Material abundance seems to be the most important achievement.
Many complain about the government but almost all are too involved with the dollar to become involved with changing our system. When this country was born, we established governments to bear many of the responsibilities of the citizen so that we, the citizen, could concentrate on achieveing prosperity. While we were busy prospering, we insisted that the government bear more and more responsibility of the individual so the the individual could prosper the more. With our eyes closed and backs turned, we created a monster and are now too busy to do more than complain. It's not too late to enter the game though.