The American Revolution at 250: a Legacy to Fulfill

The American revolution and the constitution have left us a legacy that it is up to us to fulfill.

Two central ideas made the revolution and the constitution important: that government power is limited and that the true mission of our society lies in that wonderful phrase, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

What does that mean? It depends on the person, the community, one’s view of the world. It allows for more excess in terms of free speech, free association and, yes, capitalist activity than most countries. And for all its many downsides, it also has been an enormous success.

To foreigners, America may look foolish given that it has been governed by fools, knaves and mental mediocrities for many years, particularly in the last decade. But our founding documents remains critical and have helped curb the idiocies of our leaders.

Individual striving and constitutional limits make America so different. Unlike the revolution in France and even less so that which occurred in Russia, ours was not about unleashing social forces in ways that led predictably to tyrannical rule. It was about allowing individuals, families, companies and communities to seek their own ways to achieve ‘happiness” along with the blessings of life and liberty.

Right now, our national politics works against this, on both sides of the spectrum. Many people on the left think that it would be better to be ruled in the manner of third world ‘people’s democracies’ ­– for example Cuba under Castro or Venezuela under Chavez. Perhaps they prefer to live under regimes in Russia or China that, in many ways, increasingly reprise not Marxism but fascist ideas of state control with allowances for vast private greed.

Then there’s the call on the left for global governance and no growth, at least in the west. This is a form of justice that works for well-paid academics, bureaucrats and professionals but not for most people no longer capable of achieving a better life, a house, raise a family or build a business. No happiness is allowed to the masses.

The right, as Rodney Dangerfield, they are no bargain either. Many see the pursuit of happiness as a license for unlimited greed. These attitudes are common on Wall Street and the tech elite. Sadly, their personal pursuit of happiness means unhappiness for the vast majority. Their vision for the public seems to have us transformed into subsidized mindless consumers to be replaced by algorithms, robots or cheap foreign labor.

Yet despite our political failing left and right, our republic remains strong because both individual or communal striving is allowed and protected. It is that striving, as much as anything, that makes us uniquely great country.

I don’t pretend we are a model for the world, but we should remain a model for ourselves. It’s been attractive enough to lure millions of people and investors from around the world here.

‘Pursuit of happiness’ defines America and reflects views rarely found in Europe. The continent that we sprang from may be more civilized in some respects, but at the cost of its animal spirits. This difference does much to explain the vast differences in the two economies. Europe is fine for vacations but not in terms of economic growth, technological and cultural innovation.

In our embrace of striving, we still honor the farmers, mechanics and merchants who created the revolution. The declaration is in essence a rejection of autocracy — whether in the hands of kings, technocrats or tech oligarchs, and a recognition of the ability of people to govern themselves.

Fortunately, as I travel and report across the breadth of the country, I see much that is encouraging, and reflective of our historic ideals. I see it in the growing class of artisans and innovators, often in their 20s, who are looking to create a better tangible future, whether in food or fashion, new materials, space travel, or medical advances.

Our founders would be amazed if they went to a place like El Segundo, a small city next to LAX. Although much of the economy around the region, my home for over a half century, is moribund, El Segundo, where SpaceX originated, is brimming with young innovative companies. One hundred of them. Six billion in venture funds. And these people are not just expanding the digital universe — they are building things, employing skilled labor, and looking for to build space stations, develop mines in space or build more energy efficient aircraft.

The great thing is that many of these people are young. One, a 22-year-old who never attended college, has moved to a bigger space in Torrance and plans to build a million drones a year — he was a drone racing champ — that will go to both the US and to Ukraine.

These new innovators are not cut from the same cloth as our silicon valley overlords, with their head in sky ideas of replacing humanity or turning us into passive consumers of the metaverse.

I also see our basic principles reflected in efforts in small blue-collar communities to improve themselves. I have spent time in small, predominately Latino cities south of the city of LA, which do what the big city can’t — eliminate graffiti, reduce crime, keep businesses, and improve local schools. I also see it also in school programs that seek to return education back to the basics. Some of these are state sponsored and others by religious groups.

I see the republic’s great value in the successful integration of so many immigrants, and how ‘the pursuit of happiness’ lives among them. At the University of Texas, we asked Latinos, our largest ethnic minority and shapers of our future, about what they want: at the university of Texas, we surveyed them.

Their goal was not to be victims or part of a revolution led by academics and trustfunders, but to start a business, give a good education to their kids, buy a single-family house. They cared little if their neighbors looked like them or spoke Spanish. They want to become something other than permanent labor and rental serfs. They want their happiness too, and many of them, despite the odds, are achieving it.

I see republican virtue in the new cities being built, mostly in the exurbs, that house families in a nature-friendly environment. Most New Yorkers will never see places like The Woodlands, Irvine, or New Albany (that’s in Ohio, folks) or the success working class people have when they move from an economy that does not work for them to one that does. I see this every time I go to Texas, and increasingly places in places like the Carolinas, Florida, even Arkansas and Alabama.

Americans have always moved in the pursuit of happiness. It is intrinsic to our revolutionary tradition and the survival of a liberal republic.

Of course, America is far from perfect but the legacy of the founders persists. Much needs to change but the basic form of a decentralized republic, with protections for basic rights, has no equal anywhere.

I can imagine that Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, the Roosevelts, and Norman Thomas would all be bewildered by our contemporary republic but they would also see much to admire as well.

America may have a sick political system and an economy that does not work well for many, but it is distinctly different, and in many ways better than its prime competitors. Our legacy, and our future, lies in large part in preserving that system without falling into the trap of centralized autocracy.

I have ideas about how to preserve our strength and expand the pursuit of happiness — which is different that assuring happiness. We need to drill down into the essence of what our system provides, which is to give communities, families, churches, neighborhoods more control over their own lives.

This need not be seen as a conservative idea. William Appleman Williams, a self-described radical, recognized that “mass democracy” which seems to thrill many DSA radicals usually ends up as “little democracy.” Instead, he suggested that radicals “devise workable plans and procedures that will enable us to realize and richer and more creative conception of freedom.”

To save the republic, we must stay true to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We are not China, Russia, France or even the UK. We are heirs of a republic that redefined society as built around individuals and voluntary associations, and not designed to worship a single church, potentate or technocracy.

This is our inheritance. Now how do we maintain it?

This article is a transcript from the second of Joel’s speaker panels at The American Revolution at 250, an event held in New York City on June 21, 2026, sponsored by Sublation Media.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com, follow him on Substack and Twitter @joelkotkin.

Homepage graphic: from the event.