America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great (10 page)

Children are especially vulnerable to peer pressure, whether it be good peer pressure or bad peer pressure. It is definitely possible to affirm students who are not doing as well academically while still providing encouraging extra recognition for those students who are achieving the highest levels. By providing extra recognition for those outstanding students, many of the other students are encouraged to try harder. We have certainly found this to be the case with the Carson Scholars Fund, which provides scholarships for students who demonstrate both superior academic performance and humanitarian qualities. Some teachers have told us that when we put a Carson scholar in the classroom, the grade-point average of the whole class can go up by as much as one point over the next year.

When students embrace the concept of striving for excellence, it completely changes their opinion of who they are and what they can do. It did for me. Jaime Escalante was the subject of
Stand and Deliver
, a movie depicting his life as a teacher in the inner city, where the prevailing attitude was that calculus was way beyond the students’ capabilities. By getting to know those students individually and working with them, he was able to convince more and more of them that they were smart — after that, teaching them calculus was a piece of cake. During his tenure, that school had more advanced placement calculus students than all but three other public high schools in the country.
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The concept of rewards for production lies at the foundation of capitalism and needs to be understood. The anticipation of rewards for being productive and the fear of consequences for being unproductive are great
human motivators for both young and old. Historically, when these motivators are removed, productivity declines. Nonproductive people frequently make excuses for their lack of production, and as long as they can utilize those excuses, they have no reason to change their ways. But motivate them and watch what happens.

For example, if you met someone living on the streets who had no house, no car, and very little if any money, and you were able to convince him that if he met you in Bismarck, North Dakota, in seventy-two hours that you would give him $1 million, I can virtually assure you that he would find a way to get there. People can generally find a way to do what they want to do, and they can find a hundred excuses for what they don’t want to do. When you have an entire society of people with a great work ethic and a sense of personal responsibility, that society will take off like a rocket and quickly achieve a position of power and leadership. I give you the United States of America.

Some people with a socialist agenda claim that the Bible supports their system of government because the early Christians pooled their resources and because Jesus lived like a peasant. Having read the Bible in its entirety several times, that’s not my conclusion. The early Christians had a dramatic mission to accomplish in a relatively short period of time, and without using their collective talents and resources, it would have been extraordinarily difficult to have had the impact on the whole world as quickly as they did. Also, since the vast majority of people were workers and peasants, it is likely that Jesus reasoned that his greatest impact would be among the largest segment of society, and that he was much more likely to reach them as a worker himself. Besides, great characters of the Bible such as Job, King David, King Solomon, Lot, and Abraham were people of extraordinary wealth and influence, and they became heroic figures and men of God, so that point had already been made.

In the parable of the talents,
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in fact, industry and concerted effort are praised while laziness is rejected. For those who are not familiar with this story, a master had three servants, and as he was departing for a long journey, he gave each of them a certain number of talents.
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The first servant was given five bags of money, which through his efforts he managed to double. The second servant was given two bags of money, which he managed to double also, while the third servant was given only one bag of money, which he buried in the ground, hoping to conserve it. When the master returned, he was very pleased with the efforts of the first and second servants and concluded that they were worthy of even more rewards since through their stewardship they had managed to produce even more than he had originally
given them. When the third servant was asked what had become of the talent that he was given, he said to the master, “I know that you are a harsh taskmaster, therefore I buried the talent to ensure that nothing happened to it and that I would not diminish your gift.” The master was extremely angry with the servant and commanded that his talent be given to the one who had multiplied his talents the most.

This parable is remarkable in that it shows God encourages the same kind of traits that lead to entrepreneurship and business success. Being lazy and content with the status quo is shunned, while being highly industrious is praised. Since this parable was told by Jesus himself, it gives us some insight into how those who believe in the Bible and in the teachings of Christ should view the positive aspects of capitalism. You will notice that I said “the
positive
aspects of capitalism,” which suggests there are negative aspects as well. We have discussed greed already, which really encompasses most of the other negative aspects of capitalism, such as lack of regard for the environment.

Many of the industrialists who helped propel our country to the forefront of the global economy were much more interested in growing their businesses than they were in protecting the environment. The result? Dangerous pollution and the compromised habitat of many animals. Protecting the environment is neither a Democratic nor a Republican position, but rather it should be a
logical
position for capitalists
and
socialists, because everyone should be looking out for the interests of future generations and trying to protect their own health as well. Having a clean and healthy environment is beneficial to everyone no matter what their political persuasion. If our government were able to identify what needs to be done in our country to protect our environment, and our representatives (who are supposed to be looking out for their constituents) agreed on our policies and followed through on them, it would benefit us all.

I once met legendary entrepreneur A. G. Gaston,
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a multimillionaire who had funded a significant portion of the civil rights movement in the South. He was ninety-five years old at the time, and during our conversation together at Tuskegee University in Alabama, I asked him the following question: “Mr. Gaston, how did you as a black man become a multimillionaire in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1930s to 1950s?” For as most of you will know, Birmingham, Alabama, was a bastion of racism during that time.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “I just opened my eyes, looked around, and asked myself, what do people need? I then went about fulfilling those needs.”

