Many countries aim to improve living standard by economic development, but some important social values are lost as a result. Do you think the advantages of economic development outweigh the disadvantages.
It is definitely true that economic development would lead to some by-products including the loss of social values but these problems cannot cover the outstanding achievements. I think advantages of economic development and disadvantages of that will coexist for a long time.
Economic progress is the basis of all the nations in the world. United States is the most advanced country and the living standard of the people in that country is very high. The citizens could have high level of social welfare and they enjoy free medical care and free education. Even the poorest people in the States could get the social insurance, which ensures their impossibility to get starved. Take China as another example. During the years of social reform, the manufacturing industry has been improved a lot and the international trade in China was vigorous. Most multinational companies are investing in the country so that the citizens in China would have more opportunities to get a good job and their living standards would be higher.
But one thing we could not ignore is that the social values are losing day by day. Especially in some developing countries, as they are developing economy, some severe situations would occur. For example, in some Asian countries, more and more illegal prostitutes appear, which would cater to the needs of some businessmen, who would use sex as a means of negotiation. In some developed countries, the same thing happened again. Tiger Woods is a typical example. He is a wealthy guy, but he is not loyal to his wife and he had the affairs with the lots of women. The other examples could be found in NBA even in the political world. Bill Clinton, the former president of the United State, came across the similar problem. So we could get the idea that economic accumulation would cause to people to seek other undesirable excuse to obtain satisfaction. Step by step, the values could collapse. Other social values have been lost as well. For instance, in the business world, the colleagues are not cooperative as before; instead the competition makes them to be enemies. As a result, the relationship of the people in the society is much worse than that in the past. Money-oriented society is a formidable thing. And the consequence of that is more than the loss of social values.
The trend of economic development cannot be reversed and most people welcome it much. And disadvantages of economic development, I would say they are almost equal and it is a sociological question and more work should be done to access the answer.
