The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World by Amar Bhide

Author:Amar Bhide
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-08-19T10:21:00+00:00

Like the Sputnik scare, the threat from Japan and Germany was rooted in a fear of coming in second. As the economist Paul David wrote in 1986, success in the United States was "equated with `leadership' . . . with pioneering on the technological frontiers. To be an assiduous `follower' seem Led] somehow to have acquiesced in defeat, abandoning adventure for the haven of routine." At that time, however, possibly because Japan and Germany could not be linked to a national security problem, and because the Soviet bloc was imploding, U.S. policymakers made no significant effort to direct resources to scientific and technological research, train more scientists and engineers, or create new NASAs and DARPAs. U.S. managers continued to emphasize financial targets (except during the Internet bubble), and law schools continued to expand their enrollments. What changed-and quite sharply so-was that, in the 199os, the much-vaunted Japanese and German economies, with their farsighted managers, legions of engineers, and the blessed absence of lawyers, lost their sparkle. The absence of plausible candidates who might surge past the United States took away the visceral appeal of the techno-nationalist argument. This was, however, a temporary reprieve.

The rapid economic growth in China and India has now reenergized the "lead or lose" camp. Thomas Friedman is one of the many who see "doing unto others before they do unto us" as the only alternative to protectionism. A preoccupation with technological leadership, as the examples below illustrate, overtakes popular writers, academics, the scientific establishment, and policymakers.

Consider, for instance, recent writing by Clyde Prestowitz, founder and president of the Economic Policy Institute. Prestowitz has extensive firsthand knowledge of trade issues. According to a bio posted on his institute's website, Prestowitz worked in the Commerce Department in the Reagan administration and "led many U.S. trade and investment negotiations with Japan, China, Latin America and Europe. Before joining the Commerce Department, he was a senior businessman in the United States, Europe, Japan and throughout Asia and Latin America." Later, he "played key roles in achieving congressional passage of NAFTA and in shaping the final content of the Uruguay Round, as well as providing the intellectual basis for current U.S. trade policies toward Japan, China and Korea." He is fluent in Japanese, Dutch, German, and French and has studied at Keio University in Tokyo.' Quite the opposite, obviously, of the insular American.

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