I’d long pondered what really defined the First World. There’d be a UN metric of course. But I’d sought something more tangible, substantive. Drawing on observations of North America, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Western Europe. Contrasting these with upwardly mobile nations such as Turkey, Republic of Georgia and China.
Toyed with ideas such as universal health care provision. But that didn’t work for much of North America. Cuba excepted. Similarly the eradication of poverty. That popped up everywhere in varying degrees. Individual freedoms, such as those of expression or the right to protest, were indicators. Same for democracy and the absence of corruption amongst daily life. But nations such as Singapore precluded these as being defining features.
Then it’d hit me. There’d been signs. Literally. Dog grooming. For if a society could afford pampered pets, it pretty much had the fundamentals in order. An empirical analysis, but one I thought pretty rigorous.
