I just finished “That Used to Be US: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back,” co-authored by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum.
I wish I could recommend this book to you, but frankly speaking, if you have been following the political and economic development in the U.S., you probably don’t need to read this book to understand the malaise in that country. “That Used to Be Us” is like a compilation (a good one, though) of all the information with a lot of anecdotes and statistics and, of course, the authors’ views and analyses.
The authors argue that the U.S. is confronted with four major challenges, i.e. globalization, IT revolution, large and growing budget deficits, and energy consumption and rising climate threats. Each of these four challenges is threatening the U.S. in one way or another, and if left unresolved, the U.S. could decline further and eventually lose its dominant power as the world’s leader. Therefore, the U.S. needs to revive and reinvest in its formula for success that has shaped the country in the past several decades by focusing on, as they call it, the five pillars. The five pillars are universal education, infrastructure building, foreign talents, support for basic research and development, and regulations on private economic activity.
To achieve this, the authors claim that it is imperative for the U.S. to cut spending in government programs and raise taxes on the wealthy as well as all the other Americans. Priority would need to be given to the five pillars. This is to preserve the liberty, greatness, and prosperity of the U.S. not only for the current generation but for posterity, too.
However, given the partisan rancor between the Republican and Democratic parties, and the direction to which the country is heading, the authors simply could not envision any accomplishment of this sort. They propose an interesting idea, or absurd as some might think, which is to have a third-party candidate run for presidency; and this candidate would advocate tax raise, spending cut, and all the aforementioned approaches.
What are my thoughts on this? Well, I personally agree with most parts of the book including tax raise and spending cut, except the third-party candidate running for presidency. Given the scale of the crisis confronting the U.S. and the world, it is undeniable that the U.S. probably needs an unorthodox solution, but having a third-party candidate is far from being realistic. First, tax raise and spending cut would definitely be unpopular among most Americans. Second, other approaches to address the four grave challenges such as investing in clean energy would not be well-received by giant corporations, particularly oil companies and financial institutions. The candidate would have a hard time getting funding for campaign, let alone garner enough votes to deliver a “shock” to the Republican and Democratic parties. Thus changes would need to come from the incumbents.
In my opinion, the Republicans and Democrats are certain of what needs to be done to bring the U.S. back on track to, once again, be the place where people believe in American Dream. However, the vested interests in American politics put them in a predicament which they risk being ostracized if they go against the tide. Likewise, the American folks know what sacrifices have to be made to achieve generations of prosperity. The problem is that they refuse to take the short-term pain required for the long-term growth. Some can be very obstinate and reject any compromise outright. All companies that practice Lean know something very well – the change in mindset and culture is the most daunting task in implementing Lean. This is also true here – it would be a serious challenge that needs to be addressed before they take on the four major challenges.
All in all, there is no simple and painless panacea for all the problems the U.S. is facing today. It can’t, and won’t, thrive again by merely being reactive rather than proactive. The U.S. needs a change, a change that the whole nation can believe in.
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