“The fact is, despite the fact that his standard of living has been slipping over the past 50 years, the average American today lives much better and longer than a king during pre-industrial times.” – Doug Casey.
The Austrian school says a lot about the greatness of the 19th century, but I think its scholars have not written the economic history of it. I could be wrong and maybe one has and I don’t know it – a book just describing the development of America in the 19th century (how it could happen). I share here some quotes of how impressed the American historians of that century were with it. I exaggerate next a little to convey an impression, but it’s like those early generations in the 19th century built the foundations, the first floor of the house, and we put in all the furniture and built the attic. In the 19th century books I like to buy because of their top-notch quality, I’m struck by their intellectual vitality. Our 19th century was full of fine authors long forgotten.
The Individual and the...
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I have the book “The Great Industries of the United States” (1872). It has chapters like “Arrival of the Train”, “Starting the Elevator”, “The Toilette”, “A Shaver”, “Casting Iron”, “Sitting for a Photograph”, ‘The Lead Pencil”, “The Newspaper Press”, “The Newsboy”, “Brazilian Machete”, “Chinese Plow”, “The First Watch Made by Machinery in America”, and so on. It’s 1,315 pages long. The telegraph was invented (they could lay it in the sea too), electricity, the telephone, the steam ship. Their Encyclopedias are marvelous, and also those from Europe. I only have one and from Europe, which for the word “bride” has an explanation of how in Greece and Rome the bride was picked up by the groom in a chariot from her home. He sat at her right and her best lady friend on her left. On the way to the groom’s house, “torches were carried before her,” and there were musicians posted at different stations playing music suitable for the special occasion. When they arrived, the axle of the chariot was burned to signify she would not return to her father’s house. They did the same thing in Rome, except that the bride for some reason would leap over the threshold of the entrance to the home. I feel sure that our entrance for “bride” is not like that…
A book describing the economic progress of the United States in the 19th century could be an idea for some young Austrian economist if no one has done it, let’s say (or even for a team if it’s what it takes), a book with no criticisms of our time, ideally, just a book on them and how it could happen because of economic freedom. The Austrian School of Economics praises this century’s progress more than others. They had a certain depth too. I remember a book dedication from American historian John Clark Ridpath to his parents, who on the “rough frontier of civilization toiled and suffered and died that their children might inherit the promise.” He also dedicated a tome in his four-tome “History of the World” to his wife:
“To My Wife
Worthy of a Nobler Tribute”
American historian Stephen M. Newman, in his “America, Its History and Biography” (1881), has this dedication that also shows this self-awareness of the greatness and idealism around them (all in caps in the book): “To the Homes of America Whose Love of Liberty and of Country will finally make this continent The Land of True Freedom.”
The great economist Adam Smith anticipated that the North American colonies would become a very great power, in his book “The Wealth of Nations” (1776). He wrote about the size of the land and its riches and sort of wondered aloud what greatness could lay in store for these immense territories. Just like that, a great premonition of his. He said it less subtly as follows: “From shopkeepers, tradesmen and attornies, they are become statesmen and legislators, and are employed in contriving a new form of government for an extensive empire, which, they flatter themselves, will become, and which, indeed, seems very likely to become, one of the greatest and most formidable that ever was in the world” (bk. IV, ch. VII, America and East Indies). He wrote that America is “a country where the wages of labour are so much higher, and the price of provisions so much lower than in England” (bk. V, ch. III, Public Debts). He wrote that “though North America is not yet so rich as England, it is much more thriving, and advancing with much greater rapidity to the further acquisition of riches” (bk. I, ch. VIII, Wages of Labor).
It’s instructive how Adam Smith foresaw what would happen, and that it happened in the next century, and it’s a demonstration too. Historian George Bancroft became a renowned historian for his “History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.” I’d like to conclude with four quotes, in sequential order, from the first volume of this book in its 1850 edition, describing the United States in 1850:
The Art Of Self-Learni...
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“The sovereignty of the people is here a conceded axiom, and the laws, established upon that basis, are cherished with faithful patriotism.”
“Prosperity follows the execution of even justice; invention is quickened by the freedom of competition; and labor rewarded with sure and unexampled returns. Domestic peace is maintained without the aid of a military establishment; public sentiment permits the existence of but few standing troops, and those only along the seaboard and on the frontiers. A gallant navy protects our commerce, which spreads its banners on every sea, and extends its enterprise to every clime. Our diplomatic relations connect us on terms of equality and honest friendship with the chief powers of the world, while we avoid entangling participation in their intrigues, their passions, and their wars. Our national resources are developed by an earnest culture of the arts of peace. Every man may enjoy the fruits of his industry; every mind is free to publish its convictions. Our government, by its organization, is necessarily identified with the interests of the people, and relies exclusively on their attachment for its durability and support.”
“Our wealth and population, already giving us a place in the first rank of nations, are so rapidly cumulative, that the former is increased fourfold, and the latter is doubled, in every period of twenty-two or twenty-three years. There is no national debt; the community is opulent; the government economical; and the public treasury full.”
“There are more daily journals in the United States than in the world beside. A public document of general interest is, within a month, reproduced in at least a million copies, and is brought within the reach of every freeman in the country.”
