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.