"The poorest Americans have TV sets, microwave ovens, and cars."
Wrong. When I was in America last time, I saw people living on the streets, sleeping under bridges. They neither have the power plug for a microwave oven, let alone a T.V.
"Admittedly tycoons are not typical, but no country has created a better ladder than America for people to ascend from modest circumstances to success."
Right, I guess. Other countries have pretty nice possibilities as well, but it has to be noted the United States offer a lot of possibilities for entrepreneurs.
"Work and trade are respectable in America, which is not true elsewhere"
Wrong. In India, work and trade are respectable. In most of the world most forms of work and trade are highly respected.
"But the American founders altered this moral hierarchy. They established a society in which the life of the businessman, and of the people who worked for him, would be a noble calling."
Wrong. Italy, France and England had that kind of society before. Countries like China maybe even before of Europe.
"In the American view, there is nothing vile or degraded about serving your customers either as a CEO or as a waiter"
Also in Europe, we don?t have a problem with serving customers.
"The ordinary life of production and supporting a family is more highly valued in the United States than in any other country"
Wrong. Does the U.S. state pay a monthly sum to all mothers to support their children? Maybe yes, don?t ask me, but in Europe we invented to do so. We call it child care.
"America has achieved greater social equality than any other society: True, there are large inequalities of income and wealth in America. In purely economic terms, Europe is more egalitarian. But Americans are socially more equal than any other people, and this is unaffected by economic disparities. Tocqueville noticed this egalitarianism a century and a half ago, but it is if anything more prevalent today. For all his riches, Bill Gates could not approach the typical American and say, "Here's a $100 bill. I'll give it to you if you kiss my feet." Most likely the person would tell Gates to go to hell! The American view is that the rich guy may have more money, but he isn't in any fundamental sense better than anyone else"
Heh? I do not get it. Tocqueville and Bill Gates may be entertaining examples (even though I still don?t get it), but in my opinion, "purely economical terms" count. Oh, and by the way, social equality was achieved to a certain degree in the former U.S.S.R. - with all its mistakes, and even if people were also hungering there. But social equality after all, thats a part of what communism theoretically was about - (not practically), wasn?t it?
"Although protesters rail against the American version of technological capitalism at trade meetings around the world, in reality the American system has given citizens many more years of life"
Wrong and misleading. The American version of "technological capitalism" has nothing to do with life expectancy. Be thankful to the doctors and pharma research, the clean water, the inventor of penicillin, when you cherish longer life. All of that is far from being exclusively American.
Without Freud, you?d neither have psychatrists. Get a clue.
"America is a country where you get to write the script of your own life. This notion of being the architect of your own destiny is the incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of America."
That?s true. More chances of being the architect of your own destiny in America - that?s what I hear. This is the part about the American way of life that I love.
"even to the extent of enacting policies that give legal preference in university admissions, jobs, and government contracts to members of minority groups"
In Europe, we have those policies as well, especially regarding gender issues.
"And surely African Americans like Jesse Jackson are vastly better off living in America than they would be if they were to live in, say, Ethiopia or Somalia."
What a cruel cynicism! I really think this sentence is written by a racist - why doesn?t he add: "say, Ethiopia or Somalia, you know, those weird countries where they got civil wars and die of hunger and AIDS"
"Visitors to places like New York are amazed to see the way in which Serbs and Croatians, Sikhs and Hindus, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Jews and Palestinians, all seem to work and live together in harmony"
True. I guess New Yorkers are pretty openminded. San Francisco is, too, as far as I remember. I don?t know what about the Hindus and Palestinians in the suburbs of Nashville, since the author fails to address that.
"Twice in the 20th century, the United States saved the world: first from the Nazi threat, then from Soviet totalitarianism (...)After destroying Germany (...)"
Wrong. There were 4 allies and the U.S.S.R. lost 20 millions of soldiers. The Soviet Union was politically and economically collapsing, without anyone being saved.
So lets see... that makes about 6 wrong, about 4 neither right nor wrong but discussable, and 3 points right.
Oh I guess the main thing is he sells a whole lot of that shit. Getting rich by writing stupid, badly researched, misleading pamphlets. America, my land of dreams
the land of believers
I might really make a fortune there...