Uniquely American

A thought from Peter Drucker as we celebrate Washington’s Birthday (a.k.a. Presidents’ Day):

“The phrase which since early days expresses the essence of their own society to Americans is a political promise: the ‘equal chance of every American boy to become President.’ One has only to translate the slogan—for instance, into a promise of ‘equal opportunity for every boy to become Prime Minister’—to see by contrast that it is uniquely American, and this not because the promise of equal opportunities in itself would be absurd, but because the political sphere is the meaningful sphere of social values only in this country. . . . That the American genius is political is therefore the major key to the understanding of America, of its history, and of its meaning.”