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?