How do we create a more generous America?

The prosperity we experience during the holidays is the product of an extraordinary period of economic growth

- VERONIQUE DE RUGY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SANTA visits the New York Stock Exchange while in town for the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

THE CHRISTMAS season is a time to reflect on what we have, which includes the kind of society that has made countless blessings possible.

The warmth, security and generosity that many Americans experience during the holidays are not accidents or pure gifts of nature. In their tangible sense, they are the products of a long and extraordinary period of economic growth — one that has expanded opportunity, reduced hardship and given moral ideals room to breathe.

History shows quite clearly that the societies most capable of generosity and liberalism are not those trapped in poverty, but those that have escaped it. An abundance of wealth does not corrupt moral life; it enables it. Economic growth is not a rival to our highest values. It’s a precondition to their most vigorous pursuit.

This truth is easy to forget precisely because modern growth has been so successful. We take for granted the material abundance that allows us to debate its spiritual costs. For most of human existence, life was defined by constant vulnerability. Hunger, disease and early death were ever-present. The idea that ordinary people could expect anything different — let alone genuine comfort or opportunity — would sound fantastical to our pre-industrial ancestors.