Below The Beltway

One Response to “The United States Of Corporatism”

1. Reggie Greene / The Logistician says:

   September 30, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   Interesting piece. Generating prosperity is a complex task, and requires the confluence of many factors.

   Here’s a thumbnail of what it takes, in my view, for a society to be prosperous:

   1) An inventive / innovative class; people have to want to invent things and processes;

   2) Cross-culturalization, where multiple inventors get together and compare their inventions, and newer \ better inventions are created;

   3) Seaports or trade route intersections;

   4) Business flowing from invention / innovation;

   5) Decent Jobs flowing from business, so people can take care of their families with pride;

   6) A reasonably decent life flowing from more people having jobs; and

   7) Education encouraging the repeat of the process.

   Either some force in society sets this in motion, governs the process, and maintains it, or it does not. If you leave it to chance, you might be on top for a while but you will not be on top indefinitely. But that is a cost of freedom, when you do not direct people what to do with their lives.

   My suspicion is that China will be the next world power because they tell more people what to do, and they are more controlling. More free? Of course not. But more planning, organization, consistency, and coordination take place under their model. We in the U.S. use the “herding cats” model, and there are benefits and costs associated with it. One cost is its mercurial and uneven results, but it is the one that we have chosen.

   We’ve needed more inventors for years, and few in our country have paid attention to that issue. Simply look at the dramatic decrease in U.S. students studying engineering in this country, and the significant decline in basic research.