(1) I work in one of those very successful American universities you mention, ranking close to the top in global rankings. I also spend a lot of time in European and Canadian universities. The reason that these American schools do so well is that the American higher-education system is _incredibly_ class- and wealth-stratified, the most so of any country in the Western world. These American schools do well because they are tremendously resource-rich - and they remain so because they are primarily playgrounds _for_ the rich.

(2) Canadians grouse about their health-care system, 'tis true - people do in most countries. What units them, though, is a determination not to have an American-style system, which they know quite well... through living next-door and because Canadian hospitals close to the border have to deal with economic health refugees from the USA. Governments lose elections in Canada is they are thought to be favorable to American health care.

I've got experience in both systems - and American health care is far, far, far more bureaucratic, hidebound and inefficient than the Canadian system.

newt32 - You exhibit the classic non-response in such cases: "...the French have a good health care system, but they have lots of Muslims, too, so that makes us better...."

The choice isn't between lousy-schools-all-around versus lousy-schools-and-a-few-great-ones. There are some lousy European and Canadian universities, some great ones, and a lot that provide an excellent education for value. The same is true in the USA, but the extremes are much greater.

Think of it as an academic equivalent to the Gini Coefficient. Globally, there's a positive correlation between decreased levels of income disparity and general population health. I'd argue that the same works for universities: the stellar achievements of those at the very top of the American heap does not make up for the relative lack of access to those possibilities given to middle- and lower-class people.

Even at Columbia (which does comparatively very well at access), it's not as if poor students are getting in at comparable rates to rich students: they may be particularly noticeable, but American endowment- and tuition-driven financial systems cannot support a large number of people who are not paying a significant proportion of full-fare, now and/or in the future. If anything, access for poor students to these institutions is going down through time.

As for France, I presume that you're thinking of the grandes écoles. Those are providing similar levels of stratification to American schools, but (a) their numbers are much smaller (fewer than 100 énarques per year, for example) and (b) the whole baroque structure of class privilege devoted to getting into elite American schools (tutors, consultants, legacy places and on and on) is far less developed in the French system, which is based on access to elite _public_ secondary schools and really wicked exams. Compared to America, the French are amateurs when it comes to class privilege in academics.

Iain Banks' series of Culture novels has been built on the same premise for quite some time now

"The refusal to recognize the events in Honduras as an anti-democratic military coup is redolent of the American media's coverage of the copmparable 2002 U.S-backed coup in Venezuela..."

Or, for that matter, the 2004 coup in Haiti that forced Aristide from power.