Claim The surest indicator of a great nation is not the achievements of its rulers artists or scientists Reason The surest indicator of a great nation is actually the welfare of all its people Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you

Remember those times in history lessons when you had to study all those facts about once great nations and their achievements? Certainly. But has there ever been a moment when you learned anything about the actual welfare of a nation’s people? However, some people aver that instead of taking the achievements of a nation’s elites as a measurement of the respective nations ‘greatness’. They argue that instead the welfare of all of its people should be taken as the surest indicator. With some minor qualifications this claim can be supported for two reasons.

First, the achievements of a nations rulers, famous artists or renowned scientist are likely to be corrupted as a result of state propaganda, especially in undemocratic governments. For instance, the former German Democratic Republic openly boasted about their ingenious state of the art technologies that ensured them one of the highest production yields in the agricultural sector compared to the rest of Europe. Moreover, they were eager to show how advanced their country was by claiming a notable number of Olympic gold medals as a result of state-of-the-art and scientifically proven regimens for their athletes and furthermore as a direct result of their advanced socialist system leaders. However, unlike often presented in that days by its state leaders, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 revealed what had already been presumed – the country was in fact in a desolate state, suffering from all kind of problems; including a comparably low level of technology and the officially ordered misuse of medicaments and amphetamines on athletes. This discrepancy highlights how untrustworthy the deliberately presented achievements of ‘great nations’ are and how easily they can get corrupted by the respective political leaders. As a result, those achievements serve poorly as a reliable indicator of a great nation.

Second, a nation in its entity consists of its people, therefore the greatness of a nations should be determined by the welfare of its constituents – those people. Maintaining a well-functioning welfare state always implies facing high costs. Being able to cover these vast amounts of money means that a certain state needs high incomes in the form of taxes. But those high incomes are only possible if the economy in that state is vital and strong which directly leads to low rates of poverty and a high rate of employment. Resulting from this is a strong welfare state that is able to take care of those people in dire need and wealthier and therefore healthier and ‘better’ people. That makes the overall welfare of a nation’s people a reliable and sure indicator of the actual nation’s greatness.

To conclude, it can be said that even if, at first glance, it might seem reasonable to take the proudly presented achievements of a nation’s elite as a sure indicator of a great nation, the opposite is true. It is the welfare of the simple people who determine how great a nation truly is.