What does a post-American world look like?

[RandomAnthony]

Heard this yesterday on the way home from work...

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/30/1375222...

America, Zakaria says, is also starting to lag behind other countries in education, building a competitive workforce, and fostering new energy and digital infrastructure to support those workers — all markers of long-term economic growth. He says America is now heading toward what he calls a "post-American" world, in which the United States' share of the "global pie" is much smaller — as the rest of the globe begins to catch up.

"In economic terms, the rise of the rest [of the globe] is a win-win," he says. "The more countries that get rich [and] the larger the world economy, the more people there are producing, consuming, investing, saving, loaning money. ... If we didn't have the rest of the world growing, the United States economy would be in much worse shape than it is today."

He also cautioned, if I remember the interview correctly (you can listen online and check), the US against trying to make socially conservative nations more socially liberal. That was interesting.



Fascinating story. What do you think?

[~Geektastic~]

I think it will be a good thing for America to let go of this narcissistic goal of being THE best, and to just try to stay in the game. We need to get over the idea that white collar jobs are somehow more useful or more worthwhile and refocus on farming, factories, infrastructure and the sorts of things that can keep us competitive as well as more self-sufficient. It is so short-sighted and entirely too self-absorbed, in my opinion, to see the rise of other powers as somehow a personal affront to the might and majesty of the US, something many politicians seem to express lately. The growth of other powers should be incentive to compete, but also to cooperate.

[Félix]

Zakaria has been saying such things for years. I tend to think he has a pretty good handle of these trends.

India and China have been surpassing us in education for quite a while. Not so much in terms of educating the masses -- but rather the number/percentage of people who get advanced degrees in the sciences and engineering of all types.

[Arminius]

I am only heartened by history. In the 1940’s it was predicted by many economists that the Soviet Union’s economy would quadruple our economy. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s it looked like we were at the end of being the largest economy but we rebounded. Japan was touted as our economic conqueror.
So, it is possible that we will recover.

[Scout]

And then there's Rome.

[Arminius]

Well Scout, 400 or so years isn't too bad.

[Arminius]

Because America was a super power Germany and Japan were able to produce that standard of living.

Some other country will certainly try to take the top spot and I doubt if they will handle it the way we have.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

America, Zakaria says, is also starting to lag behind other countries in education, building a competitive workforce, and fostering new energy and digital infrastructure to support those workers — all markers of long-term economic growth.

This is very worrisome. It's true that not all new jobs need to be white collar jobs - for example, our financial industry is too large and when it dominates our economy you have situations like the financial collapse of 2008. Investing in our infrastructure would provide both laborer jobs and middle class jobs. We need to invest more in education, both elementary and higher education. We need to invest more in science and technology. Lack of investment in science and tech and things like clean energy really hurts us globally. Jimmy Carter pushed us to invest in clean energy, but Republican presidents then came along after him and disinvested. When that happens, America loses its head start. We could have been way ahead in solar panels, but now we're behind, because government stopped pushing investment in them. Now China makes most solar panels, and we buy from China. One of our problems is that we allow ideology to interfere with technology; Republicans disinvested in solar and other clean technologies because they hurt the coal and oil industries. (It doesn't have to be that way...coal and oil could themselves create clean technology divisions and branch out into solar.)

[Arminius]

Also, Democrats try to push the Cap and Trade policy on Coal and try to stop additional oil drilling.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Cap and trade was a free-market conservative idea, put into law during the George H.W. Bush presidency. Most environmentalists were against it in the beginning.

[Jammies]

I'm also wondering if a post-American world will be a non-democratic, non-capitalist world, since we've not demonstrated that either democracy or capitalism work particularly well for average citizens.