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Understanding America Today
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
By John F. McManus
Immigrants have long come to America to live “the American dream.” Now, that dream is becoming more difficult to attain. To reinvigorate America, we must understand the problem.
America has long been known as a land of opportunity — not just for a powerful few but for all citizens. Here in America, an impoverished individual willing to work hard could pursue what became known as the American dream. And that dream, enjoyed by a large and growing middle class, included home ownership and a standard of living enjoyed only by a privileged few in other countries. It also included upward mobility, with each new generation enjoying a higher standard of living than their parents.
But in America today, that dream is being eroded. For the first time in our nation’s history, many young Americans realize that they will not be able to match or exceed the economic levels achieved by their parents. According to a report released by the Pew Charitable Trust, “Men in their 30s today earn less than men in their fathers’ generation, and family income growth has slowed.”
Weighing in on this same development, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs lamented: “For the first time in our history, Americans aren’t dreaming of a better life for their children; they are desperately hoping that their children won’t be forced into a lower standard of living and a lower quality of life.”
Serious problems can be seen in several areas: jobs are disappearing; the value of money is shrinking; families need two incomes just to keep pace; government power continues to grow; and the nation’s praiseworthy cultural base has been eroded. There is a need for Americans to reverse the course our nation is on. Can it be done? Yes. But only after recognizing what made the American dream possible and taking corrective action to reclaim it.
America’s Basics
Our nation’s hard-fought independence was not firmly secured with the defeat of the British in 1783. According to some competent historians, the War of 1812 was actually an attempt by the British to undo America’s remarkable breakaway. That unusual war resulted in another victory for “our side,” and, because it did, the path for U.S. citizens to reap the enormous benefits inherent in the remarkable new government system stayed open and even became more easily traversed.
That system, the political portion of which can be found in the Constitution of the United States, established restraints on government rarely seen in history. Here, government was bound to the limited function of the protection of the life, liberty, and property of the people. And the people, free from the stifling presence of excessive government, were expected to limit their own actions with firm adherence to moral codes such as the Ten Commandments. It is this combination — limited government and personal morality — that has always characterized America.
Even before our nation celebrated its centennial, America had become the refuge of the world’s tired, hungry, and poor who left everything in the Old World to walk upon U.S. soil. Mostly penniless, they came here legally, found employment, happily worked toward assimilation, and pitched in to convert our mostly backward wilderness into a marvel of productivity. Starting out as laborers and bottom-rung employees, they prospered sufficiently to see their sons benefit from America’s upward mobility, where the next generation moved into the middle class, the backbone of every productive society. Then, more sons and grandsons became the professionals — doctors, lawyers, educators, entrepreneurs, and whitecollar executives — who carved out their own careers in the unique atmosphere of freedom found within our shores. While building for themselves, they helped to build the nation that became the envy of the world.
Ask a foreign observer to describe America today, and you will still be told that it is the wealthiest and the freest nation in the world. After all, isn’t America a cornucopia overflowing with material goods unimaginable elsewhere? But ask many Americans this same question and you will be told that the American dream is dying. This is particularly the case with young Americans who have not yet accumulated the assets their parents did and who wonder if they can become financially comfortable in our deteriorating economy. And it is the case with anyone who understands that a nation, even a nation as powerful as the United States, will see its wealth shrink if it loses its ability to produce.
What Is Wealth?
Very simply, wealth is productivity. It is not a folder full of stock certificates and bank deposits which are only a reflection of wealth. A nation is a wealthy nation when its people successfully take the raw materials of the Earth and fashion them into goods. As Henry Hazlitt wrote in his 1946 classic Economics in One Lesson: “Real wealth, of course, consists in what is produced and consumed: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the house we live in. It is railway and roads and motor cars; ships and planes and factories; schools and churches and theaters; pianos, paintings and books.”
Blue times: In 2004, Levi Strauss closed its last two major U.S. plants, offshoring all production. Just over two decades ago, the company had 63 U.S. plants. Now the company only produces high-end, eco-friendly jeans in the United States.A certain way of measuring a nation’s wealth, therefore, is to assess its ability to make things, in other words its manufacturing capability. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, our nation suffered the loss of 4.6 million manufacturing jobs during the past 20 years. During the same period, a mere 200,000 manufacturing jobs were gained. Factories have closed; once thriving communities have become virtual ghost towns; and laid-off workers have been forced to take lower-skilled and lower-paying positions in hopes of keeping the wolf from the door.
Textile companies in the Southeast have ceased operations as the flood of imports
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