In 1947, Henry Grady Weaver asked in the opening pages of his book The Mainspring of Human Progress, “Why did men die of starvation for nearly 6,000 years? Why is it that we in America have never had a famine?” The answer is that “we, in the United States, have made more effective use of our human energies than have any other people on the face of the globe ? anywhere or anytime.”

This leads Weaver to seek why human energy works better here than anywhere else, and in so seeking, he ponders the nature of energy and what helps and hinders its work. His finding: “human energy cannot be made to work efficiently except in an atmosphere of individual freedom and voluntary cooperation, based on enlightened self-interest and moral responsibility.”

In short, American liberty was the difference; our freedoms provided the perfect environment for unleashing human energy and therefore is why America never had a famine but instead has progressed in wealth. And going back to his opening, before he answered his question, he had marveled at many facets in American progress, including this:

We have moved from backbreaking drudgery into the modern age of power, substituting steam, electricity, and gasoline for the brawn of man; and today the nuclear physicist is taking over and finding ways of subduing to human uses the infinitessimally tiny atom ? tapping a new source of power so vast that it bids fair to dwarf anything that has gone before.

Apropos of this, let me quote to you a news article from today, care of USA Today:

Wood making comeback as power source

One of the world’s oldest energy sources is making a comeback.

Across the USA, power plants are turning to wood to make electricity. The move is spurred by state mandates to encourage renewable power and by bills moving through Congress that require more renewable electricity nationwide. …

A plant in Kenansville, N.C., was converted from burning coal to burning wood. It reopened in 2009 and sells its power to one of the state’s largest utilities. …

Note

1. I’ve used this introduction before. The last time, it was over proposed power plant that would burn chicken waste.