American Exceptionalism

Will Oremus lists some things that are unusual about America at Slate:

As we celebrate the 236^th anniversary of America’s independence, it’s a good time to reflect on all the things that make the United States the greatest country in the world. Like, for instance … well … hmm.

We’re billed as the land of the free, but we’re actually 47^th in press freedom according to Reporters Without Borders, behind Botswana and El Salvador. We’re 10^th in economic freedom, according to the Heritage Foundation—not bad, but not quite on the level of Canada or Mauritius. We’re 51^st in math and science education, according to the World Economic Forum. We spend by far the most on health care, but can’t crack the top 20 in life expectancy. And while we remain the richest country in terms of gross domestic product, we’re anywhere from sixth to 19^th in per-capita income, depending on how you count. (Plus, no one expects us to hold off China for long when it comes to GDP.)

So what do we lead the world in? If you believe Will McAvoy, the news anchor on Aaron Sorkin’s [fictional HBO series] The Newsroom, the United States is tops in just three things: "number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending." ...

But come on—don’t we lead the world in anything we can be proud of? Indeed, we do! To celebrate July 4, here is a list of some rather obvious, some surprising, and some genuinely inspiring achievements that put the “exceptional” in “American exceptionalism."

...Legal immigrants. A whopping 35.5 million as of 2005. Our immigration system may be broken, but it’s not as broken as a lot of other countries’ immigration systems.

Generosity. What American decline? The United States jumped from fifth place to first in the U.K.-based Charity Aid Foundation’s latest World Giving Index, which grades countries on three metrics: volunteering, helping strangers, and donating money.

Patriotism. Even if the facts don't always bear us out, we’re still convinced that our country is tops. In a World Values Survey, 77 percent of Americans reported being "very proud of their nationality," more than any other country polled. Well, technically, we were tied for first with Ireland. And the survey in question is from the 1990s. But how else could you explain all those people still singing along with Lee Greenwood every Fourth of July?

Media. We have the most newspapers, radios, television broadcast stations, and hours of television watched per day. Oops, maybe that last one isn’t so inspiring. But hey, it’s a holiday. Go ahead and enjoy the fireworks on your boob tube. In the land of the 47^th-most-free, no one’s going to stop you.

Unfortuntately most of the other items on Will's list are wrong or misleading because they are simply due to the fact that the US has the largest GDP.  For example, the title of Will's article celebrates the fact that the US is the number one in cheese production, but that isn't per-capita and so it is just due to the fact that the US has more people who can afford cheese than any other country.  The US is nowhere near the top in per-capita cheese. Greeks eat over twice as much per capita as Americans and the US isn't even one of the top ten cheese exporters. France is the big cheese there.   And the US is not the most obese.  We are near the top, and the heaviest big country, but there are a few small Pacific-island countries that are even heavier, possibly in part due to their history of regular famines which killed off anyone without fat genes.  

Running a country is different from running a company.

Henry Ford wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars.  But he only sold perhaps less than one percent of his cars to his own workers.  How much of America's production is sold to America's workers?  About 87%.  Only about 13% of US GDP is exported.  And we import about 16% of GDP (meaning that foreigners lend us about 3% of GDP per year to buy more of their stuff).   

One of the ironies of globalization is that very little production is actually traded internationally.  This is mainly because people mostly buy services and real estate which rarely can be outsourced to another country.  In the future, if the global economy continues to become more service-sector oriented, we may trade even less of our production. 

People often think that 'everything is made in China', but that is because of the availability heuristic: images that are readily available when you think about a subject are emphasized more than their actual importance and Americans really do import most of our consumer goods.  But we spend most of our money on real estate, health care, education, restaurants, police protection, etc.    And America exports almost as much stuff as we import, but the kinds of goods that we export are not consumer goods.  We export airplanes, military hardware, and capital goods that foreign businesses buy.  That means that foreign business owners may think of the US as an exporting juggernaut because they picture all the things that they buy from the US, but foreign consumers (most people) do not buy much American production except for cultural goods like movies and music.