Our Threatened Freedom

What Has Happened to Prosperity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 57-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 057

Dictation Name: Vol. E - Part 05 – What Has Happened to Prosperity

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] What is happening to prosperity? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

All over the world the post-World War Two prosperity is steadily giving way to serious and deeply rooted economic problems. Not too many years ago, much was said about the economic miracles in West Germany. After World War Two, Chancellor {?}, influenced by the economist {?}, led Germany back into a freer economy, and into remarkable prosperity. Rising out of the ruins of the war, Germany soon became a very powerful economic force and a prosperous country.

Now, however, the German economy is in serious trouble, and its outlook is bleak and unpleasant. The reason for this amazing decline is readily apparent. The Germans have sought to out-do other European nations in their health, old age and welfare programs. As Alfred {?} recently pointed out, and I quote, “A wage earner gets six week full pay while ill, then gets eighty percent of normal salary.” Unquote. German workers get a five week paid vacation, and this may soon be extended to six weeks. Absenteeism is up to 8.4% of scheduled work time. It is 3.5% in the United States. Great numbers of foreign workers have come in to do work which Germans will not do. In fact, the foreign worker, from the Mediterranean world, is a growing factor in the populations of Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and other countries. Just as illegal aliens are here, in the United States. As a result of all this, West Germany is in trouble.

Two key factors are evident in the German economic problem.

First, Welfarism has grown so rapidly that it has become an economic drag. Welfare, education and the bureaucracy has grown to the point where they now command 47% of the national output.

Second, the work ethic is gone, or at best, declining. The mood is to relax and play, not to work and produce. Without a strong work ethic, no nation can long be strong.

Having said all this, we must then add that what is happening in West Germany is also happening in the United States, Sweden, Britain, and everywhere else. Statism and Welfarism are growing, and morality and the work ethic are declining. All these things add up to economic woes. To have a flourishing economy, we do need sound money. And we do need a healthy development in technology. Important as these things are, they are not enough. What is further needed is a sound moral foundation and a work ethic. Lacking these things, both an economy and a nation will decline, and freedom will also wane.

Throughout history, there has been a real connection between a work ethic, morality, and freedom. They go together. We live in a world of causality, not of happenstance. To be free we must be responsible, godly, and productive. Like all other things, freedom has a price.

This has been R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.