A Nation Like No Other (14 page)

A society that trusts and empowers parents to act in their kids' best interest will inevitably cultivate a responsible and virtuous citizenry, one that recognizes the value and dignity of every human life and encourages every individual to achieve his maximum potential.

Every time America has strayed from the proposition that all men are created by God, and that they are therefore equal, great suffering and turmoil has ensued.

Likewise, every time government oversteps its bounds and exerts control over an individual's right to religious freedom, or otherwise attempts to usurp his ability to discover truth for himself, it must lie to do so.

A government that enacts or enforces policies that diminish the value of one category of human life is telling the lie that every person is not created equal.

A government that prohibits an individual from praying or reading the Bible or displaying religious symbols in public is telling the lie that our Founders intended only certain types of religious expression to be protected.

A government that usurps the role of a parent by arbitrarily inserting itself between the parent and child, that says it alone knows best what kind of education, what kind of family life or structure, what kind of upbringing is best for a child, is telling the lie that the child's parents are incapable of discovering the strengths of their own child, incapable of cultivating those strengths, and incapable of lovingly guiding their child toward a future that is productive, moral, and fulfilling.

A government that systematically removes the people's ability to make laws based on moral or religious judgment is lying about American history, the rule of law, and the American practice of self-government.

A government that tries to eliminate the concept “under God” from our Pledge of Allegiance as well as our entire political philosophy is lying not only about America's religious heritage but about the nature of human freedom itself.

Freedom is indeed the most fragile of human possessions, and in every generation it has faced some form of these threats. Consider the words of Joseph Story, a former Supreme Court justice, renowned writer on the Constitution, and the first dean of Harvard Law School:

Today, a clique of radical secularists is striving to remove the constitutional protections of faith and the faithful from our system of government, and to eliminate any public acknowledgment that these liberties
come from God. No one should be fooled into believing that this was the intention of our Founding Fathers, nor that doing so will yield anything but a corrupt, despotic government.

The choice before us is whether to accept such a society, or to reassert the truth within our families, our workplaces, and our communities that the cause of human freedom can only be realized in a society that protects the institution of family and supports and defends the fundamental rights of religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

I
n her best-selling 2004 book
Hello Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay
, author Corrine Maier offered her fellow French citizens a how-to guide for avoiding work. Unlike Horatio Alger, whose stories preached the benefits of hard work, honesty, and diligence, Maier argued that “doing the least possible” is the true key to success.
¹

When asked in a 2005 interview with CBS'
60 Minutes
whether she thought Americans were insane for their work habits, Maier replied, “No, because Americans, I think, believe more in future than French people. We, French people, right now don't believe that the future will be better than now. We think that the future will be worse than now, so we don't have any reason to work.”
²
Like Thomas Paine, who celebrated the American Revolution as an opportunity to start the world anew, Americans have always anticipated a better future. This forward-looking worldview has been essential to fueling America's exceptional work ethic and extraordinary system of wealth creation.

From the settlers at Jamestown to the immigrants who land on our shores today, Americans have believed hard work provides the opportunity to pursue happiness and enjoy the fruits of one's labor. Faith in the future and faith in a just reward for work are, as Corrine Maier intimated, still vibrant sources of American Exceptionalism.

America's exceptional attitude toward work is based on our Judeo-Christian tradition and was further developed in the writings of philosophers such as John Locke.

In his book
The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism,
philosopher and author Michael Novak explains that “Judaism and Christianity are distinctive among the world religions because they understand salvation as a vocation in history. It is the religious task of Jews and Christians to change the world as well as to purify their own souls; to build up ‘the Kingdom of God' in their own hearts and through the work of their hands.”
³

Novak later explains the theological implications of John Locke's insights into work and creation:

America provided the perfect laboratory and proving ground where this moral vision of work could be put into practice.