In the process, he created multiple businesses, including an insurance company and a bank, and in doing so he became a very wealthy individual. But it was what he did with that wealth that was extraordinary — supporting the civil rights struggles in Birmingham and throughout the South. This is a splendid example of a capitalist who was extraordinarily compassionate and did a great deal to improve society for all of us.

Many like-minded capitalists make enormous contributions to the well-being of our society. Sometimes contributions are made on a smaller scale than that of Gaston, but all of these contributions, large or small, add up. Hundreds of thousands of bright, hard-working entrepreneurs start their own businesses to ensure their own financial security and the security of their families. In the process they create jobs for other people. In fact, small businesses create 80 percent of the private sector jobs in this country. In 2010, before the national elections, the question of whether or not to raise taxes on the “rich” (defined by the government as families with a household income of $250,000 a year or more) was widely debated. Some felt that anyone making that much money could certainly afford to pay more taxes, and in fact should do so since the vast majority of the population did not enjoy such affluence. Wealth should be redistributed fairly, they argued.

However, those who were targeted for this tax increase included many small business owners. And those with a better understanding of how capitalism works felt just as strongly that it would be a huge mistake to impose higher taxes on the very people who create the majority of private sector jobs. If you continually punish those who are economically successful through higher and higher taxes, at some point you extinguish the desire to work hard, since they will be working harder for a smaller return and their profits will increasingly go to the government. Many of the rich people in this country have been extremely generous with their money, and they are to be commended for this generosity. Some haven’t. But the government shouldn’t take from either of them against their will. The Constitution is quite clear that the government has the right to tax in order to support its programs, but there is nothing in the Constitution to support redistribution of wealth. Some proponents of big government get around this by creating many programs and then argue that these have to be supported by taxes. In this way they redistribute wealth according to their agenda. As a society we need to be mature enough to recognize that the wealthy in this nation provide many opportunities for those who are not rich by creating jobs and paying taxes. The fact is, the top 50 percent of wage earners in the United States pay 97 percent of the taxes. The top 2 percent earn 19 percent of all wages, but pay
52 percent of all taxes. Since almost 50 percent of the population pays no federal income tax at all, you can see that the more affluent constituents of society are already supporting the less fortunate to a large extent.

I am a huge proponent of humanitarian efforts, and I strongly believe that “[to whom] much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48). This is the reason that the humanitarian component of the Carson Scholars Fund is so important. In order to be nominated for one of the scholarships, a student must not only have a near-perfect grade point average, but he or she must also demonstrate humanitarian qualities. A student cannot win if they are simply smart and successful, but don’t care about other people, for we want to encourage the same values of productivity and generosity that characterize many of the men and women who helped this nation become the world power that it is today.

Capitalism has worked very well for the United States of America, but like every economic system it does have its shortcomings. There is no perfect system quite simply because there are no perfect people. Even with capitalism, some government regulation is necessary. As James Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
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As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, it is true that some capitalists care only about making money and disregard the well-being of their fellow human beings and the environment. A responsible government certainly should exercise oversight in every economic model — including the capitalist model. Appropriate regulations should protect the environment and the rights of all its citizens. For example, a chemical factory should not be allowed to dump toxic waste in an area where people or significant animal populations can be harmed. By the same token, some degree of government regulation is necessary for our large financial institutions to prevent the kinds of tragedies that occurred during and immediately after the great stock market crash of 1929 and again in 2008. The real shame is that we did recognize the importance of financial regulation after the great crash of 1929 and appropriately developed safeguards in the 1930s. Unfortunately, we decided to deregulate during the 1990s, paving the way for the economic meltdown in 2008.

When it comes to defending the economic viability of our nation, it is naïve to count on the honesty and integrity of people responsible for our markets when they stand to gain so much by manipulating the system to their advantage. If we become paranoid and overregulate the financial
markets, however, we will not see peak performance from them. That hurts everybody’s retirement plans with its domino effects. This is one of the reasons that a balance of viewpoints in our legislative bodies is not only healthy but also necessary. Our founding fathers understood human nature, including the desire for power and a tendency toward greed; therefore, our broad regulatory principles should be aimed at stifling excessive power and greed. We need many wise counselors focusing on the kinds of regulations that accomplish these goals without suppressing productivity and growth.

With all of the intellect that exists in our nation, it should be easy for us to come up with bipartisan, business-friendly policies to encourage businesses and manufacturers to bring their factories and offices back to our land. Logical people from both political parties should sit down with business leaders who have moved much of their business offshore and ask them why they did, then work with them to find solutions that will bring them back. We all want a prosperous and thriving nation, and if we appropriately analyze the problems that preclude prosperity, we can certainly find the solutions.

Doing so would lead to the creation of jobs, which is essential to the maintenance of the middle class, the backbone of America. A friend of mine who lives in Connecticut is a self-made multimillionaire who owns many businesses and has a very keen business mind. In order to instantly create many more jobs in the United States, he has proposed that we place a stiff tariff on products that are manufactured in other countries and are shipped here fully assembled, while reducing tariffs on products that will require assembly once they reach our shores. In order to assemble the latter group of products, many workers would have to be hired. Given the severe trade imbalance that we already are experiencing, such a policy would have a dramatic impact on the American job market. This is just one example of how government could enhance job creation, thus expanding the tax base rather than killing jobs with ever-increasing taxes.