In this list the statistics for potatoes may be used as an illustration of what has been happening in the world. Russia, for example, produces more potatoes than any other country in the world, but a Russian must work four times as long as an American to buy one pound of potatoes. And observe that a Russian must work twenty-seven times as long as an American to buy one pound of sugar; twelve times as long as an American to buy one pound of oleomargarine. In the United States by 1951 there were 105 million radios.
It took the average citizen 1 day and 2 hours to earn enough money to buy an average radio. In France it requires 7 ½ days of toil to pay for an average radio, in Italy 15 days, in Russia 27 days.{229}
In the United States there are 201,277 physicians, 87,000 dentists and 1,439,030 hospital beds. The life expectancy in the United States is 65.9 years for males and 71.5 years for females. In Russia the last life expectancy tables show the average to be 41.9 years for males and 46.8 years for females.{230}
Certain foreign propaganda agents have tried to depict U.S. wealth as a fortuitous gift of nature. Economists have pointed out that many foreign nations have equal access to resources and could duplicate the wealth of the United States if they were willing to accept the principles of government and economics which make the development of such wealth possible. Propaganda agents have insisted that since the United States has become remarkably wealthy it should divide that wealth with the rest of the poverty-stricken world. Economists have answered this by pointing out that what America has to share with the world is not so much her wealth as her time-tested system of government and economics.