The Vital Secret

Not only foreign visitors, but many who have lived all their lives in the United States, observe the comparatively higher level of liv­ing here than in other countries and seek a reason why.

Some attribute the American advantage to such governmental interventions as the Tennessee Valley Authority, or the Federal Reserve Banking System, or the Social Security program, or the Rural Electrification Administra­tion, or the farm price support program, or the patent laws, or the public schools, or the Federal­ state highways, or immigration or tariff policies, or the merchant marine, or the space program, or the antitrust laws, or the Federal Power or Federal Communica­tions Commissions, or any of hundreds of other compulsory prac­tices.

Others dig somewhat deeper to see that American workers have access to larger amounts of cap­ital, machinery, tools, electrical energy, and other labor-saving de­vices which afford increased pro­ductivity for each man-hour of effort. And this would seem to come nearer to an explanation than does the amount of governmental intervention. Yet, when the magic formula is tried elsewhere, by building a high dam to provide electrical energy in Nasser’s Egypt, or building costly steel mills and oil refineries in starving India, or confiscating all available capital in Castro’s Cuba, the re­sult is not the American level of living, but the same bare subsistence that has so long plagued those unfortunate people. So, there must be more than meets the eye to account for the high level of living in the United States.

It is true that we have more capital invested per worker, more kilowatt hours of electricity avail­able per worker, more and better machinery and tools per worker. Yet, these are but part of the fruits of industrial progress; these are effects of progress, just as our high level of living is an effect. And the cause of these con­sequences must lie deeper still.

Those who will see clearly enough may discover that freedom lies behind these material accom­plishments, this high level of liv­ing. Freedom means release from governmental regulations and con­trols, or from any form of coer­cion or compulsion, the release of human energy, where each man is free to try, to succeed or fail with his own property and his own effort, according to his own choice, with the full right to the fruits of his success and the full liability for his failure.

And perhaps underlying the practice of freedom are the con­cepts of respect for private prop­erty, respect for the life and the dignity and the rights of each and every human being, the self-re­spect that is becoming to a man as a creature of God.

So, if we would share our ma­terial achievements and our in­dustrial progress with those less fortunate than ourselves, either within the United States in so-called pockets of poverty, or in other countries, let us try to bet­ter understand the nature of self-respect, learn to practice it more faithfully and fruitfully, in due humility, so that others may choose to do the same. From true and humble self-respect stems re­spect for the property and the lives of others. Once a people un­derstand the importance of life and property, and come to respect another’s as they respect their own, then they are in a position to organize a government of lim­ited powers, knowing full well the limitations of coercive methods. And then, but not before, they are ready to practice freedom and en­joy such blessings of freedom as tools, machinery, electrification, automation, and a high and ris­ing level of living.

Perhaps, if this were the secret of American progress that we un­dertook to share with the rest of the world, we might come to un­derstand it well enough to pre­serve our own freedom.