A History of Over-Achievement

In 1820, about ten years before Alexis de Tocqueville made his famous visit to America, a spectacular event took place, though nobody could have known it at the time: U.S. per-capita income overtook that of Western Europe. This stunning fact was revealed only last year, in a new study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The study, conducted by renowned economist Angus Maddison, also showed that the U.S. economy had remained the world leader ever since 1820. (Though some small European countries, like Norway, rank ahead of the United States in per-capita terms, the OECD compares areas of similar size—the U.S. as a whole versus Western Europe as a whole.)