Voices
sectors won’t be sufficient to drive
revolutionary growth in the overall economy. (Consider that even
in the 21st Century, an estimated
one-tenth of all American jobs are
connected to the car industry; it’s
difficult to see social media having
that kind of impact.)
Third, by the end of the 21st
Century, the world’s global multinationals will increasingly be
headquartered in Asia. Since the
late 1970s, the rest of the world
has been catching up economically with the West. This trend will
only accelerate, unless there’s new
high-impact revolutionary technological innovation in the United
States, or economic collapse/stagnation in China/India. (If country
GDPs per capita converge to about
the same level, country GDPs will
then be driven by population. Consequently, China will have four
times America’s GDP.)
Fourth, as wage levels converge
globally, wage differentials (as a
driver of offshoring) will also decline. This is already happening, as
the global management consultancy BCG has recently highlighted:
By around 2015, we concluded—when higher U.S. worker productivity, supply chain and logistical advantages, and other factors
STEVEN
STRAUSS
HUFFINGTON
08.26.12
are taken fully into account—it
may start to be more economical
to manufacture many goods in the
U.S. An American manufacturing
renaissance could result.
Fifth, as the public increasingly understands that growth has
slowed, and won’t
soon increase, the focus of politics will be
By
on the zero-sum game
around 2015,
of dividing up what
it may start
already exists (it feels
to be more
like this political trend
economical to
has already started).
manufacture
And last, a future
many goods
of slow-growth inin the U.S.”
cremental capitalism
will favor corporate
bureaucrats over visionary
entrepreneurs.
For most of human history,
economic innovation and productivity growth have been low, as
were productivity differences
between countries. The last two or
so centuries have been an exciting
exception—but not the norm—for
human history.
I hope Founders Fund will be
right and I’ll be wrong. So, let
me close with the sage counsel of
Yogi Berra:
Prediction is very hard,
especially about the future.