Discussions on Chinese social media about ordinary American life have long swung between two poles: a warm, sentimental narrative of big houses, lawns and free air, and a deterrence-style warning about shootings, medical bills and homeless encampments. A Zhihu respondent named Afterwards argues in one answer that both miss the point.
His core observation: the Americans who live most comfortably are not fundamentally different from the top tier of other developed countries, including China. Nor are those at the bottom much worse off than the poor elsewhere in the developed world. What sets America apart is not the depth of the gap but the thickness at both ends — there are unusually large numbers of people doing very well and very badly.
A gap that is less visible, but thick at both ends
The author starts with a cross-country comparison. America’s Gini coefficient is indeed higher than Europe’s or Japan’s, but its wealth gap is not especially visible. In Brazil, India or Mexico, luxury and near-starvation can appear on the same screen, a juxtaposition that is physically uncomfortable to watch. That rarely happens in the US, because poor and rich neighborhoods are spatially separated; the daily commuter may never see the other end.
But invisible does not mean absent. America’s problem is not that some people are extremely rich and others extremely poor — every country has yachts and models. It is that both groups are unusually large. Top-tier billionaires are a minority everywhere, but the US has an extra mass of people who have one foot on the threshold of the bourgeoisie.
Who gets to live like the bourgeoisie
The author cites a few consumer goods as examples: Aman hotels, Porsche 911s, Gulfstream private jets. Globally, these are largely reserved for small-business owners and senior executives — people who control the means of production. In the US, plenty of doctors, dentists, lawyers, programmers and professors — mental laborers — can also brush against this tier of consumption.
He attributes this to two factors: many American institutions tacitly permit top mental laborers to extract rents, and the US has a large, protected domestic service sector. Together, these make the income curve for professionals steeper than for their European peers. In other words, America does not just have more billionaires; it has more near-billionaires.
Why this structure may not be a bad thing
The author’s assessment of this arrangement is largely positive. He argues it ensures that America’s bourgeoisie is better educated and better mannered than elsewhere — these people have money but remain marginal players in financial markets, unable to manipulate the whole game while still lubricating it. Their wealth comes from professional skills rather than inherited capital, and their consumption habits and values are closer to the middle class.
Of course, the judgment has its limits. The original does not discuss the other end: why so many people do badly. Medical, housing and education costs decoupling from income, and deindustrialization in some regions, are common explanations, but the author does not elaborate. What he really wants to rebut is the simplification of America into either heaven or hell.
For people living in the US or planning to move there, the more useful question may not be “is America good?” but “which end am I likely to land on?” The same country gives different answers to people with different skills, industries and status.
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