American Culture and the Dollar After World War II

Abstract

Having immersed myself in the literature, sociology and public debate of the post-war period, the sound that I hear most clearly, from all the noises that reach me, is the busy sound of America’s can-do optimism at work. It was a society with many faults and many virtues. People led lives infused with an ideal of public service, of duty as well as personal ambition. They used money to promote American (which they regarded as universal) ideals; prosperity without avarice. This was the foundation of the dollar’s preponderance as a world currency. Its unique desirability is not the product of the Federal Reserve, or Wall Street, or even of the vast American economy, though these all influence it, but rather of American values. When people anywhere acquire dollars, they hold more than a means of payment or store of value. They share in the American dream.