The secret to the economic success of America

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Website owner:  James Miller

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If one has traveled a bit and become aware of how things are in other countries of the world one realizes that there are gigantic differences in different countries in terms of economic development. In comparison with most countries of the world, one realizes that the United States is a very special country in terms of wealth, convenience, and ease of living. What is the secret to what has created all this? A big part of the answer is that it is the system itself that is responsible. It is the free enterprise system of 330,000,000 people all working for their own self-interest, making money, trying to make a living. A country of many, many people, mostly white, most more or less educated, most of western European background, of various talents and backgrounds, working together, each contributing a little with his own efforts and knowhow, making progress a little bit at a time, over generations of time. It is like a plant growing. It takes time, it grows a little at a time.

Consider all of our great infrastructure — our extensive road systems, electrical power systems, telecommunications systems, dams, reservoirs, water supply systems, sewage disposal systems, etc. They cost gigantic amounts of money and didn’t just magically appear. They developed gradually as a part of an overall system. Consider the hundreds of millions of nice, well-built houses, condominiums, and rental units in cities and towns across our country. You may not appreciate them until you see the housing in so many of the other countries of the world. (We Americans take a lot for granted.) Consider all of the many supermarkets, Walmarts, Home Depots, Lowes, etc. spread so conveniently and in such large numbers across the country. Consider all of the McDonalds and other fast food restaurants that one finds wherever one goes. How did we arrive at this wealthy and abundant system? How was such a complex system created?

Our system is a gigantic system of millions of parts all working together in a marvelous way. Each part is intelligent, each doing its own thing, acting in its own interests. To better understand this concept that it is the private enterprise system itself that is the great secret to economic success of the wealthy, western countries read the following essay:

I, Pencil

This essay shows how hundreds of millions of people, each knowledgeable in some very narrow area, each working in their own personal interest, can create a great country just as it takes countless people each doing their own thing and specialized in their own narrow area to create such a simple thing as a pencil — all without any central planning or control. That is the marvel of the Free Enterprise System (as opposed to a system like Communism with its central planning).