Today in Long Reads:
Short version: The US is Microsoft when we should be Facebook. Fareed gets it right.
Long version: I can’t help but compare the state of US politics and position in hyperglobal world to the world of business – seems like we’re a big lumbering corporation with a bunch of complex silos intent on the distribution of dividends as opposed to the crucial investments in new growth areas and technology. We’re geared around protecting current product lines versus developing new ones. And the worrisome thing is, I don’t really know of any case studies where a big and lumbering company (or country) has managed to reinvent itself and win – except in cases like Apple where they switched to a [benevolent] dictatorship or Germany post WWII where they rebuilt from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time that business schools (and political science programs) take nods from the values of startups instead of corporate case studies.
Yes, the U.S. remains the world’s largest economy, and we have the largest military by far, the most dynamic technology companies and a highly entrepreneurial climate. But these are snapshots of where we are right now. The decisions that created today’s growth — decisions about education, infrastructure and the like — were made decades ago. What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and ‘60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies…
“For 500 years the West patented six killer applications that set it apart. The first to download them was Japan. Over the last century, one Asian country after another has downloaded these killer apps — competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic. Those six things are the secret sauce of Western civilization." To this historical challenge from nations that have figured out how the West won, add a technological revolution…
It’s not that our democracy doesn’t work; it’s that it works only too well. American politics is now hyperresponsive to constituents’ interests. And all those interests are dedicated to preserving the past rather than investing for the future. There are no lobbying groups for the next generation of industries, only for those companies that are here now with cash to spend. There are no special-interest groups for our children’s economic well-being, only for people who get government benefits right now. The whole system is geared to preserve current subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes…
- Fareed Zakaria