Photo credit: Serguey
Just a little more about the American system, from a certified non-expert.
There are many expressions that we hear all our lives, beginning in our childhood (this is very noticeable in the church), expressions which we tend to skate over without considering their specific meanings.
“Freedom” and “equality” are two of those. I suspect a lot of Americans think they mean the same thing. And they most emphatically do not.
Here’s the thing our Founders understood, which neither the later French revolutionaries or most moderns comprehend. Freedom and equality are in fact mortal enemies.
If you have total freedom, equality is impossible, because some people will be more successful at what they do, and at life itself, than others. The weaker and the less intelligent may even be crushed under the feet of the stronger and the more clever.
If you want total equality, you’re going to have to clamp down on everybody, and ruthlessly cut off every head that pokes above the level of the average.
The American answer to that problem was to set up a system meant to achieve a balance. “Equality of opportunity” means everybody gets as equal a chance in the game as possible. But equality was never enshrined as an American motto, as it was for the French – “Liberty, equality, fraternity.” For Americans it was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As for the losers in life’s game, their care was left to the family and the church. And they were encouraged to try again. America’s bankruptcy system was designed to permit people to start over, something European systems discouraged.
When people used to talk about the American way, that’s what they meant.