As a reminder, both the market and our offices are closed tomorrow, July 4, in observance of Independence Day.
Therefore, we will not be publishing a Liberty Through Wealth article tomorrow.
We will resume our normal publishing schedule on Wednesday.
Wishing you a safe and prosperous holiday! 🇺🇸
– Nicole Labra, Senior Managing Editor
Last summer, I toured Italy again with friends and colleagues.
This time we visited Milan, Verona, Lake Como, Venice, and many lovely farms and vineyards in the Tuscan countryside.
Along the way, we learned a great deal about that country’s past… and present.
Over lunch in Milan one day, I asked our guide a question.
“You’ve told us a lot,” I said, “about the incredible achievements of the Roman empire, about how Latin became the West’s foundational language, about your country’s amazing Renaissance writers, painters, sculptors, poets and composers, and about your beautiful culture today.”
She nodded her head and thanked me.
“But let me ask… do some Italians argue that these great achievements don’t really represent your country? That what truly defines Italy is that the Roman empire subdued and enslaved other peoples, that your nation was the birthplace of fascism under Mussolini, and that you were the ally of Hitler in World War II?”
She cocked her head in disbelief.
“Of course not,” she said. “We all know those things. But why would anyone argue that they define us?”
“Good answer,” I said. “Now let me tell you what’s happening in the United States.”
I explained how many academics and journalists in the U.S. labor around the clock to deliver a distorted picture of our nation.
Their relentless drumbeat of negativity has convinced millions that we are a shameful and fatally flawed nation.
There is a sense among many that we are no longer an exceptional nation, that the country is in decline and the American Dream is over.
Even the national founding is under attack. Statues of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln have been pulled down.
In many quarters, they are no longer viewed as heroic figures but merely white supremacists with retrograde views.
It’s true, of course, that most men and women held beliefs 150 or 200 years ago that are unthinkable today.
The enslavement of Black people, the treatment of Native Americans and the subjugation of women are all shameful parts of our national history.
Slavery, conquest and male domination existed everywhere for thousands of years, of course.
That doesn’t excuse or justify it. Yet we are all people of our time.
With our modern sensibilities, it’s easy to look back and see what the founders got wrong. But it’s also important to recognize what they got right.
That begins with the recognition that politics is the art of the possible.
If the American Revolution had to include equal rights for Black Americans, Native Americans and women in 1776, it couldn’t have happened.
It’s historical ignorance to believe otherwise. (Recall that even white men without property were denied the vote.)
It took many decades, a war between the states, women’s suffrage, civil rights and gay rights to build a more inclusive society and begin to fulfill the American ideal of liberty and equality.
Let’s reflect for a moment on what makes America exceptional.
Fireworks will fill the skies tomorrow night because our nation’s birth was revolutionary – not in the sense of replacing one set of rulers with another but in placing political authority in the hands of the people.
Our Declaration of Independence is a timeless statement of inherent rights, the true purposes of government and the limits of political authority.
Our core beliefs are enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the longest-serving foundation of liberty in history.
Our nation’s growth and prosperity have been extraordinary…
- Americans are just 4.3% of the world’s population, yet we create nearly a quarter of its annual economic output.
- Our economy is No. 1 by a huge margin. It is larger than Nos. 2 and 3 – China and Japan – combined.
- We are the world leader in technological innovation. The telephone, television, airplane and internet were all invented here. So were blood transfusions, heart transplants and countless vaccines.
- If we are no different from other Western democracies, why were transformative companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Netflix, Snapchat, Instagram, PayPal, Tesla, Uber, Moderna and Nvidia – to name just a few – all founded here?
- Since 1950, over 40% of all Nobel Prize laureates have been Americans. That accounts for more winners than the next five countries combined.
- The U.S. accounts for 22% of the patents in force abroad, up from 19% in 2004. That’s more than any other nation.
- Our space probes and orbiting telescopes explore and explain the cosmos. We put astronauts on the moon over half a century ago. And recent launches by SpaceX and Blue Origin demonstrate the technological prowess of our private sector.
- The U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency.
- The American military is the primary defender of the free world. (See World War I and World War II for details.)
- American agriculture is the envy of the world. (Our farmers now grow five times as much corn as they did in the 1930s – on 20% less land. The yield per acre has grown sixfold in the past 70 years.)
- For decades, experts warned us that we had to end “our addiction to foreign oil.” Yet thanks to new technologies – like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling – we are not just the world’s leading oil producer but a net exporter.
