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The New Gloomsayers: Thinkers again predict American decline. Is there any reason to think they'll be right this time? (JOSHUA MURAVCHIK, June 23, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

The declinists, to use the label given to them by the political scientist Samuel Huntington, aimed "to shake Reagan's America from a decade of rose-colored . . . torpor," in the approving phrase of the New York Times. Their thesis was that "imperial overstretch," a term coined by the historian Paul Kennedy, was causing the U.S. to spend too much on defense, thus sending the nation into an economic downturn that would eviscerate the very basis of its strength. A similar theme could be heard among the heralds of a new era of Japanese supremacy, brought about by the readiness of Japan's government to intervene in the marketplace. "Japan has, as I predicted it would, become the undisputed world economic champion," boasted the economist Clyde Prestowitz in 1989. William Pfaff, a columnist for the International Herald Tribune, chimed in that America's relationship with Japan had taken on a "colonial
quality"--with America in the role of colony.

The forecasts of American decline or Japanese ascendance did not stand the test of even a very brief amount of time. Soon, the Soviet empire collapsed, followed by the Soviet Union itself, allowing, in no small measure, to Ronald Reagan's military expenditures and his "overstretched" foreign policy--that is, to the very things that the declinists had decried. Japan, meanwhile, fell into an economic tailspin from which it still, after more than a decade, shows few signs of escaping, while the U.S. economy grew enough to boost per capita income by more than 25%, widening the margin by which our prosperity outstrips that of the other industrialized countries. And just as America's political-military success came from spurning the counsel of the declinists, so its economic success flowed from ignoring those who propounded the Japanese model. The lighter hand of government in America's version of capitalism allowed our firms to adapt more readily than their Japanese or European counterparts to globalization and the revolution in information technology.

Unprecedented triumphs of U.S. policy and industry have unfolded during the 15 years since America ignored the summons to emerge from its "rose-colored torpor" and face up to a supposedly grimmer national reality. To boot, these years have also witnessed the triumph of American ideas all around the world. According to the authoritative tally of Freedom House, some 63% of the world's countries are now governed as electoral democracies, and a virtual global consensus has been reached on the validity of market economics as opposed to state planning.

Of course, new challenges have arisen, notably from terrorism and radical Islam, but these in turn have brought into view other facets of America's strength. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has scored two decisive military victories, each exceeding all forecasts of success and making mockery of the plentiful warnings of fiasco. They have served to demonstrate the extraordinary prowess and agility of American arms while also dispelling the notion that the country, has grown too soft to tolerate casualties in war.

Abroad, this astounding run of success has generated a discernible uptick in expressions of envy. At home, one reaction has been a revival of premonitory scenarios of gloom. Just as the declinists of the late 1980s took aim at the spirit of national self-confidence that had been engendered by President Reagan's upbeat rhetoric and the success of his economic and foreign policies, so today's Cassandras seek to rouse the public from the complacency of America's present vaunting status. They take aim at the very things--military mastery, the spread of democracy and markets--that others interpret as signs of American triumph. Will their warnings prove better founded than those of Messrs. Kennedy, Prestowitz and
Pfaff?

The comparison that begs to be made here is of Islamicism to the two prior totalitarianism's we defeated in world wars--Nazism and Communism--and of the supposed coming economic rivalry with a United Europe and/or China to the imagined Japanese juggernaut of the 80's. Looked at in these terms the idea of American decline relative to these threats is too absurd for words. These new pretenders to the throne suffer from nearly identical problems as their predecessors. Does anyone imagine that a new variant on the totalitarian theme is going to work any better than the old or that an increasingly amoral Europe with declining populations, sclerotic bureaucracies, and unassimilated immigrant populations is a good bet for economic success?

We, though concerned that America too has problems that need to be dealt with post haste, are inclined to the opposite view. The gap between the US and others is likely to widen, not narrow, and certainly not reverse. Europe is toast. China is going to implode. Islam is going to undergo a Reformation or continue its long decline. Meanwhile, an America that allies itself to the rest of the Anglosphere, portions of Latin America, Christian Africa, India, Israel, Taiwan, etc., and possibly to some newly democratic Islamic states, would be in for an extended period of economic and geo-political dominance even more startling than the past century's.

Avoiding decline is a near certainty but to achieve a new Golden Age two somewhat interrelated things are necessary, but one is difficult, the other perhaps impossible: we must recognize the insignificance of Islamicism and of China as strategic threats and must reprivatize our social welfare net. The first is necessary because the rebuilding and maintenance of a massive Cold War security state would indeed tend to warp our economy and society in many of the same ways they were deformed from 1941 to 1991. We can withstand another 9-11, but we'll never heal the damage done by the 60's and 70's.

More difficult, likely even undoable, we must privatize health care and Social Security, for mostly budgetary reasons, and return social services to localities, for reasons of restoring social capital. All of
this would make possible a huge reduction in the federal tax burden and a simplification/rationalization of the tax code, perhaps even a transition to something like a flat tax or system of consumption-based taxation. It would also necessitate a reknitting of family, neighborhood, church, social organizations, etc. This is assuredly unlikely, but that such possibilities are even imagined here--from President Bush's proposals for Social Security and Medicare to the Faith-Based Initiative to school vouchers--is a sure indicator of just how great are our advantages over any rivals. That such reforms might happen, even if only in part, suggests that our heyday is nowhere near done.

How fares the City? "All in all, not bad, not bad at all." Posted by Orrin Judd at June 23, 2003 11:44 PM