Why Is the US So Powerful(为什么美国如此强大).docx

YI-FAN Diao15 Lectures of American Society & CulturesHuihua Liu15/6/2016Why Is the US So Powerful?ABSTRACTThe USA is the richest, most powerful and most influential nation in the world. Even in a USA vs. Rest of the World scenario, it is most unlikely to lose a war.Its economy is bigger than the economies of the next four largest nations combined. Its military budget is more than that of the next 20 nations combined. It is also no match whether one considers technology or soft power. Its values of human rights and democracy are sought by people throughout the world.So, how it is that USA has been able to become the nation to be feared, which no other nation in the history of mankind has been capable of?In this essay, I look into America from a lot of directions such as history, culture, and then found some reasons in terms of geography, people, leadership, and politics.Main Body“Our unique strengths as a nation our optimism and work ethic, our spirit of discovery and innovation, our diversity and commitment to the rule of law these things give us everything we need to ensure prosperity and security for generations to come.” President Obama in his final State of the UnionPresident Obama owes Americans prosperity to people and society. Actually, it including but not limited to them.There are reasons of geography:Size: It is the 3rd largest in area and population. The two countries bigger than the US - Russia and Canada both have way too much unusable land. The 2 countries bigger than the US in population - India and China are still climbing up from the colossal destruction faced in the 19th century - early 20th century and also face severe resource constraints. Russia has still not settled in terms of governance. Australia & Canada have too few people. That leaves the US in a nice sweet spot.Isolation: Guarded by 2 oceans and a frigid nation to the north, the US never had to worry about a major war on its borders. Apart from the Pearl Harbor attack, most of the US military operations in the past century were far outside its territories. Most other nations bed with their fiercest competitors (China-Russia, India-China, India-Pakistan, China-Japan) leading to insecurity and poor decisions.Self-sufficient: the US is probably the one country that is fairly self-sufficient in all fundamental resources. Unlike China, Japan, Germany or India, it has large quantities of oil & gas. Unlike the Middle East, it has plenty of water & agricultural land. Thus, throughout the 19th century, US grew unimpeded depending on Europe only for the luxury things. There are reasons of people.Flight of the smart: Throughout the ages, the US remote location helped cherry-pick the immigrants. Other than the Mexicans, everyone else had to travel long oceans to reach the US. That made the inhabitants self-selected - the less ambitious ones were left behind. The puritans, then the Italians, Irish, then the East European Jews and then the Asians all added faster and faster growth as hard work was a matter of survival for each group (returning back was not an option). US got on to nuclear weapons and other key ideas on the back of its immigrants.Education: For each wave of immigrants, education was a top priority. Whether it is the Puritan clergymen who created the Harvard or the Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated in 30s & 40s or the Asians who immigrated recently, getting to the top of ladder through education was both seemed possible and mandatory. Thus, US built itself as the worlds education superpower with a huge concentration of top universities.Naturally entrepreneurial: If you had to move this far and then stead a random piece of land in the middle, you need to be naturally entrepreneurial. Every country has its noble class. Since Americans dont have Europes aristocracy or Indian caste system, they created their own hierarchy based on entrepreneurship. Getting rich became the mantra and people were ranked by their riches. It celebrated its entrepreneurs like no others.There are reasons of leadership.Right leaders at the right time: US leaders were quite good by world standards. Despite all their complaining, they never had a leader like Stalin, Saddam or Mao. More importantly, US were fortuitous in their timing. They didnt have someone like George W. Bush in 1861. FDR during Great Depression, Lincoln during Civil War, Eisenhower during post-war reconstruction, Theodore Roosevelt during the early 20th century expansion.Stability: The present governments of China and India are less than 70 years old. The US is about 240 years old and that kind of stability was lacking in much of the world.The Wars: By the start of the WWI, the US had built up a massive economy. During the war, it finally announced the “secret” to the whole world. Although the US faced some destruction, in relative terms it got far ahead of the rest of the world (most of which was obliterated). It was a victor in both the world wars and spared of the ignominy faced by Germany and Japan.There are also reasons of politics.1.Two Layers of Government:Washington D.C. is home to: 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, 9 Supreme Court Judges, and 1 President.Only this layer can regulate commerce. One entity deciding business rules is better than 50 entities deciding rules. And the delegates come from all over the country, so their opinions are varied and valuable.This same layer of government guarantees a minimum of liberty to all citizens. The next layer, a State, can add more liberties if they want.Each state, like Texas, Florida, New York, has its own leader, representatives, and senators who meet in their own city capitals. They can decide how to police their states, throw away garbage, distribute land, change road speeds, and many small details - but they all must defer to Congress on commerce.Not a single state can instigate a war against another nation, which was a real concern hundreds of years ago when France, Spain, England, then