Summary Of Thank You For Being Late By Thomas Paine

Thomas Friedman, a syndicated journalist for the New York Times, introduced me to Moore’s Law in his book “Thank you for being late”. It's the idea that every year technology's capabilities double, and the cost to attain them halves. He employed it in order to explain how quickly the world is morphing and how people’s innovative ideas are discarded for another in an ever decreasing amount of time. People are having trouble coping with the intensity of newness that is being thrust at them. Many countries have seen dramatic changes, for example, Singapore’s economy has come under a revolution. The average per capita income of a Singaporean was around 50% of the average income of a UK resident. In the succinct span of 50 years, Singaporean’s now have almost double the income of a UK resident. Even despite such volatile times, Thomas Paine’s
characterization of America has retained a high degree of accuracy. America is commonly referred to as a melting pot, be it ideas, cultures, religion, or any other such measure, and the association has not diminished.
One of the first ideas brought up is how such a diverse group with conflicting ideals has come together to form something splendid. The reason that this holds true today is a result of the complexity of the aforementioned melting pot not changing. We still host a wide array of spoken languages, and, consequently, hubbubs of culture have sprung up across the country. Places like Chinatown in New York, Andersonville in Chicago, or Persian Square in California. This shows that diversity is still pervasive around America, however, language is not the sole factor of diversity. America still participates in the slogan “bring us your weak and poor...”. This exemplifies how we don’t recruit a singular type of person, but rather we collect people from every background. It’s through this philosophy, we have garnered great harmony and accord with people of multiple different backgrounds. The diverse America of Thomas Paine’s depiction, is still alive and thriving in such perfect
concord. Another characterization was the economic freedom that was, and still is, held. The poor have historically been the oppressed people and as such, the rich privileged. However, in America, it's never been that way. As Milton Friedman, an award winning economist, has pointed out, immigrants come to our shores with barely any change to spare, and, through the principles of society that America is based on, are able to rise to a life that is superior than almost 3/4 of the world. The poor in America are better off than the poor in almost any other nation. And the great concept about being poor in America is that you almost certainly won’t be poor your whole life. America has a high degree of economic fluidity. The rich are not destined to keep their riches through generations, most will end up losing their money. New people will take their places and the cycle continues. As humanprogress.org has pointed out, an economy like America's will show the least amount of income inequality between its people, and when income inequality is low, the equality between people is high. Nowhere else could you have the same rights as the richest man in the country despite, having a minuscule amount of money comparatively. This is a direct match to Paine’s view of America. The poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged, as the rights of a man have not changed, they still don’t care how much money you have. To conclude, Thomas Paine’s depiction of America has not been marred throughout the years. We are still markedly diverse in every sense imaginable. We have kept the basis of economic freedom throughout the years and further protected the weak from oppression. America still aligns with the characterization put forth by Thomas Paine.