Why is life quality in Western countries declining on many fronts at the same time? [closed]

Question

I'm in Germany. It recently occurred to me that a number of things concerning daily life are not as good as they used to be a few decades ago. I am 60 and may be experiencing biased memories; but I think not all of this can be explained away. Examples are:

• Public services. For example, it is mandatory for German citizens to carry an ID, yet it is nigh impossible to get an appointment with the local administration to apply for one. There used to be a time when you could simply walk into the office, wait some not unreasonable time and fill out an application.
• Medical services. In the 70s and 80s it didn't seem to be a problem to make an appointment with a doctor, even a specialist, within a reasonable time frame. Now it is. Many specialists in Berlin, where I live, simply don't take on new patients.
• Public transportation. The German trains used to be proverbially punctual. Now, however, A member of the state-owned Deutsche Bahn board used the term "loss of control" regarding the timetables; delays have become more common than punctual arrivals, trips with more than a single connection cannot be reliably planned any longer etc. A similar development, only not quite as bad, concerns flights. Overbooking, overly long lines at the security check points and cancellations seem to be much more common.
• Terror danger. Taylor Swift must cancel concerts with hundreds of thousands of spectators. In the German town of Solingen a man stabs three visitors to death he has no connection to. In New York people are afraid to be pushed onto the subway rails by some mentally ill person.
• Tent cities, people in trouble. Some cities, probably in the U.S. more than in Europe, face a crisis that makes their centers uninviting for businesses and "regular people" alike.
• Craftsmen. It is hard to find a plumber or other craftsman for repairs. There used to be a time when one would look one up in the phone book and make an appointment, or probably know one in the neighborhood.
• Housing. There is a severe housing shortage in many cities, including Berlin and the Bay Area around San Francisco, prices are sky-rocketing, but the market does not respond as expected (by building new dwellings and satisfy demand).

There are certainly more issues — this was just off the cuff.

Many of these issues are related to public services in the wider sense, but housing, flights and craftsmen concern the private sector as well.

Some reasons are more or less well-known: Strapped public budgets; the attempt to let Deutsche Bahn go public with a need to make the books look better, leading to lay-offs and deferred maintenance; prohibitive zoning and building codes; increased migration driven by crises in connection with higher general mobility. The medical sector is in crisis mode almost everywhere for a variety of reasons.

It is also clear that life has improved in many ways, as NoDataDump notes, especially in the electronics and media realms. Some material wealth has increased as well: Cars and dwellings are bigger and better, foreign destinations are within easy reach, there is a greater selection of food in the supermarkets etc. But this does not explain why some basic things have gotten worse; on the contrary: Apparently, this decline has happened against a trend and is in need of explanation.

Still, it is a lot of a coincidence. I'm wondering whether there is an underlying theme or current or reason connecting them.

The development is also, at face value, unexpected. After all, the economies are much larger than they used to be in the 1970s or 1980s. They are certainly large enough to finance a functioning public administration.

What is going on?

Answer 1

The situation is not that simple as it seems or as you perceive it. There are many more facets, not only to the facts but also to how they are perceived. And before discussing why something might be the case, there must be more efforts to establish how things really are and how people measure life quality. This is a Herculean task but economists and sociologists are on it probably. Also there is probably not a single effect taking place. A shortage of craftsmen is probably unrelated to rise in terrorism (although with the RAF or Munich 1972 there was terrorism in Germany in the 70s too).

One example:

Housing. There is a severe housing shortage in Berlin, prices are sky-rocketing, but the market does not respond as expected (by building new dwellings and satisfy demand).

Berlin is not Germany. People move to Berlin and move away from rural regions. However, space in Berlin is limited so it's difficult to imagine how providing more housing in Berlin is going to play out without sacrificing something else. Still people decide that it's better than somewhere else, where more housing would be available.

Interestingly the average housing space per person increased in the last decades, for example from 35m² in 1991 to 47m² in 2023, probably because families got smaller and people prefer to have more space.

One way of dealing with Housing would therefore to go back to the situation in the 70s and 80s and move in together with more people on the same space. That way, even in Berlin one could free up a lot of housing and reduce prices.

Things that didn't exist in the 70s and 80s and are great today include (among others) the Internet and streaming videos on demand, MRIs of your knees, separate toilets per apartment (not known everywhere in the 70s), flying to famous tourist destinations with cheap airlines, self-parking cars, electric bikes, ... just from the top of my head.

Answer 2

The age of strong trade unions, nationalization, and the state playing a significant role in providing social services and benefits to its citizens delivered the greatest improvement in living standards in history.

The rise of the “free market” arrived with promises to unleash endless prosperity, but after some point it might not be the most optimal economic strategy (The Guardian).

It is definitely possible to create a really democratic country with strong governmental sector (see Norway, Sweden) but even countries who pay a heavy price for the stronger hand of the government (Russia and maybe China to some extent) seem performing way better than a true libertarian would predict.

Answer 3

I'll provide a partial answer:

Medical services. In the 70s and 80s it didn't seem to be a problem to make an appointment with a doctor, even a specialist, within a reasonable time frame. Now it is. Many specialists in Berlin, where I live, simply don't take on new patients.

The percent of the population over the age of 65 in Germany has increased from ~15% to 23% and keeps increasing:

The elderly consume much more medicine than younger people, so the demand on doctors is persistently growing. Combine this with doctors having an informal cartel enforced via limited residency spots and a socialized system where prices are not allowed to increase to match demand and you get a shortage.

I live in the US and have no issue accessing doctors because medicine here is privatized. Things are expensive but I can get an appointment with a doctor in NYC tomorrow with one click of a button.

Public transportation. The German trains used to be proverbially punctual. Now, however, A member of the state-owned Deutsche Bahn board used the term "loss of control" regarding the timetables; delays have become more common than punctual arrivals, trips with more than a single connection cannot be reliably planned any longer etc.

Governments are becoming less competent over time due to the private sector offering much better salaries these days to the top tiers of workers. Why would a top-1% German graduate go work for DB if they can get double the pay at a private employer? Or quadruple the pay if they move to the US instead? This also applies to German doctors who could double or triple their income after tax by moving to the US.

Taylor Swift must cancel concerts with hundreds of thousands of spectators.

She wasn't forced to cancel anything, it was just an overreaction by the organizers. Unfortunately safetyism is highly prevalent these days.

In New York people are afraid to be pushed onto the subway rails by some mentally ill person.

NYC was much worse in the 70s and 80s with people constantly being robbed or shot on the subway. A few mentally ill people is nothing in comparison.

Craftsmen. It is hard to find a plumber or other craftsman for repairs. There used to be a time when one would look one up in the phone book and make an appointment, or probably know one in the neighborhood.

Same problem as with government workers. The most talented people can go make more money elsewhere so why would they become plumbers working for the private sector? Plus plumbers and other craftsmen have a cartel that reduces the number of people working in their respective trades.

Housing. There is a severe housing shortage in Berlin, prices are sky-rocketing, but the market does not respond as expected (by building new dwellings and satisfy demand).

The "market" would love to build new dwellings but the government is making this very challenging. Various environmental and historical preservation laws, absurd zoning rules, huge "green belts" around cities are all preventing super dense housing from being built. There's also absurdities such as allowing hundred year old cemeteries to occupy precious downtown space instead of moving them to build housing for the living.

So, yes, things are worse than before, but this is mostly due to new laws. Roll things back to the laws of 1950 and housing will quickly become cheap.