Tokyo after firebombing (June 1945)



As I was re-reading my post from yesterday, I decided that this is a good place in which to insert another piece of my basic view toward the main super-power in the world today, and to analyze its ethical status at this point in world history. In other words, talking about Lincoln yesterday has made me think once again about what the US has brought the world to in our times.

America has made huge inroads into the cultures of nearly all other nations in the world today. Kids all over want iPads and iPods or their equivalents from some other company than Apple. Many of these same kids want Nike running shoes and baseball caps lettered "Chicago Bulls" or "New York Yankees" or "Manchester City", for that matter. People can eat Big Macs in most major cities in the world. They can do so because there are McDonald's outlets all over, lots of them in Walmart stores.

Americans burn the biggest share of the gas that is burned in the world, and up until quite recently, they bought most of the oil that was used to make that gas from other states. Big American-based oil companies ran the exploration and extraction industries in most parts of the world. Then the oil, most often, was sent back to the US for refining. In many of these Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African nations, the wealth left in the countries for the oil went almost entirely to a small, rich elite at the top of the social order in the country, who promptly used it to buy cars, airplanes, clothes, shoes, and toys for their own use, investing little to nothing in the education of their own people or the building of their nation's infrastructure.

All of this detailing of the various influences of America on the developing nations of the world can start to sound irritatingly familiar. The media are full accounts that have this same tune to them.

But if we are going to tell this story, let's tell all of the story.

The American people have a culture, and it has its ways and mores the same as any other culture. The American people, in general, are not responsible for the behavior of a few of their corporations, which sometimes has been pretty unethical. Ordinary Americans didn't vote for such policies; they're just trying to live and get by as best they can, like people everywhere.

But there is still more to the story. The vast majority of these American corporations, both modern and past, did not take over resource development industries or move their factories into these countries at gunpoint. They came in when they were invited to do so by the country's ruling elites. Furthermore, they negotiated hard, as businesses do, but they paid what they had agreed to pay, and they took what the contracts said they were allowed to take. And if they paid a lot of bribes to a lot of bent officials, that was what was being done generally in these countries, including by the people who lived there. You couldn't get anything done otherwise. If they supported regimes that were pretty oppressive, the truth is that the heads of these regimes were often the only local leaders who could bring order out of the tribal strife that had been going on there for generations. If their influence eroded local culture, as American workers made local people familiar with American goods and entertainment and so on, the whole story is that local people were not forced to watch American t.v. or listen to American music. They chose to do so because the programs made them laugh, and the songs had catchy tunes.

And let's not pause here.

  
                                                                the Reichstag in ruins, Berlin, 1945



After World War II, American gross domestic product accounted for over half of global gross production. The situation stayed that way for more than two decades. This occurred because in the background situation, unlike China, Japan, or many of the states of Europe, America had not been bombed or shelled or overrun and ransacked. In fact, American industries had been re-tooled extensively during the war, new technologies had been invented and implemented, and huge labor forces trained. War is good for business -- for the victors.

But the Americans brought in the Marshall Plan pretty promptly after WWII and similar plans for war-ravaged Japan and other Asian nations. American money, know-how, and guidance -- which is what it was, however politically incorrect and offensive some people may find the term -- re-built the free world.

People all over, by the millions, put themselves back into prosperity by hard work and American aid. Once they had done so, the Americans unobtrusively handed their countries back over to home rule in every case.

  
                                                                  re-built Tokyo, 1955



In return, the Americans got ...what? Most of the billions that went out to aid the war-ravaged lands were never repaid. Even worse, many of the nations that took aid with both hands found it intellectually fashionable for long stretches to resent and criticize everything about the US.

Thankfully, such has not been the case, for the most part, in Germany or Japan. The big majority in these countries are willing to tell you, privately, that they owe their countries' economic miracles to the Americans.

My point? My point is pretty simple. Lincoln's way of forgiveness, letting go of the past, and getting on with re-building ...works. It's not just "niceness"; it's smart business.

There are companies that exploit and pollute and local officials who line their pockets. But sooner or later, they get busted. Witness the Arab Spring, the new Paris Agreement, and so on. The evidence, by and large, shows that the crimes and excesses can be handled. The system works. And over the long haul, one of its deepest principles is the one Lincoln stood for. Forgiveness. Let the past go.

This way should be a way of life for all of us. Yes, sometimes wrong had to be stopped. Sometimes suffering had to come, and atrocities were committed on every side.

But we can see, after this much human history, that generosity and forgiveness right up to the level of international affairs, can work. Better than any of the alternatives. So well, I hope, that maybe, just maybe, if we can implement this lesson, we may soon be able to get rid of war entirely.

There are still a few really old Germans and Japanese who swell with pride - and rightly so - when they speak of their countries' economic miracles. Let us never forget that these would never have occurred were it not for the quiet generosity of America.  


 
                                                            re-built Reichstag, completed 1964