Freedom is good for business

Freedom is good for business The fifth chapter of Abroad in America charts the visits by two Hungarians to USA in 1830s and beginning of 1840s –S.F. Boloni a socialist political idealist who fell in love with all things American- her political freedom. But much more perceptive as to what powered USA as an emerging empire with New York already by that time- The vital infrastructure of the Eire Canal in place- calling herself as the lead State of that empire-New York Empire State- is Agoston Haraszthy ‘A journey to North America’…… Haraszthy fully shared Boloni’s admiration of American liberty, but for him, the most important aspect was freedom of enterprise. He saw industry, self reliance and endurance as the characteristics of a practical country. In his view the driving force in American life was the quest for private wealth; thus he attributed the underdevelopment of Washington DC to it’s lack of private industry. Liberty meant to him limited government interference with private enterprise. Both Bolonii and Haraszthy recommended emigration to America for different reasons. Haraszthy felt that self reliant resourceful people could take advantage of America’s unlimited economic opportunity. Boloni was convinced that America had something more important to offer than material welfare: the magic appeal of its democratic institutions. Each traveler responded to one strain in the American character. Boloni to its passionate idealism, Haraszthy to its aggressive materialism (he brought land, made money, and founded a settlement, Szeplak in Wisconsin; and as a later immigrant, he was one of the pioneers in California’s wine industry) Boloni also admired American prosperity, although he felt that much of public wealth came from saving the money spent in Europe on monarchy, armies, government officers and police….. Measured against reality the American dream did reveal some unmistakable flaws. The New Adam, like the Old, was not late in spoiling his ‘Paradise’ said Haraszthy. Boloni encountered American ‘moneyed aristocrats’ in New York’s Albany and in Boston and was dismayed by their display of luxuries ‘incompatible with republican simplicity’ Yet he allowed , wealth was a ‘rightful benefit of Liberty, of industry and Ambition’. Haraszthy was even more lenient, wondering what else rich Americans could be expected to do with their money… the plight of Indians troubled both of them. ‘The poor Indians they are already strangers in their own land’…;and those enemies who had massacred your ancestors already consider you strangers.’ ‘All means of cheating and terro were used against them by white people’ Bolone wrote. And Haraszthy who lived among them for a time held the white men responsible for the misfortunes of a whole race whose rightful land they had invaded and occupied and whose natures they had corrupted with alcohol. And if the Indian cast a shadow over the New Eden, so much more did the Negro slave. When Boloni noticed in Maryland, an advertisement for the sale of a Negro, he felt ‘as if an icy hand had clutched my heart’ p49,50 Abroad in America. These mid term visitors charting the halfway progress of USA from the First President Peter Minuit’s New York’s Establishment to the 2008 Collapse in the same lower Manhattan location; Give a good structural insight into what USA has done right and what it has done wrong- and how the American system works- and what are the flaws of that system. Currently aging infrastructure dooms USA and a decent sized middle of the continent size 9 earthquake as happened New Madrid 1809 would bring the place to a disastrous and devastating halt. And Boloni notes that fatal under expenditure yet marvels that the critical for the success of New York and USA- Erie Canal had in fact been built! And likewise would have been impressed four decades later by the sudden rush of railroad building. The downside to freedom and low or no taxes was that things which should have happened didn’t or happened poorly leaving until just 60 years ago Texas without infrastructure needed to function as part of USA which then had to be built by Haliburton and fortunately at a time when USA and the state of Texas could do that easily from oil revenues. Both men saw the emergence of American Aristocracy, the uncaring irresponsibility of the super wealthy. Both were deeply pained by plight of American Indian and Negro. Both saw even in that period the destruction of the environment by irresponsible and selfish-careless Profit Driven Development-PDD!. So while both these visitors were enthusiastic as to the potential of USA, they tell us enough for us to be able to predict that given another 200 years -USA would fail!