- The U.S. leads the world in science, engineering, medicine, entertainment and the arts.
- No nation has produced more winning Olympians.
- No nation attracts more immigrants, more students or more foreign investment capital.
- Americans adopt more foreign-born children each year than any other nation.
- And Americans are the most charitable people on Earth, both in the aggregate and per capita. The Giving USA Foundation recently reported that U.S. charitable donations were almost a half-trillion dollars again last year.
How did our small republican experiment transform and dominate global culture and society?
Geography played a big role. Buffered by two oceans and a rugged frontier, we had plenty of cheap land and vast natural resources. (But then so did countries like Russia and Brazil.)
We have opened our arms to tens of millions of immigrants who dreamed of a better life and helped to build this country.
In the process, we have developed an astounding capacity for tolerance.
The mainstream media’s metanarrative – that we are a racist, sexist and homophobic nation – is not based in fact.
There is a gulf between the median household income and net worth of Black and white households in the U.S.
But that disparity cannot be attributed solely to racism. Other factors include family formation, quality of schools, educational attainment, homeownership, savings rates, and levels of equity ownership.
Rates of interracial marriage are up.
And no other majority-white country in the world has elected a one-term – much less a two-term – Black president.
The average woman in the U.S. makes less than the average man, true. But neither is that de facto evidence of discrimination.
Studies reveal that after accounting for vocation, specialization, education, experience and hours worked, the difference between what men and women earn is negligible.
It is against federal law to pay a woman less than a man – or a Black person less than a white person – for the same work. (And we have no shortage of tort attorneys.)
I’m not suggesting that other nations don’t have proud histories, unique traditions or beautiful cultures.
I’m delighted when I get a chance to visit South Africa, Japan or Argentina, not to mention cities like Paris or Rome.
There’s a lot to love about day-to-day life in other countries.
However, people around the world don’t talk about the French Dream or the Chinese Dream. Only one nation is universally recognized as The Land of Opportunity.
That’s because America cultivates, celebrates and rewards the habits that make men and women successful.
Anyone with ambition and grit can move up the economic ladder. Everyone has a chance to improve his or her lot, regardless of circumstances.
As JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece…
The U.S. has the best universities, hospitals and businesses on the planet, and our people are the most entrepreneurial and innovative in the world, from the factory floor to the executive suite. We have by far the widest, deepest and most transparent capital markets, and a citizenry with an unparalleled work ethic and “can do” attitude.
American ingenuity, technology and capital markets have created dramatic improvements in communications, transportation, manufacturing, computing, retailing, food production, construction, healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals, robotics, sensors, artificial intelligence, genetics, 3D printing and dozens of other industries.
These have benefited citizens not just here but all over the world.
Britain’s Economist magazine recently published a report on American economic performance over the last three decades.
It concluded that the U.S. economy isn’t just dominant. That dominance is accelerating.
In 1990, the U.S. economy accounted for 40% of the GDP of the G7 nations. By 2022, it accounted for 58%.
In 1990, American income per person was 24% higher than the income per person in Western Europe. Today it is about 30% higher.
Americans don’t just have higher incomes and lower taxes. They also have greater wealth.
No country has more millionaires. (Nine percent of American households have a seven-figure net worth.)
According to Statista, the average financial wealth per U.S. adult is $580,000. The average financial wealth per European adult is less than $94,000.
(It’s also worth noting that the Census Bureau reported that American poverty hit an all-time low in 2021.)
Our economic recovery from the pandemic has been the strongest of any major economy. (The eurozone announced this month that it had slipped back into a recession.)
The American stock market has generated the world’s highest returns over the last three decades.
If you had invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 in 1990, you would have more than $247,000 today.
If you had invested $10,000 instead in a global equity index that excludes U.S. stocks, you would have about $48,000 today.
In short, Americans earn more income, have greater assets and enjoy higher investment returns.
That’s because the American brand of capitalism is tilted toward dynamism, with freer markets and smaller welfare states.
The notion that America is an exceptional nation is not, as some would argue, just a crude strain of patriotism.
Our country embodies timeless ideals, an optimistic attitude and an enthusiastic endorsement of the pursuit of happiness.
Yes, we’ve made mistakes along the way and face no shortage of problems and challenges today.
But this Independence Day, I invite you to join me in recognizing and celebrating the 247th anniversary of the best thing that ever happened.