tends to collide with the media's right of freedom of speech.
The BBC
The BBC might be said to be "the mother of information services. "It has a great reputation for being impartial, objective and independent. It's independent in the sense that it's not influenced by any political party, but the government could easily exert influence over the BBC because it regulates the fee the channel gets from its subscribers and it could take away its licence to broadcast.
Papers and politics
Although the papers put selling copies ahead of political viewpoint, each one of them has an idea of what kind of reader they're appealing to.
Television: organization
In 1954 the Independent Television (ITV) was started to compete against the BBC. The ITV is a network of commercial companies, each of which is responsible for programming in different parts of the country. Since these companies cannot afford to make all their own programmes, they generally share those they make.
Television: style
ITV gets most of its money form advertisement, and therefore in order to charge more to its advertisers, the programmes the channel broadcast must be as popular as possible. Nowadays, ITV and the BCC take part in what is known as the "ratings war." In order to get ahead of the competition, each channel attempts to enhance the quality of its programming which is made up of a wide variety of programmes such as news, documentaries, films, sports, etc. Soap operas is one of the key factors to lead in the ratings, and due to its massive popularity among TV viewers, educational programmes were moved to peripheral channels like BBC 2 and Channel 4.
Material success, hard work, and self-discipline
Material wealth as a form of self-improvement is also part of the nation's Protestant heritage. Even though materialism and religion may seem contradictory, some of the early Protestant leaders believed that people who were blessed and defended the value of hard-work were awarded by God with material success. Hard-work and self-discipline in order to pursuit wealth set the foundations of the protestant work ethic and this made an important contribution to the industrial growth of the United States.
The national Religion
Some scholars have called the blending of religion and patriotism the "national religion" of the United States. Its main function is to provide support for the dominant values of the nation, and comfort in times of grief.
The spiritual kaleidoscope
The spiritual kaleidoscope is a term used to describe the religious diversity in the United States. Four trends are creating a spiritual kaleidoscope:
First: the nation is moving away from being a "Protestant-Catholic-Jewish nation" to one with multiple legions.
Second: the individual's search of personal religious identity results in many people switching between faiths.
Third: liberal and conservative religious movements are emerging in the U.S.
Forth: many Americans, especially youngsters, define themselves as spiritual rather than religious.
The impact of the American Frontier
The American frontier consisted of the relatively unsettled regions of the western part of the country. Here, life was more primitive that in the more populated eastern lands. Some of the values associated with the frontier heritage of the U.S. are individualism, self-reliance, and quality of opportunity.
Self-reliance and the rugged individualist
Rugged individualism and self-reliance in the frontier period meant dismissing society conforts and conveniences and being fit enough to pull through the harsh conditions of this time. Like the heroes Americans have portrayed, men had to be physically tough and possess skills to use guns and other weapons.
There are two types of heroic rugged individualists. The earliest version of rugged heroes is seen as an individual able to get through any challenge that the wilderness might put him against with. The other type of hero came later in what is known as the "wild west", when the wilderness had already been conquered. This was more of a man against man situation, and a hero from this period is someone so physically strong that could defeat two or three ordinary men at one time. This type of hero has inspired countless of western movies.
American Macho Heroes
The epitome of the Macho hero in the US is the typical tough man who's skillful in street fights as well as in gunfights, and who's always been the main character in movies and video games.This idea of a hero comes from the Wild West, but some have criticized it because it underscores the importance of cooperation, it overlooks how important women have been in history, and it glorifies gunfights and violence.
SIXTH
The Law
Crime and criminal procedure
The general public fears crime is increasing, but there's not way to tell whether this perception can be validated with statistics. In an attempt to tackle crime, the implementation of neighborhood watch schemes has growth up to a point that there are more than 100,000 of these in Britain. Moreover, there's been some impatience with the rules of criminal procedure under which the police and courts operate. The police can't detain a person for more than 24 hours unless they have a special permission or they formally charge that person with a crime.
The system of justice
A very characteristic feature of the British system of justice is that most of the cases are judged by ordinary people and not professionals. These are just people of good reputation who are selected at random from the list of voters. Once they are requested to perform in a trial, they receive the name of Justices of Peace and form a jury of 12 JPs. When a decision as to whether an accused is to be found guilty or non-guilty, there must be an agreement among at least ten of them; otherwise, the process has to be restarted. The duty of a judge here is to act as a referee and, among other things, pronounce the sentence on those found guilty.
