Innovation and American Exceptionalism

Watching the special on technology on CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria today, where among other things they discussed nuclear fusion (a pet topic of mine, considering it the energy source of the not too distant future), made me think of an important role of government that the Right has been neglecting. The push for reduction in spending and the naïve notion that private enterprise is the answer to everything has put us into a position where within a few years China will be spending more per GDP on research than will the US. Republicans will see no issue with government spending less, the problem is that private enterprise is also spending less. Large corporations like the IBMs and GEs along with their likes in the defense industry that had large research facilities have scaled them back over the last few decades. The current focus on quarterly performance has lead them to reduce spending on research which after all is a very long term investment and for the most part CEOs are not paid to think of the “long term”. Republicans thump their chests about our “exceptionalism” but generally don’t have any ideas as to where we are and where we are not truly exceptional. A number of years ago I saw “Morning Joe”, a political talk show hosted by Joe Scarborough, a former member of congress from Florida and a Republican, where they were discussing the military. A guest on the show mentioned that the military is having to drop its standards to be able to recruit sufficient numbers of soldiers. Joe chimed in that we have the best and brightest in our military and when the guest asked by what standard, Joe went into a chant of USA, USA, USA ending the conversation. In many areas like healthcare (we are 47th in life expectancy), freedom (the Kato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, puts us somewhere in the mid-teens among industrialized nations), and quality of life (The Economist has us at 13th) that the right brags about, we are not “exceptional”. There are other areas where we are leaders, though we might not want to be, are the number of gun deaths and the number of people we have in jails. We are first in the industrialized world. An area where we are truly world leaders is innovation and R&D and our efficient venture capital system facilitates it. Another area where we are leaders also indirectly contributes to our innovation. It is our ability to integrate various cultures into our society (though we have not done a good job of integrating Africans we brought over as slaves). This ability allows us to attract talent from around the globe. It is their creativity and the fact that these immigrants come with a variety of experiences, allowing problems to be viewed from many perspectives, that enhances the ability to innovate. Unfortunately most on the Right do not recognize our true “exceptionalism”. During this election cycle the Republican candidates spout anti-immigrant slogans which I’m sure discourage talent from abroad from coming here and enhancing our ability to innovate. The push for austerity, smaller government and elimination of debt, has resulted in a reduction in spending on research and education which surely will not only reduce our ability to innovate but also our ability to compete globally.