All around the world, despite the resistance of the old guard, freedom and free markets, democracy, and capitalism are increasingly on the march. From Eastern Europe and Latin America to Africa and Asia and even the Soviet Union, people are dreaming of freedom and democracy after decades and even centuries of oppression, poverty, despair, and debt.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush called it the revolution of 1989, but perhaps it may be in reality just the continuation of the American Revolution of 1776. Marxist-Leninists used to talk about their “permanent revolution,” but as it turns out the only permanent revolution the world has ever seen is the American Revolution.
Yet, in such revolutionary time, Charles Dickens' observation on the French Revolution may well still apply: It can be the best of times, and the worst of times simultaneously. Here in the United States, we're enjoying unprecedented economic growth and opportunity, yet after nearly eight years of continuing expansion, there are some parts of our nation and all too many of our people left out and left behind, suffering form the tragedy of homelessness, poverty that stretches over generations, and a sense of hopelessness and despair about the future.
As Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner said recently, the world is looking to us for advice on the free market ideas of Adam Smith: “They don't want lectures on income redistribution and capitalist exploitation; they want income and capitalism.”
Feulner is right; but after one and a half years at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), I knew that not only is Eastern Europe looking to us for market-oriented answers, but so is East Harlem, East St. Louis, and East Los Angeles.
If we are to present the example of democratic capitalism and the rule of law to the rest of the world, we've got to make it work for the low-income people and distressed neighborhoods and communities right here in our own country.
Traveling across the country, I've seen thousands upon thousands of low-income people and families in public housing communities eagerly seeking change and responding positively to our ideas. They don't want more government promises and egalitarian welfare schemes; they want to live in neighborhoods free from crime and drug abuse, with good jobs and opportunities to own property and homes; they want quality education so that they and their children can live better lives. They want what we all want - a chance to develop their talent, potential, and possibilities.
In 1984, Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York electrified the Democratic Convention with his tale of America as two cities, one rich and one poor, permanently divided into two classes. He talked about the rich growing richer and the poor becoming poorer, with the conclusion that class conflict, if not warfare, was the only result, and redistribution of wealth was the solution.
Two Economies
But with all due respect to Cuomo, he got it wrong. America is not divided immutably into two static classes. But it is separated or
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