by Carl Pope (India 1967–69)

     But while the phenomenon has become big news, the debate seems to be remarkably half-hearted. Some reviewers critique whether American power really is as diminished as the new wave of writings claims, or are these merely yet another series in the “decline and fall of the American empire” vein. Others take refuge in arguing about whether Mahbubani is correct in claiming that India is a good bet to assume America’s role as a global honest broker, or offering their own policy prescriptions for how America’s leadership.
    There is none of the serious anguish that signaled previous “we must change courses moments” in recent history — say the launching of Sputnik. Thomas Friedman’s argument for a new “global green” economy is almost the only big new idea out there.
     Almost none of the analysis asks the question, “What are the American people going to make of this transition?” And very few seem to explore whether or not America’s leadership is asking that question. Indeed, no one wonders whether our establishment has been primarily motivated by finding ways for America to continue as a global leader, or whether the loss of American credibility and effectiveness is the understandable result of an elite pursuing domestic, rather than global goals, albeit on a globalized stage.
     I am going to suggest that America’s leaders have been making it as hard as possible for the average American to cope with the 21st century reality that America is no longer the hyper-power. As globalization has matured, American policy has become less and less suited to maintain public consent for American leadership in a globalized world. By leaders I am NOT referring solely or even primarily to the Bush Administration. In this context Bush appears to me as a malignant extreme – but only the extreme — of a bi-partisan leadership policy approach that began as a trickle and has swollen to a flood over the last thirty-five years.
     The heart of this approach was to take America’s supremacy, and America’s engagement, for granted. These were givens, realities to be exploited and taken advantage of for other domestic political, cultural and economic purposes — not hard won and fragile assets to be stewarded and preserved. The primary domestic purpose for which the changing rules of the globalized economy were to be deployed was to reduce the income equality, social solidarity and relative homogeneity that emerged from World War II. Globalization was an opportunity to make the rules of the game inside America better for the winners, and harsher for the less successful. The American government approaches the world with a set of strategies whose impact makes America less fair, less inclusive, and less balanced — and as a result less competitive in the new multi-polar world, and less willing and able to assume the burdens of global leadership.
      This didn’t have to be the consequence of globalization — but it was the result of the way the US government approached it. And by reducing the sense that all Americans are facing the challenge of globalization together, we have made it much harder for the average American to accept the new global realities.
     It’s not accidental that the nations that have caught up with the US economically and socially since WWII — first those in Europe, then Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and now China – all emerged from devastating experiences which created a strong sense of internal solidarity. All invested heavily in trying to bring their entire populations into the modern world. They were about competing with other nations internationally, not internally.
If a country wants to be able to respond quickly to the demands of a changing global economy, it’s important that everyone pull in the same direction. This capacity — to cooperate for the common good — is what America has been gradually losing.
      The sense of a common American destiny in the world which emerged from the Depression and WWII has been hollowed out by a set of policy strategies adopted by America’s national elites. Whether the issue was trade, education, the structure of our military, or the impact of immigration on wages, America’s leaders took care of themselves and the knowledge class from which they emerged — America’s most comfortable — and correspondingly left the middle and lower rungs of the social hierarchy naked to the storms of change.
     Instead of getting ready to compete with the world, our leaders have been focused on psyching us up to compete with each other, with rules of the game that ratchet up the odds that the results are winner take all.