The surest indicator of a great nation is represented not by the achievements of its rulers artists or scientists but by the general welfare of its people

I broadly agree the speaker's view that the surest indicator of a great nation is the general welfare of its people. However, at the meantime, i think it can also be represented to to some extent by the achievements of its individual citizens, or called social elites.

Admittedly, we have to acknowledge that the people is the basic element of a country.Thus, the overriding imperative of every democratic society is to enhance the general welfare of its people. Besides, government usually elected by the people, so should take the responsibility serve to people and meet their meet, just like the old saying goes:as water can float the boat, so can it also swallow the ship. The high general welfare of its people will represented the degree of the attention of a country paid on their people. For example, in Kangqian flourishing society in Qing dynasty of china, nearly all of people enjoy their life without worring about high tax, wars as well as nature calamity. And as we all know, in the period of the time, China is the super power around the world. In a word, the surest indicator of a great nation can reflected by the general welfare of its people.

However, besides the factor mentioned, I argue that there are many other factors that can also represent a great nation to some extent, including the achievements of its rulers, artists, or scientists. There are two reasons :first, without strictly marked the difference between the people folk and these people, the social elites can also be regarded as general people. The achievements of their are indeed the result of the high general welfare of a nation. Because only when they satisfied their basic diary lives, they will have power and good mood to pursue their mental lives. Second, the achievements of its people can also serve to enhance the general welfare of people. Without their success, whether we can own the effective medicines to heal and advanced electronic machines to improve efficiency of work or not is a riddle.

Besides, achievements of artist are able to offer us more cozy places to live in. In a word, not only the achievements of these people can represent a great nation, but also can serve to the general welfare of people as well.

Last but not the least, we should also be not to hastily assume that a nation is necessarily great merely by the virtue of achievements of the virtue of achievements of these elites. Soviet union is indeed a case in this point who paid much more attention on the developments of their heavy industry for deterring other countries. Although it once became the super power of the world and got a overall success, it was ephemeral. Because without considering more of people 's lives and their will, which lead to the people ' s dissatisfaction and even internal conflicts between various parities and in the end, the country is breakup.

In sum, not only the general welfare of its people can represent a great nation, but also the achievements of these people, and at the same time, we cannnot pay much attention on it.