Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Believe it or not, you can still find genuine, God-fearing isolationists right here in the Midwest. They are rarer than they used to be, though not as rare as the ivory-billed woodpecker-rarer because the world is only one step into a Boeing 747 and no further away than one keystroke on an IBM.
Their voices are muted now. They risk being accused of being whiny and narrow, or even espousing the dangerous doctrine that we should tell the Japanese where to get off or refuse to build up the economies of Eastern Europe with our hard-earned tax money and precious technology.
But some still courageously venture forth, harboring an intense form of righteous indignation that remembers the day when America was No. 1 and when the steel, cars and machine tools flowed copiously from Midwest factories, before we sold our technological birthright for a song to the Japanese and the Europeans, or so they say.
In intellectual company, they are often humored, then dismissed as soon as practicable. Can`t they see the rapidly advancing world economic integration and the benefits it brings for all? The desire of all peoples for the same standard of living as Americans? The absolute vulnerability of U.S. finances to the rest of the world? The Japanese and Europeans in the cities and the hinterlands, building and hiring?
Yes, isolationism is on the way to extinction, because economic nationalism, that web of ideas, policies and relationships that united the country behind common competitive goals, is slowly sinking on the horizon.
There is no affirmation of national economic goals anymore, no national fire in the belly to do the things this modern industrial giant should do to strengthen our economy in the next century.
More Top Picks Best Calf Compression Massagers For Seniors
Yet you don`t have to be a devout isolationist or nationalist to assert that our economic garden must be planted, nurtured and grown here, on this soil-not bought, copied or even obtained by means of joint venture.
Capitalism did not begin in America, but it enjoyed its greatest flowering here, because it was largely home-grown, imperfect but fresh and tart to the taste.
Many dedicated internationalists I know bemoan our fading sense of economic identity, simply because without it we might lose the race.
Richard Heimlich, a former trade official in Washington who now holds a high executive position at Motorola Inc., notes that we are falling behind in development of ”21st Century infrastructure.”
By that, he means telecommunications and transportation systems. We simply need to wire all businesses and homes with fiber optics, digitalize our entire communications network, use technology to improve traffic efficiency and energy conservation and modernize air travel systems.
He points out that Europe is ahead of the rest of the world in these areas, with Japan close behind. Where is the United States? It is not even thinking about the question, much less considering it as policy.
From Heimlich`s point of view, the U.S. government needs to take an activist role to make our technological garden produce a bumper crop. Clear away the bureaucratic weeds, water it with a judicious supply of subsidy and speak to it, encourage it, day after day.
Why can`t we act on specific goals so important to us? Well, no one wants to take offense and care much about the problem. Wall Street trembles when the Japanese raise their interest rates or threaten to hold back some of their investments in the U.S.
Alan Greenspan can`t lower interest rates to help American industry, because the Japanese wouldn`t put up with it. Middle America is quite happy with its new foreign-owned auto factories and the jobs they bring. Farmers rely on exports, and drivers rely on oil from the Middle East.
George Bush sits in Washington, content to let the economic malaise continue, chiefly because he apparently believes he has no money and no answers. But don`t believe it. He can produce some answers, and he has more money than you suspect.
He does have the pulpit to challenge industry to meet specific goals by certain deadlines, providing a real road map for economic restoration. As for money, any government that can find $50 billion to bail out a savings and loan industry can find money to beef up our educational system and streamline our bureaucracy. It`s merely a question of priorities.
It`s also a fiction to believe that America is somehow short of capital. Our home-grown capitalistic garden would have died long ago without foreign capital. America was a net debtor nation until 1914, borrowing more overseas than foreigners borrowed from us. In 1985, we became a net debtor nation again, so foreign capital is widely available to us.
Being a net debtor nation isn`t so terrible, if we use the money right. But we are using it primarily for consumption, not investment, essentially frittering it away.
Bush could challenge us to use this money in a positive way. Instead, he is out pushing a lower capital gains tax as the answer to America`s problem with economic competitiveness. Only he and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal believe this will work.
Bush believes American industry will somehow regenerate itself. That has never been the case, and it isn`t now. In fact, the president seems more interested in revitalizing the economies of Eastern Europe and Panama than in our own.