Unlike any other major industrialized economy, the American one sits on top of a consciously-created society, one put together after 1620 by a mixture of voluntary and involuntary migration – the trans-oceanic movement of immigrants and slaves – into a land mass whose native inhabitants were an early casualty of that migration. Carefully editing US history to downplay the ethnic cleansing and forced slavery elements within it, contemporary American apologists regularly assert that – precisely because of its unique design – the society so consciously created turned out to be morally, socially and economically superior to the societies that the first generations of American transplants had left behind. As the American national anthem has it, the United States understands itself to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave” – understands itself, that is, as a country that possesses a unique trio of advantages: a unique set of dominant values focused around individualism and personal freedom, a uniquely prosperous economy based on private ownership, and a uniquely open social order in which individuals can progress entirely through their own merit. The continuing influx of immigrants seeking precisely those freedoms, prosperity and social mobility then only serves to reinforce the conviction – visible across the entire US political class, but particularly well-embedded in the belief systems of American conservatives – that the United States remains “the shining city on the hill” which all other countries and peoples seek to emulate.

The reality behind such claims is much more complicated than their advocates imply: but in one regard at least the claim for American superiority has, until recently, had enormous force. For over the postwar period as a whole, living standards in the United States have been significantly higher than those enjoyed by the mass and generality of people living in other major industrial economies – not to mention higher than the living standards of those unfortunate enough to be marooned either in former communist countries or in the underdeveloped world.