General Wes Clark, former “Supreme Allied Commander” of NATO, at Pierre’s pad.
He seemed like a great guy. The only part of the discussion that surprised me was that this Rhodes Scholar in economics & politics advocated protectionism for American manufacturing jobs. I guess politics trumps economics.
This conversation echoes in my head as an example of the fundamental failure of American politics: the votes and the lobbyists represent the “old”. The “new”, by definition, lacks any political power, as it is the future. This plays out in copyright extensions, farm subsidies, steel tariffs, and other props to old industries. Funding for nanotech is the anomaly.
The economic policies it takes to get elected are generally corrosive to the long term health of the nation. In the past, this could be absorbed by an economic juggernaut. Given the accelerating pace of technological change and the increasing percentage of the economy that is driven by technology, we can no longer afford to protect the past at the expense of the future. A “parenting” concern for future generations does not apply to industries, organizations or companies – they are driven entirely by self preservation, even when their members recognize that they are dinosaurs.
New-entrant economies, like Singapore, are not straddled with this political baggage and can pursue more enlightened policy, to great effect. They will eventually ossify, like the U.S. political system, into a preservation of the present, but they show the essential power and ascendancy of new entrants – in companies, industries and unfortunately, countries.
So many politicians propose protectionist expediencies that do long term economic harm. No politician seems willing to address the core issue – primary math and science education – because it is a long-term investment. Maybe a focus on adult education and retraining could hit the political time frame of relevance. The truth is a difficult political issue: how can we face the failure of our educational system and the long-term shift of so many manufacturing jobs and not lose most voters by insulting the current constituency?”
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