Mexico, and other Native tribes were present on North America. If one state is attacked, the whole organization fights back under the command of the President.If any State makes a policy that hurts our liberty, then the Supreme Court reviews the policy and says, “Stop doing that.” So theres still one boss, which is the top layer in D.C.If Congress doesnt provide adequate healthcare for all Americans, Massachusetts can provide better healthcare to its own people. If one policy proves successful & popular, it usually spreads to the other States, enhancing the quality of life of its people. Citizens can “vote with their feet” and move to a State they like.Why does this make the U.S. powerful? We have options. People live happier (in some circumstances) and work were they want. Some politicians can introduce amazing ideas while others do nothing, so theres always a way to improve our condition.2. Short term & Long term planning:Congressional Representatives serve 2 years and represent a small group.Congressional Senators serve 6 years and represent the entire State.Representatives must seek the approval of voters every two years, so they may say Yes to many people many times. This really means a company tells a Representative to change the law in the companys favor, and the Representative tries to change the law to make doing business easier for that company. (Sometimes.)But Senators have six years to consider matters, so they can say No. They dont feel the pressure, and they think about how a new idea might affect everyone, not just one group of people.These different timelines mean our government doesnt miss an idea. The different positions mean every angle is considered.The same thing happens inside each State, except Nebraska. So each of the states can consider its own matters quickly or more cautiously.3. Participation & Consequences:A single European nation always had more density than a USA-state, and for a while comparable population size. (Population numbers would vary with time.) Check this out: List of countries by population in 1900. With the same amount of people or more, they should have been more productive.Many of those people couldnt participate in decision-making. They couldnt offer views, advice, or anything. They had Kings, Emperors, Warlords, Court Ministers, and Nobles who decided everything and still ate good meals and lived the good life, escaping the consequences of bad policies.Why does this make the U.S. powerful? We can consider any idea. If every politician died tomorrow and we elected a new set of politicians, their behavior would still be assigned to “short-term” and “long-term” planning, and some would focus on internal improvement while others focus on global affairs. Every politician has a role - and a timeline - to play.4. Whenever Elites dont feel the effects of their bad decisions, they can continue making bad decisions for a long time. Theres no feedback loop.In America, more and more people can vote, to fix problematic issues, either State by State, or directly to D.C. The people who feel the effects can vote and enter the government.In the beginning, this wasnt true. Only White-Male-Property-Owners could vote. Then all White-Males. Then Black-Males for a few decades, then they were stopped for a few more decades. Then White-Women, then all Black people could vote. America wasnt perfect, but it had a process for improvement.5. Possessing a process to fix problems is priceless, and enabling anyone to fix them is double-priceless.Sure, a guy like me couldnt vote in 1800. But today, many guys like me can run for local office if we feel theres a really good reason. Maybe City Council or the State Legislature or even Congress. Its a beginning for many people who actually want to solve a problem (before they are corrupted.)Look, Rick Perry became a governor of a state - and he was just a farmer. Think about that. Thats really how Populism started. Anyone could talk to their elected official or challenge him.How you govern a number of people determines much. Do they feel like they can speak and try new things? Do they feel like they can change what they dont like? The amazing part about the Constitution is that it contains all the right ingredients inside it to fix all the wrong ingredients inside it.CONCLUSIONHaving made the in-depth analysis of “why is the United States, the sole superpower, so powerful?”, finally I come up with the popular saying “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”In many spheres of life, we can observe that initial advantage tends to be get further advantage, and disadvantage further disadvantage, among individuals and groups through time, creating widening gaps between those who have more and those who have less.So, there are a string of reasons that all are based on one factor, that factor creates another factor and that factor then leads to about ten dozen factors.The first factor is land. The USA has all of the good things that come with good land: it has a ton of it, it is fertile, bountiful, attractive and its just spilling over with incredibly unfair amounts of vital minerals and to make matters more unfair, that land is essentially on an island thousands of kilometers away from any enemy making an oceanic invasion utterly impossible. The only two neighbors of the USA are highly compliant and benevolent nations.From that factor, we get people. People want land, and people came to this land looking for land and that land made them rich. Those people exploited that land and that attracted more people who, fortunately, brought their creativity and ingenuity with them.The first of those people (British Islanders & French) had evolved sociologically to give their culture a value for capitalism, transparent government and national bodies accountable to the people who made them. This backbone was used to leverage all the aforementioned valuable factors. Many people who immigrated here have not come from nations amenable to this kind of transparency at the time of their peak immigration (Chin