America: Imagine the World Without Her Page #6

stand on their own two feet,

so that one day then we

could extract ourselves

and we would have

a free South Vietnam.

I was there to give opportunity

for the South Vietnamese people

to exercise their own destiny.

John Fer would spend

the next six years

in the famed POW prison,

the Hanoi Hilton.

I came home to a different America.

Whatever you think

about the Vietnam War,

America wasn't stealing

from the Vietnamese.

And in Iraq, we spent a

whole bunch of money

and then we turned over

the oil fields to the Iraqis.

Under the conquest ethic,

we would have kept it.

In Afghanistan after 9/11,

the US military, even while

bombing terrorist targets,

was delivering food rations

to Afghan civilians.

And far from stealing,

America rebuilt Germany and Japan

after World War ll.

Contrary to the Zinn narrative,

we're not the bad guys of the world.

As Colin Powell said,

"The only land that America asks for

abroad is land to bury our dead."

Finally, capitalism.

Does it rip off the consumer?

Welcome to Delish Dinesh.

- Can I help you?

- I'll take a hamburger.

$1.95.

Maria just paid $1.95

for that hamburger.

Ek burger jaldi banao.

But the cost of me

making the hamburger,

with food, labor, rent, insurance,

advertising, permits...

Hey, boss, soda machine broken again.

...equals $1.79.

Leaving me with a whopping

8% or 16 cent profit.

The best way to judge

if I'm ripping her off

is to see what it would cost for

her to make the burger at home.

Maria's burger has the same

stuff as Delish Dinesh.

But when you add it up,

Maria's homemade burger

costs $2. 22.

That's 27 cents more than the

burger at my restaurant.

And that doesn't even factor in the

time that it cost her to make it.

Does this work for the

big companies, too?

And we are calling it iPhone.

Steve Jobs, did he rip people off?

He created products that people didn't

even know they wanted or needed.

But once he made them available,

they clamored for them and

stood in line to buy them

and freely spent their

money for them.

There's no rip-off.

Capitalism works not through

coercion or conquest,

but through the consent

of the consumer.

To see why there's

so much inequality,

consider the example of Zinn's

own disciple Matt Damon.

Here he is in The Bourne Ultimatum.

Here he is in The Bourne Identity.

How does Matt Damon make

so much more money than you?

Is it because he works

harder than you

putting in an intense six weeks filming

to earn several million dollars?

Could it be because of

his unbelievable skills?

Please.

There's only one reason Matt

Damon makes so much money.

The consumers who buy

tickets to his movies.

In other words,

you.

You moved your goods to market

on the roads the rest of us paid for.

You hired workers the rest

of us paid to educate.

You were safe in your factory

because of police forces and fire

forces that the rest of us paid for.

Is Senator Warren right?

Entrepreneurs and business

owners do use public services,

but so does everyone else.

Let's say, a successful

business owner

makes four times as much

as the average employee.

But she also pays four

times as much in taxes.

Do her kids get four times more

attention in public school?

Does she get to drive four

times as fast on the freeway?

Will the fire department

arrive four times faster?

No. Not at all.

What about the rest of the world?

Does capitalism promote

global injustice?

From businesses in the Middle East

to factories in South America

to entrepreneurs in China,

the world is embracing

the free market.

Does it seem to you ironic that this

sort of entrepreneurial capitalism,

that this recipe has become

so controversial at home here

while it is being enthusiastically embraced

in so many other parts of the world?

I spoke to Jagdish Bhagwati,

a professor of economics

at Columbia University

and a leading researcher

on global capitalism.

How many people have been

lifted out of poverty in India?

Over 200 million

people are, you know,

in less than 15 years,

have pulled out of poverty.

And in China the number

is even greater.

Far greater. It's about 400

to 500 million people.

'Cause they started earlier.

Capitalism, entrepreneurial capitalism

is the most important moral case.

So there's no reason

for us to be apologetic.

It's the other guys who

should be apologetic.

'Cause every bit of experience shows

that they're the ones who really

undermine the fortunes of the poor.

And when it comes to helping

the poor through charity,

you may be surprised

at who cares the most.

Meet Arthur Brooks, head of the

American Enterprise institute.

One of the things that

we typically find

in our modern conversation

about who's charitable

is that folks who believe in

greater government transfers,

more income redistribution,

they believe they're the most

charitable members of society.

When you look at the data,

a different picture emerges.

What we really find is that folks

who are on the conservative side,

especially the religious conservative

side, give away the most.

About four times as much.

About four times as much of their resources

as people who are on the secular left.

And if you're struggling in America,

is it still possible to pull yourself up?

I believed that my problems

were somebody else's fault.

I believed that America

was so inherently racist

that I didn't need to mainstream.

And I believed that the poor were poor

because the wealthy were wealthy.

I met with my friend Star Parker.

You were on welfare for how long?

I was in and out seven years,

but three-and-a-half years consistently.

Did it ever occur to you to go looking

for work and if not, why not?

Why bother? Why would I

go out and find work

when somebody else was willing to send

me a check on the 1st and the 15th?

My life go in a little black hole.

And that's where I was living.

When some people looked me in the eye

and pointed their finger in my face

and told me my lifestyle

was unacceptable to God,

and when they said that, I didn't

even know there were churches,

but there was something about their

conviction that got my attention.

I finally went to church with

them and heard the gospel

and I changed and I

went back to college.

I got a degree. I started a business.

And now I run an organization today

and am a nationally syndicated

columnist and an author.

For me, Star Parker is the

quintessential American.

She draws on those classic American

virtues that Tocqueville talked about,

individual initiative, community,

faith, to help herself and others.

So is the wealth of

America based on theft?

Actually, no.

The wealth of America isn't

stolen, it's created.

All right, this way. This way.

The ethic of conquest is universal.

What's uniquely American

is the alternative,

equal rights, self-determination

and wealth creation.

If America did not exist,

the conquest ethic would

dominate the world once again.

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