Rick Steves

Reading Rick Steves’ essays Innocents Abroad and Europe: Eclipsing the American Dream brought up some interesting points about things to look for while I’m traveling in Europe. I found his reoccurring theme of the growing disparity between rich and poor to be very thought provoking. Having a limited background in economics, I can’t really say for sure, but from what I have learned, competition will always yield the most economically efficient outcome. The strong capitalist foundations of the United States have probably had a large impact on our country’s prosperity over the last few hundred years. Rick Steves points out the statistic that while the US has only 4% of the world’s population, we control over ½ of the world’s wealth. There is a growing gap between the rich and the poor in the world, and the US is not doing whole a lot to close it.

What does all this mean? Rick Steves brings up the point that when there is a large difference between the have and the have-nots, inherent problems such as terrorism arise. The steps that Europe is taking to help close that gap seem to conflict with my ideas of capitalism, but giving up a little economic efficiency might end up being more beneficial in the long run. Having a rich and prosperous country isn’t all that great if the rest of the world is living at the level of poverty that encourage crime and terrorism. Rick Steves describes Europe to be a place that focuses much more on equality than the US, and I’m very excited to witness first hand how Europe approaches this issue.

A few discussion questions are:

1) Is it better for the world to trade economic efficiency for social equality? If so, where do you draw the line?
2) Is the inequality between rich and poor something that requires a remedy or is it just an inherent part of human nature that will never be completely solved?