Work is one of our most significant sources of personal identity. From the time of the Apostles, Christians everywhere have sought to reconcile their identity and their work with the will of God. They have placed the highest priority on discerning and obeying God's call in their lives. The famous opening of Augustine's
Confessions
(397–98 AD) summarizes this yearning beautifully, as Augustine prays to God, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

Throughout American history, we find the religious-tinged view that work is a moral good in and of itself. “The man who builds a factory builds a temple,” President Coolidge declared, adding, “The man who works there worships there.” Henry Ford was even more adamant: “Work is the salvation of the human race, morally, physically, socially.”
⁵
At the turn of the twentieth century, the sociologist Max Weber memorably described this kind of industriousness as “the Protestant work ethic.”

Alexis de Tocqueville found that a “kind of spiritual energy coursed through America's mechanics and artisans, farmers and carpenters, men and women of every station who felt charged to make their own world.”
⁶
Ken Burns' documentary on building the Brooklyn Bridge describes this same American energy and work ethic: “People in every country in Europe received letters back from recent emigrants to America, all making the same point: ‘Well, it is true you can make yourself rich in this new country, but if we had ever worked
this
hard back home, we could have gotten rich there too!'”
⁷

As Benjamin Franklin observed, in America merit has always determined a man's worth. Merit serves as the great leveler, as even those born into difficult circumstances can—and do—succeed through hard work and intelligence. As George Washington asserted in 1784, “A people … who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see, and who will pursue their advantages, may achieve almost anything.”
⁸

To achieve “almost anything,” the American people needed a system that rewarded work and risk-taking, incentivized discovery, and encouraged commerce. God's gifts were not to be hidden away, but illuminated by work and enterprise enabled by the flame of liberty. Such a system requires secure property rights, minimal government interference in trade, and an outlet for innovation and experimentation. It rewards knowledge and understanding with success, and in the process it affirms the dignity of the individual and his unique talents.

In colonial America, with its abundance of free land and relatively small population, labor was always in short supply. American wage levels and job opportunities could not be matched in Europe, providing powerful incentives for migration to the New World, especially among refugees from Europe's religious wars.

The vast majority of colonists were middle- and lower-income Protestants. The colonies grew wealthy producing crops for export to European and Caribbean markets. Virginia quickly became solvent through the tobacco trade, while other colonies exported grain, hides, lumber, and later, rice, indigo, and cotton to European manufacturers, mainly in Britain.

America's system of free enterprise contrasted sharply with the mercantilist system—a state-controlled economy of cartels and monopolies—that stunted the European economies. State-run consortiums and legal restrictions hindered the formation of European companies, diminished wealth creation, and suppressed economic dynamism, as the economies were designed to funnel as much state revenue as possible through a few favored hands.

In colonial America there was no entrenched, ruling elite that could steer the nation's economy to their own ends. Americans thus enjoyed
unrivaled freedom to innovate and to reap the rewards of their own enterprise. Under these circumstances, the American colonies became the world's richest nation per capita and the undisputed leader in innovation and social mobility.

John Locke proclaimed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and “property,” rather than the “pursuit of happiness.” For Locke, man's ability to keep the fruits of his own labors—his property—was a matter of justice. The term “property” also referred to private property, or land, which Locke believed should be protected by government from the insecurity of the “state of nature.”

America's earliest settlers learned the importance of private property the hard way; as historian Daniel Boorstin noted, “America began as a sobering experience. The colonies were a disproving ground for utopias.”
⁹
Whimsical “planners” of the Virginia Company of London initially required settlers at both Jamestown and Plymouth to agree to work collectively for seven years before they would receive private plots of land. The policy led to starvation in both colonies, which only recovered after settlers received private land titles. The practical lesson was clear: if a man owned his own land and was responsible for his own family, he was far more productive than if he was expected to contribute to a communal account, with no direct reward for working harder, more productively, or more creatively.

This lesson was applicable beyond those two settlements; it held true throughout colonial America and has been confirmed countless times across the world, from the Soviet Union's famine-inducing collectivization of agriculture to the food shortages, inflation, and blackouts that have plagued Venezuela since property rights became a casualty of Hugo Chavez's socialist “revolution.”

Secure property rights also promote essential capital investment, which makes available the tools and equipment that make workers more productive. The resulting rise in productivity boosts wages over time and raises a nation's standard of living. With property rights secure, investors
know that the capital they develop and accumulate will not be stolen from them. That encourages more savings and investment, which promotes increasing prosperity.