Don't Believe the Hype. We're Still No. 1

摘要

What would the most advanced, most forward- looking, most self-assured country in history do with- out its periodic crises of confidence? In 1957 the Soviets put a tin can into space, and the U.S. thought the sky was falling. In the 1980s we began crying into our soup because Sony was selling so many nifty Trinitrons. "American decline" was all the fashion until the vaunted Japanese model of tight organization and industrial planning took a nosedive and a bunch of twentysomething Americans tinkering in their garages created untold wealth and took over the world. Now, 20 years later, our newest fix of pessimism. Why? Our economic growth rate is second in the West only to tiny Finland's. It's probably just a symptom of $3 gasoline. Nonetheless, it's back. This time it's not Russia or Japan but other inscrutable foreigners, Indian and Chinese. What was once rather unkindly said about Brazil—"the country of the future and always will be"— I say of them. I'm not worried.