From Africa to Alabama

It has become fashionable for young people, especially those who are college-educated, to hate America.

And yet, millions around the world want to live here.

Does that make any sense to you?

Either America is a horrible place, or it’s a wonderful land of opportunity. Which is it?

I think I’m very qualified to answer that question.

I was born in Malawi, a small, poor country in southeast Africa. The house I grew up in had no electricity and no running water. My sister and I would walk, sometimes for miles, to get water for cooking and drinking, which we carried home in big buckets on our heads.  

My mother cooked on an open fire. We washed our clothes in a river.

I went to a government school. Sometimes, we met under a tree because we didn’t have a classroom or desks. 

My family didn’t own any books. I would search for scraps of newspaper that people had thrown away so that I could practice reading and learn about the world.

When I was 16 years old, I won a scholarship to study in the United States.

Until then, I had never been on an airplane or even been outside of Malawi. After a bewildering series of flights, I arrived at Troy University in Alabama. My plan was to study economics and return home to Malawi to work for the government.

When I came to America, I could hardly believe the prosperity that Americans enjoyed. Lights came on when I flipped a switch — every time; water would flow when I turned a faucet — every time. Almost everyone seemed to own a car. And even kids had cell phones. How did America do it, I asked myself? How did it become so prosperous?

In my economics classes, I read Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman and others. It was then that I began to understand that it is America’s free enterprise, capitalist system that created the prosperity I saw all around me. Also, America’s system of democracy and its emphasis on individual liberty. There are many autocratic governments around the world, and almost all of them rule over poor countries. Freedom and prosperity, I realized, are directly related.

After I graduated, I went on to receive a master’s degree in economics. By then my career plans had changed. I wanted to work for an organization that championed free enterprise. And that’s how I found myself at Center of the American Experiment in Minnesota, a long way from where I started in Malawi.

According to the Human Freedom Index, in 2023 the US had the fifth freest economy in the world. Essentially, what this means is that it is much easier to start and operate a business in the US than it is in Malawi which ranked 128.

In other words, the United States has an economic system that rewards innovators who provide us with things we value. This motivates more people to create new products or find cheaper and better ways of doing things, making all of us richer in the process.

The US dominates not just when compared to poor countries such as Malawi, but even other prosperous countries such as the United Kingdom. America is so rich that, on a per capita basis, if Britain were one of the US states, it would rank among the poorest, barely above Mississippi.

What is America’s secret? It’s not complicated. Lower taxes and fewer regulations lead to the creation of more wealth for more people. That’s the essence of free enterprise.

I have focused on economics because that’s my field of study, but let me return to my opening question. Why would millions around the world, including Africans like me, dream of living in America if it is such a horrible place?

The answer is obvious. It’s the best place to live.

To come to the United States has opened me up to a world of endless possibilities. Even as a college student with nothing to my name, my life became exponentially better than I could have ever imagined.

It makes me sad when I see people, especially college students, bitterly complaining about capitalism and promoting socialism as the more compassionate alternative. Are these people crazy, I ask myself. Or badly misinformed. Or maybe they’re just naïve.

I know what it is like to live in a country where everyone depends on the government for life’s basic necessities. That’s the sure road to corruption and poverty. In over a decade of living in the US, I’ve not had to worry about where I would get drinking water, or whether I would have enough to eat.

I have America’s free enterprise system to thank for that, and so does every single person living in this country.

Forgive me if I sound harsh, but Americans who think the US should have a socialist system are the most foolish people in the world. They’d give up everything for nothing.

Does that make any sense to you?

I’m Martha Njolomole, fellow at Center of the American Experiment, for Prager University.