There is nothing more difficult for a political economist than trying to get a handle on the United States. On the one hand, the simple fact that this website is up and that I can write pretty much whatever I want is a testament to both the entrepreneurial spirit of the nation (turning a primarily information disseminator into a commercial enterprise) and a testament to freedom, allowing me to write what's on my mind without much fear of recrimination. At the same time, it maintains its prosperity by exploiting every natural resource, every exploitable person in the name of greed. It holds one standard for itself and one for the rest of the world. This is why it is possible to argue both sides so fervently and why America is such a paradox.

There has never been a nation that has provided so much prosperity for its citizens and spread it out over such a wide expanse of the population. While it is true that it is a very unequal society, poverty in the United States is not the same as third world poverty. Poverty is defined by income levels (rather arbitrarily) which make the percentages look relatively large. However; even the poorest Americans would be considered middle class in almost any country in Africa and about half of Latin America. Income inequality is clearly the driving force for most of America's social problems but it is also at the root of its greatness as well. Technological advances in every aspect of life are driven by individuals who are able to profit from these advances. While examining the downtrodden, we must also recognize the flip side; the largest number of entrepreneurs the world has ever produced. These entrepreneurs exist because their upside is not capped and the profits they make from innovation are theirs to keep and reinvest in more innovation. A prime example of this dynamic is the pharmaceutical/medical industry which has produced a dazzling array of innovations that have helped raise the world's life expectancy by nearly 20 years and have made most of history's killer diseases just that, history. It creates these advances thanks primarily to the profits it earns in America (estimated to be half of all the profits the world pharmaceutical industry receives). That a significant portion of the populace does not have access to medical care is a reflection of a political system unwilling to redistribute wealth, not the economic system that produces the wealth. Without the American economic system to produce the level of wealth required to power industries such as pharmaceutics the world might still be dealing with small pox and polio, not to mention a much lower life expectancy level. One can transfer this process to just about any other industry to see why there has been more progress and change in the past 100 years than the previous 10,000 years combined. The United States population represents just 6% of the world's people yet its economy represents nearly a quarter of the world's GNP. This is a remarkable testament to the innovative and productive abilities of this most unique system. Coupled with a level of freedom unmatched anywhere on the planet, the United States has no rival.

There is an old saying in political science which states that Every man for himself said the elephant as he stomped around the chicken coup. America is clearly the elephant, willing to play by the same rules as everyone else as long it writes them. The best word to describe America is "gluttonous". It must have more of everything to feed its insatiable desire for stuff. There isn't a single product or natural resource whose economic market is not manipulated to favor Americans. Whether we talk about American oil companies supporting exploitive foreign governments to secure its oil needs or food companies exploiting the world to bring cheap food for Americans, the U.S. always makes sure the U.S. comes first regardless of the impact on everyone else. The United States has an incredible blindness to the role it plays in the world. It is hard to find a commodity or supermarket item with a market disadvantage to U.S companies that these companies have not tried to alter in their favor. America is the world's bully yet American's are almost oblivious to this. More significantly, Americans don't seem to really care. The lives of non-Americans are a disposable commodity when compared to what Americans consider their interests to be. 1.5 million Vietnamese died fighting in their own country and it is still difficult to figure out why America was over there at all. In 2004 President Bush was asked if he knew how many Iraqis had lost their lives since the U.S. lead invasion. He thought it was around 30,000 but didn't seem to particularly care much. Nor did a majority of Americans. In the late 1970s the U.S. government helped the Khmer Rouge gain power in Cambodia because it was vehemently anti-Vietnamese. As long as American interests were being served, no matter how trivial, the government seemed satisfied. When news of Cambodia's killing fields reached the world, the U.S. government's primary concern was concealing the role it had played. The American people and its media showed almost no interest in understanding how Pol Pot and his regime were able to gain power; just that it was a tragedy "over there". Americans truly believe the world will be a better place if it acts more like America and Americans mark progress by how much the rest of the world looks like America. They are proud to see KFC, McDonalds, and Starbucks in images of foreign cities. The reality is that the world does not embrace much that is American, with just 5 very visible exceptions. American movies, blue jeans, soft drinks and Windows operating system are the four product benignly accepted everywhere. American pharmaceuticals are the other dominant products used worldwide. American fast food, automobiles and other manufactured items are generally not very significant. Most of the world's citizens could pass on any of these products and not even notice it. Enter a Subway in Bangkok and you are far more likely to see westerners as customers and only rarely will you see a local Thai. The only other significant exception is Boeing airplanes but its dominance is half what it was and a large portion of the planes are now being built overseas, making it a global product rather than a strictly American product. The United States is a society of unrestrained gluttony. It values everything materially and looks with disdain at any culture that does not value material goods as much as it does. American's love to bash the French and their welfare state and 35 hour work week yet they are oblivious to what must be given up for their "superiority." It does not seem to matter that very few people, on their death bed, exclaim: "gee, I wish I'd worked more."

The paradox of America is that both these views are accurate. It is why no one wins an argument arguing one or the other. The one point that seems common to both perspectives is that most Americans are unaware of the role they play in the world and only a small minority really cares.