Yes, the current issue of Newsweek devotes its cover story to the troubling Haditha investigation.
But fans of the free market will find much better news in the magazine’s innards — 30 pages devoted to the topic of “global leadership.”
Fareed Zakaria starts the coverage by asking the question “How long will America lead the world?” He starts with some of the concerns about the future of the U.S. economy, including “the erosion of science and technology in the U.S., particularly in education.”
There are some who see the decline of science and technology as part of a larger cultural decay. A country that once adhered to a Puritan ethic of delayed gratification has become one that revels in instant pleasures.
Some writers would stop there, but Zakaria also flips the coin.
The U.S. is currently ranked the second most competitive economy in the world (by the World Economic Forum), and is first in technology and innovation, first in technological readiness, first in company spending for research and technology and first in the quality of its research institutions. China does not come within 30 countries of the U.S. on any of these points, and India breaks the top 10 on only one count: the availability of scientists and engineers. In virtually every sector that advanced industrial countries participate in, U.S. firms lead the world in productivity and profits.
Why?
An unusual combination of an entrepreneurial culture, a permissive legal system and flexible capital markets all contribute to a business culture that rewards risk. This means that technology is quickly converted into some profitable application. All the advanced industrial countries had access to the Web, but Google and the iPod were invented in America.
And Zakaria goes on to argue that the United States must continue to focus on the competition from other nations.
The genius of America’s success is that the United States is a rich country with many of the attributes of a scrappy, developing society.
What’s standing in the way? Government policy.
The great competitive problems that the American economy faces would require strong and sometimes unpleasant medicine. Our entitlement programs are set to bankrupt the country, the health-care system is an expensive time bomb, our savings rate is zero, we are borrowing 80 percent of the world’s savings and our national bill for litigation is now larger than for research and development. None of these problems is a deep-seated cultural mark of decay. They are products of government policy. Different policies could easily correct them. [Emphasis added.]
