We need a diagnosis and a fix to our economic and political health if we are to continue the America that these, our most distinguished forefathers left in what seems to be our incompetent hands.
As typically happens, I am again inspired by an Irving Wladawsky-Berger blog post. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger's latest, entitled: We Are All New Immigrants to the Hyperconnected World explores the American business and public society in the age of hyper-connectivity. While he, to his credit, remains optimistic that we will see the light and pull our country back into the forefront of world business, civil and political leadership, I have my doubts that our people, both leadership and the general public, are sufficiently committed to take on the struggle required to propel us back to the top.
In recent times many countries of the world have made great progress. Times have changed. The nations with whom we compete and co-reside have themselves made great strides. Unfortunately, we have slipped in our performance. No longer are we dealing in a world of countries characterized by political and economic weakness. The terror attacks of 2001 seem to have driven us into a siege mentality. As we remained stationary, hunkering down to repel our enemies from our homeland and while fighting multiple, unfunded wars abroad, we have slipped backwards. At the same time, others have seized the initiative and moved their economies and their political systems forward. Much of what others have done has been on the backs and at the expense of Americans.
Compounding our decline, the world financial system, with American managers at the forefront of its strategies and operational execution has done much to aid the shift from American exceptionalism to the leveling of the global playing field. The banks without the discipline of an effective regulatory environment, stampeded world finances toward bankruptcy. While the realignment of nations in terms of economic, political and military power is not all bad, it has placed most thinking Americans into an environment previously unknown. Economically and psychologically, Americans are suffering the let-down from our customary place as King of the Hill to being just another society struggling to reach the top.
Other countries have pressed the accelerator and are passing us by. Our failures, well established in economic terms, have us degenerating politically, and now threaten our very governing system. Though only on the extremes of conservative and liberal politics, with a vast apathetic, seemingly uninvolved center, we have become so stratified and unruly as to be ungovernable.
Some would argue that all we need do is change the guy at the top. While that may work in a corporation or in a military command, there is a major difference in our governance system from that of the military and the corporation.
The President of the United States is the executive head of government, but with two co-equal partners: the Congress and the Courts. Either of the other branches of government can be a partner to the executive branch or competitors thereto. If in agreement with the executive, Congress can enact laws for the President to sign that further the President's agenda. Assuming that laws passed are not in direct conflict with our Constitution, a friendly Supreme Court can go far to entrench the President's will onto the country's future. Obviously, an opposing Court and, especially, an opposing Congress can prevent the President from exercising any policy. Yet in our convoluted ways, we will hold the executive responsible for all three branches of a dysfunctional government. Maybe it's time that we moved to a parliamentary form of government.
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