The One Against Many原文.docx

The One against the ManyIn an epoch dominated by the aspirations of new states for national development, it is instructive to recall that the United States itself began as an underdeveloped country. Every country, of course, has its distinctive development problems and must solve them according to its own traditions, capacities, and values. The American experience was unique in a number of ways. The country was blessed by notable advantages—above all, by the fact that population and resources was obviously not the only factor in American development. Had that been so, the Indians, for whom the ratio was even more favorable, would have developed the country long before the first settlers arrived from over the seas. What mattered equally was the spirit in which these settlers approached the economic and social challenges offered by the environment. Several elements seemed fundamental to the philosophy which facilitated the rapid social and economic development of the American continent. One factor was the deep faith in education. The belief that investment in people is the most essential way for a society to devote its resources existed from the earliest days of the American colonies. It arose originally from a philosophical rather than an economic commitment—from a faith in the dignity of man and from the resulting belief that it is the responsibility of society to offer man the opportunity to develop his highest potentialities. But, at the same time, it also helped produce the conditions essential to successful modernization. Modern industrial society must be above all a literate society. Economic historians attribute two-third of the growth in American output over the centuries of American development to increases on productivity. And increases in productivity, of course, come directly from the size of national investment in education and in research. J. K. Galbraith had rightly observed that “a dollar or a rupee invested in the intellectual improvement of human be