The legal profession
There are two kinds of lawyers in Britain: solicitors, who deal with the public, and take care of wills, divorce papers, contracts, etc.; and barristers, whose main job is to present cases in court. Barristers enjoy a much better social status, and are perceived as more educated than solicitors. They are most of the times self-employed and have a prestige similar to that of doctors. These two different types of lawyers are very different since in their training they go through different exams and are expected to acquire a very different set of skills.
Inventiveness and can-do spirit
This concept comes from the frontier life where men and women had able to come up with solutions to the problems and situations of their everyday lives. They would always manage with what they got and just by using their creativity. This skill of inventing new things spread throughout the country and led to the "can-do" spirit, which was the sense that every problem has a solution and nothing is impossible.
Equality of opportunity
In the frontier it was more common for people to treat each other as social equals than in more settle eastern regions of the country. Very little attention was paid to a person's family background, and there were fewer differences in wealth between rich and poor. Individual freedom, self-reliance and equality of opportunity were key values that the frontier helped establish for the development of the United States.
From producers to consumers
In the early stages of American society most Americans thought of themselves as producers rather than consumers. However, the mass advertising that was possible with the invention of the radio brought a change - entertainment shows were accompanied by commercials. Later TV surpassed the Radio as the main outlet for advertising. Today it's estimated that the average American sees about 50,000 commercial a year.
What American consumers like
Americans are particularly fond comfort, cleanliness, novelty and convenience.
It's believed that their love of comfort has to do with the hardships they had to go through during the tough times of the frontier. At some point in time pioneers might have thought they had had enough of that and wanted their lives to be easier.
Cleanliness might come from the Puritans, a Protestant church group whose members stressed the need to cleanse the body of dirt and of all evil tendencies. This extends also to clothes, houses, cars, and even pets.
As for novelty, it might come from their pride in their inventiveness. They like to see changes in cars, clothing, and products for the home. Advertisements encourage people to get rid of old stuff, and replace them with new things, regardless of whether the old stuff still works or not.
Finally, convenience is what makes them purchase labor-saving devices such as dishwashers, food processors, microwave ovens, etc. Their desire for convenience also created the concept of fast-food, the take-out services and even prepacked food ready to cook.
An abundance of technology
Technology has changed the way people watch television and entertain themselves. Some years ago, the free networks NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox used to occupy the attention of the majority of Americans, but now cable and satellite TV is more popular. On the other hand, Internet have disputed television as the main source of entertainment, as users now see their computers as a TV, DVD and CD player combined. Internet is also a major source of news, information and even a shopping place.
The ever-expanding pie
Americans always practiced the belief that their material wealth was unlimited and so there would never exist the issue of rich people taking up a little bit too much of the pie and leave the poor with too little to get by. This way of seeing things resulted for the most part in good things, such as the fact that it made them very optimistic and reduced the conflict between the rich and the poor.
SEVENTH
Welfare
The benefits of the system
There are various kinds of benefits the government gives to individuals who need financial aid. It can be paid to people who are unemployed, to people who earn very little, or to large families. Moreover, there exist a sickness benefit, a maternity benefit, death grants, etc.
Old-age pension is provided to people who have retired form work and have contributed during most of their working lives. But as this pension isn't very high many people make arrangements to have some additional form of income after they retire, like setting up a life insurance policy.
The National Health Service
The National Health Service is a publicly funded healthcare system in the United Kingdom. It's entirely independent and it operates under its own rules. All that anybody has to do to be assured the full benefits of the system is to register with a local NHS doctor. These doctors are generally General Practitioners. A visit to the GP is the first step towards getting any kind of treatment. From there, the GP arranges for whatever tests, surgery, specialist consultation or medicine are necessary. However, the reason why many decide to go private is because some times resources are limited and so medical practitioners have to decide which patients will get them and which will not.
The characteristics of American business
How business competition reinforces other values
The entrepreneur as business hero
The African-American experience
The civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s
The American paradox
