Home » Opinion » Book review
Pride goeth before decline
By Wang Yong |
December 17, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN their new book, "That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back," Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum trace the roots of America's creeping decline to the end of the Cold War, when Uncle Sam sat back to savor the perceived victory of capitalism over Communism.
Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author at The New York Times. Mandelbaum is a professor at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and directs the university's American Foreign Policy Program.
Comfort and complacency, they say, have shielded American people and leaders from the need to adapt to four overriding challenges:
1. How to adapt to globalization;
2. How to adjust to the IT revolution;
3. How to cope with the soaring budget deficits;
4. How to manage a world of rising energy consumption and rising climate threats.
The authors observe that America has fallen behind precisely because globalization has simply extended America's passion for capitalism and free trade to the rest of the world.
Profits and pleasures
In other words, when the rest of the world walked out of autarkic and austere traditions to join America in a race to the bottom of profits and pleasures, America inevitably saw its role as the captain of capitalism challenged.
The authors also point out that the global explosion in energy consumption springs from the rest of the world's pursuit of the snug, energy-dependent lifestyles Americans have enjoyed for decades.
The authors suggest that Americans sacrifice more, work more and consume less if they mean to address the future of America.
Well said. If most Americans heed the wake-up call of the book, there's still hope for Americans to regain their past glory as a diligent people. It's time to end the elusive faith in Reagonmic conspicous consumption as the way to be.
About twenty years have elapsed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
I was a fresh college graduate in 1989, a year of ferment in which the West boasted and toasted over the imagined victory of capitalism.
I bet then - according to ancient Chinese wit about rotating fortunes - that complacency would eventually kill the West. Ancient Chinese fengshui says fortunes change every 30 years. It seems that complacency would only hasten the cycle.
Unchallenged and unchecked, Western consumerism came home to roost at the turn of the 21st century in the form of bubbles busting one after another.
While they duly call America's attention to the danger of complacency, Friedman and Mandelbaum are yet to completely wean themselves from that mindset. They quote US President Barack Obama as saying in November 2010: "It makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us, and Singapore having better airports than us. And I just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth - that used to be us."
While this statement does not mean containment of China or Singapore, one would ask why it makes no sense for China or Singapore to do better than America in certain areas.
Strongest power?
China invented printing and gunpowder, but a humble Chinese would never say "that used to be us", now that China falls behind the West in updating those ancient inventions for more sophisticated modern use.
Nor would a humble Chinese say China used to be the world's strongest power, as Friedman and Mandelbaum say in the book: "We forgot ... how we had become the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world..."
The two authors also say that, without a strong America, the rest of the planet suffers the loss of a strong exemplar of democracy, freedom and human fulfillment.
A humble man, whether American or Chinese, would never say that. The truth is simple: It takes all sorts to make a world. If Americans sacrifice more, work more and consume less, they will surely be stronger. But it makes no sense to say other peoples cannot do better.
There're big mouths in China as well, who brag about China's new-found consuming and purchasing power as if China can beat anyone else.
In Buddhism as well as in mundane wisdom, pride goes before a fall.
Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author at The New York Times. Mandelbaum is a professor at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and directs the university's American Foreign Policy Program.
Comfort and complacency, they say, have shielded American people and leaders from the need to adapt to four overriding challenges:
1. How to adapt to globalization;
2. How to adjust to the IT revolution;
3. How to cope with the soaring budget deficits;
4. How to manage a world of rising energy consumption and rising climate threats.
The authors observe that America has fallen behind precisely because globalization has simply extended America's passion for capitalism and free trade to the rest of the world.
Profits and pleasures
In other words, when the rest of the world walked out of autarkic and austere traditions to join America in a race to the bottom of profits and pleasures, America inevitably saw its role as the captain of capitalism challenged.
The authors also point out that the global explosion in energy consumption springs from the rest of the world's pursuit of the snug, energy-dependent lifestyles Americans have enjoyed for decades.
The authors suggest that Americans sacrifice more, work more and consume less if they mean to address the future of America.
Well said. If most Americans heed the wake-up call of the book, there's still hope for Americans to regain their past glory as a diligent people. It's time to end the elusive faith in Reagonmic conspicous consumption as the way to be.
About twenty years have elapsed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
I was a fresh college graduate in 1989, a year of ferment in which the West boasted and toasted over the imagined victory of capitalism.
I bet then - according to ancient Chinese wit about rotating fortunes - that complacency would eventually kill the West. Ancient Chinese fengshui says fortunes change every 30 years. It seems that complacency would only hasten the cycle.
Unchallenged and unchecked, Western consumerism came home to roost at the turn of the 21st century in the form of bubbles busting one after another.
While they duly call America's attention to the danger of complacency, Friedman and Mandelbaum are yet to completely wean themselves from that mindset. They quote US President Barack Obama as saying in November 2010: "It makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us, and Singapore having better airports than us. And I just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth - that used to be us."
While this statement does not mean containment of China or Singapore, one would ask why it makes no sense for China or Singapore to do better than America in certain areas.
Strongest power?
China invented printing and gunpowder, but a humble Chinese would never say "that used to be us", now that China falls behind the West in updating those ancient inventions for more sophisticated modern use.
Nor would a humble Chinese say China used to be the world's strongest power, as Friedman and Mandelbaum say in the book: "We forgot ... how we had become the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world..."
The two authors also say that, without a strong America, the rest of the planet suffers the loss of a strong exemplar of democracy, freedom and human fulfillment.
A humble man, whether American or Chinese, would never say that. The truth is simple: It takes all sorts to make a world. If Americans sacrifice more, work more and consume less, they will surely be stronger. But it makes no sense to say other peoples cannot do better.
There're big mouths in China as well, who brag about China's new-found consuming and purchasing power as if China can beat anyone else.
In Buddhism as well as in mundane wisdom, pride goes before a fall.
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