November 25, 2011 by Richard Lorenc
Last week,
Charles M. Blow of the New York Times penned a piece in which he cited new data from the Pew Research Center indicating that less than a majority of Americans believe in the notion of American exceptionalism.
That term requires some definition, particularly on a website whose name includes it.
I define American exceptionalism as Whole Foods cofounder and CEO John Mackey did recently in the Wall Street Journal:
Is the United States exceptional? Of course we are! Two hundred years ago we were one of the poorest countries in the world. We accounted for less than 1% of the world’s total GDP. Today our GDP is 23% of the world’s total and more than twice as large as the No. 2 country’s, China.
The keys to this “earned exceptionalism”–as Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute might call it–are economic freedom and the cultural views that support it.
Yes, culture is a major part of the equation, but simply asking someone whether American culture is superior to all others is awkward and woefully imprecise.
The real meat of American exceptionalism is indisputable: The people of the United States have built the largest, most diversified, most productive economy in history. Discussing the cultural elements that aided in the development of these realities requires many more words than “superior.”
For an overview of the cultural basis of economic freedom, refer to the spectacular works of Deirdre McCloskey.
The columnists at the New York Times have been called many things, but the most obvious quality shared these days by Blow, Friedman, and Krugman is their obsession with defining the national purpose–infrastructure, education, or manufacturing–and prodding everyone to rally around their plan to achieve it. Blow wants us to not leave any more children behind, Friedman admires Chinese autocrats’ ability to govern without public consent, and Krugman has gotten so desperate for everyone to pull together that he imagines a destructive alien invasion.
By advocating that the state advance their ideas through the force of legislation, the planners neglect the trade-offs that exist inevitably in our world of scarcity. When the government executes a big project, individuals no longer have the resources to pursue many small, potentially promising projects.
If you appreciate the benefits of diversity, you should stand firmly against government planning.
The real exceptional thing about the United States is its unparalleled record of enfranchising ever more people in a system that permitted them to plan their own exceptionalism. Hence the American Dream: you can aim toward whatever you desire.
This is not to say a pessimistic view forward isn’t understandable. Both the American Dream and American exceptionalism are being diminished by excessive government regulation and onerous economic planning. The reality is trends have been moving away from economic freedom toward state planning for decades.
As F.A. Hayek said, “The more the state plans, the more planning becomes difficult for the individual.”
The best thing people concerned about the state of American exceptionalism (and the country’s economy generally) can do now is to work toward reducing the involvement of the government to its bare essentials. That way, more individual Americans can plan for their own exceptionalism, and leave others to plan for theirs.
Richard Lorenc is executive director of the Liberty Markets Fund for Freedom, a community foundation providing small donors meaningful ways to support pro-liberty think tanks. Lorenc also serves as chairman of the Chicago chapter of America’s Future Foundation (AFF). His writing has appeared in the Daily Caller, Gaper's Block, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and others. He blogs on ChicagoNow.com as Chicago Libertarian.
