TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/021990/0219640.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.3 KB | 131 lines

                                                                                ESSAY, Page 98

We Gave at the Office


By Michael Kinsley


    In 1947 the U.S. gross national product was $235 billion.
That's about $1.4 trillion in today's money. Over the next four
years America spent $13.6 billion -- almost $80 billion in
today's money -- reviving capitalism and securing democracy in
Western Europe under the Marshall Plan.

    If anyone had told the Americans of 1947 that in 1990 their
nation would be more than four times as rich, they would not
have been surprised. America, after all, was the greatest
country in the history of the world. It could do anything. If
anyone had told them, though, that the America of 1990 would
be unwilling to spend more than $300 million ($51 million in
1947 dollars) to complete the job begun in 1947 by claiming
Eastern Europe for capitalism and democracy -- that they would
have had trouble believing. Yet $300 million plus dribs and
drabs is what President Bush is offering next year in foreign
aid to Poland and Hungary. The other East bloc nations get
nothing but dribs and drabs. Think of it per person. That $13.6
billion was $94 for each of the 144 million Americans in 1947,
or $553 in today's money. An equivalent sacrifice by today's
affluent standards would be more than $1,200 per person. By
contrast, even if we continue that $300 million a year for four
years, it works out to $4.80 for each of today's 250 million
Americans.

    There is no special shame in not being the world's greatest
nation. The Swiss and the Swedes lead happy lives. Perhaps,
having remained steadfast for four decades of cold war, we have
done enough. Prosperous isolation has genuine appeal. But it
is embarrassing to hear a President proclaim, as Bush did in
his State of the Union speech, that "America stands at the
center of a widening circle of freedom," with so little to back
it up. Surely the transformation of communism to capitalism,
totalitarianism to democracy is the great adventure of the next
generation. Do we want to be part of it in a serious way or
not?

    Bush spoke grandly of "the revolution of '89," the explosion
of freedom, then pathetically listed Panama as item No. 1. This
only drew attention to our sideline role in the truly historic
developments of 1989, in Eastern Europe. Perhaps there is
little more we should or could have done in 1989. But 1990 and
beyond will be different.

    In all the disputes over Eastern Europe's future, everyone
agrees about two things. First, that the quick, magical part
is over and the hard, slow, painful part has just begun. And
second, that while free markets will make these nations more
prosperous in the end, the wrenching and novel process of
converting command economies into free markets will make things
even worse for at least a while. Poland's courageous
total-immersion reform plan, begun Jan. 1, is expected to
reduce workers' wages by 20% from their already desperate
levels. Poland begins this experiment owing $40 billion to the
West from the disastrous 1970s. Yugoslavia, Hungary and East
Germany owe about $20 billion apiece.

    "It is time to offer our hand to the emerging democracies
of Eastern Europe," said Bush. But an empty hand is not enough.
It is absurd to say, as some do, that money is not what Eastern
Europe needs. Yes, capitalist expertise and rapid integration
into the Western economic system are equally important. But
this is no excuse for refusing simple cash. Nor is the fact
that so much Western money was squandered in the 1970s. That
was a different world.

    It is worse than absurd to say we cannot afford to be
generous because of our own debts and social problems. As Bush
proclaimed in the State of the Union, we are the most
productive nation in the world, at least for the moment. The
very collapse of communism will save us billions. If we choose
to consume our riches (and more) rather than invest and share
them, that is a statement about our spiritual condition, not
our economic one. Which brings us back to the question of
greatness.

    America's role in World War II reflected national greatness
of a traditional kind: economic and military strength and
courage. The Marshall Plan reflected national greatness of an
especially American kind: generosity and far-sighted promotion
of our own values. To be sure, generosity was not all of it.
We feared that Stalin would be the "receiver in bankruptcy" of
an impoverished Europe, as TIME wrote the week the plan was
announced. That fear may be gone. But it is not the end of
history. Because of what could still go wrong in Eastern
Europe, and to set an example for the rest of the world, the
successful conversion of these nations to capitalism and
democracy is vital to America.

    In 1947 we even bankrolled the recovery of our defeated
enemy, Germany. In 1990 we debate whether perestroika in the
Soviet Union will collapse into economic chaos and archaic
nationalism, without any suggestion that we ought to do
something about it. Meanwhile Senator Robert Dole wins acclaim
by suggesting that what little aid we give to Eastern Europe
ought to come out of our mite of aid to the rest of the world.

    Have we now lost that special American kind of greatness?
Do we now think that spraying bullets in a place like Panama
makes you a superpower? Bush has been criticized for spending
much of last week inspecting the troops, yesterday's pastime,
when he should have been concocting a "new vision," but lack
of vision doesn't threaten America's greatness. What does is
a simple unwillingness to make the effort.

    "Grandparents out there," said Bush in his State of the
Union speech, "tell your grandchildren the story of struggles
waged, at home and abroad, of sacrifices freely made for
freedom's sake." Maybe a speechwriter had just seen Kenneth
Branagh addressing the troops at Agincourt in the new movie of
Henry V: "He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,/ Will
stand a-tiptoe when this day is named . . ./ Old men forget;
yet all shall be forgot,/ But he'll remember, with advantages,/
What feats he did that day . . .This story shall the good man
teach his son." Well and good. But what will today's younger
Americans have to tell their grandchildren?