“Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us.
We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither.
We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations
with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems
a people with such responsibilities.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt – (4 Time American President)
“My fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body and the things of the soul.
Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.
Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils, the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a Democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers. Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
SELECTED EXAMPLES OF ECONOMIC REFORMS…
Reforms in China in 1970s
…Before economic reforms began in the late 1970s, state-owned enterprises generally did not purchase their raw materials and equipment as commodities, but rather received them directly from the government. The enterprises then submitted their finished products to the government for distribution. The Supply and Marketing Cooperative, a state-run operation, distributed consumer goods to the rural population. Such essential items as grains, oil, meat, sugar, and cotton fabric were rationed because they were relatively scarce and because low fixed prices had to be ensured for everyone.
The United States of America
This period of reform lasted from the last decade of the 19th century into World War I. Reformers, or progressives as they were called, were concerned about abuses of power by government and businesses. They did not all agree with each other, but many advocated at least some government regulation of business practices. They wanted the direct election of U.S. senators (in most states the legislature chose them). Some sought the prohibition of child labor, others the prohibition of alcoholic beverages, and for many the conservation of the nation's natural resources was important. Muckrakers (journalists who wrote articles exposing corruption in both politics and in business) often joined with progressives to publicize child labor, unsanitary industrial conditions, business monopolies, and censorship. Progressives believed that the government could play an important role in making the United States a better place to live, and many looked for leadership to President Theodore Roosevelt.”
The United Kingdom (Britain)
The British Radicals, led by the philosopher James Mill, the jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and the political economist David Ricardo, developed a philosophy based on Bentham's principle of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” They proposed as a means to this end the removal of all political and social restraints on economic relations, believing that individuals are free to the extent that their commercial life is unrestricted. British radicalism was an effort to establish private economic expansion as the principle of the modern state.
There is so much to say, but this is not the time for too much talk. Only one question: Will Nigerians agree with President FDR (Roosevelt)?
“Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us.
We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither.
We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations
with the other nations of the earth (global economy), and we must behave as beseems
a people with such responsibilities.” ?
In my view we have one option left if subsidy is too hard on us,; close all our borders to going out, no coming in. We must all agree to “The Closing of the Gate” if present globalised economy is too hard to bear. It means we will live together and die together for our next generation to have a country to call their own. I rest my case on this matter.
Support Materials: Microsoft Encarta
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