Abstract

Throughout American history, the proper relationship between the public and private spheres has been a theme of prickly debate. One relevant index of American attitudes toward the public and private spheres is the extent of public ownership of industry. The U.S. has a low percentage of government spending among the industrialized market economies. And by a very wide margin it has the smallest recent growth rate in public spending. Recent rhetoric about the rampant growth of government spending in the U.S. would seem to have little foundation when viewed beside statistics for comparable countries. Only if the U.S. is abstracted from the world economy and considered in isolation can the proposition of rapid growth in public spending be defended. In the U.S., the distinction between public and private affairs did not have the compelling quality it acquired later on. In a democratic republic, every citizen was private yet was also a member of the body politic, co-equal with every other member. Most important of all, each citizen was free, and among his freedoms was his liberty to mix public and private functions without a sense of conflict. Several of the founding fathers, for example, made large sums of money speculating in western public lands.