From The Post-American World (Fareed Zakaria, 2008) pp210-4
The United States has a history of worrying that it is losing its edge. This is at least the fourth wave of such concern since 1945. The first was in the late 1950s, a result of the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite. The second was in the early 1970s, when high oil prices and slow growth in the United States convinced Americans that Western Europe and Saudi Arabia were the powers of the future, and President Nixon heralded the advent of a multipolar world. The most recent one arrived in the mid-1980s, when most experts believed that Japan would be the technologically and economically dominant superpower of the future. The concern in each of these cases was well founded, the projections intelligent. But none of these scenarios came to pass. The reason is that the American system was proved be flexible, resourceful, and resilient, able to correct its mistakes and shift its attention. A focus on American economic decline ended up preventing it. The problem today is that the American political system seems to have lost its ability to create broad coalitions that solve complex issues.
The economic dysfunctions in America today are real, but, by and large, they are not the product of deep inefficiencies within the American economy, nor are they reflections of cultural decay. They are the consequences of specific government policies. Different policies could quickly and relatively easily move the United States onto a far more stable footing. A set of sensible reforms could be enacted tomorrow to trim wasteful spending and subsidies, increase savings, expand training in science and technology, secure pensions, create a workable immigration process, and achieve significant efficiencies in the use of energy.* Policy experts do not have wide disagreements on most of these issues, and none of the proposed measures would require sacrifices reminiscent of wartime hardship, only modest adjustments of existing arrangements. And yet, because of politics, they appear impossible. The American political system has lost the ability for large-scale compromise, and it has lost the ability to accept some pain now for much gain later on. As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy, or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. An antiquated and overly rigid political system to begin with — about 225 years old — has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia — politics as theater — and very little substance, compromise, and action. A “can-do” country is now saddled with a “do-nothing” political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving. By every measure — the growth of special interests, lobbies, pork-barrel spending — the political process has become far more partisan and ineffective over the last three decades.
It is clever contrarianism to be in favor of sharp party politics and against worthy calls for bipartisanship, Some political scientists have long wished that America’s political parties were more like European ones — ideologically pure and tightly disciplined. Well, it has happened — there are fewer and fewer moderates on either side — and the result is gridlock. Europe’s parliamentary systems work well with partisan parties. In them, the executive branch always controls the legislative branch, and so the party in power can implement its agenda easily. The British prime minister doesn’t need any support from the opposition party; he has a ruling majority by definition. The American system, by contrast, is one of shared power, overlapping functions, and checks and balances. Progress requires broad coalitions between the two parties and politicians who will cross the aisle. That’s why James Madison distrusted political parties, lumping them together with all kinds of “factions” and considering them a grave danger to the young American Republic. I know that these complaints all sound very high-minded and squishy. And I know there has long been nasty partisanship in America, even in Madison’s own era. But there has also been a lot of bipartisanship, especially over the past century. Reacting to the political bitterness of the late nineteenth century — the last time there were two close elections in succession — many American leaders tried to create forces for good, problem-solving government. Robert Brookings established the Brookings Institution in Washington in 1916 because he wanted an organization “free from any political or pecuniary interest . . . to collect, interpret, and lay before the country in a coherent form, the fundamental economic facts.” The Council on Foreign Relations, founded five years later, also consciously reached across party lines. The first editor of its magazine, Foreign Affairs, told his deputy that if one of them became publicly identified as a Democrat, the other should immediately start campaigning for the Republicans. Contrast that with a much more recently founded think tank, the conservative Heritage Foundation, whose former senior vice president Burton Pines has admitted, ”Our role is to provide conservative policymakers with arguments to bolster our side.”
The trouble is that progress on any major problem – health care, Social Security, tax reform – will require compromise from both sides. In foreign policy, crafting a strategic policy in Iraq, or one on Iran, North Korea, or China, will need significant support from both sides. It requires a longer-term perspective. And that’s highly unlikely. Those who advocate sensible solutions and compromise legislation find themselves marginalized by the party’s leadership, losing funds from special-interest groups, and being constantly attacked by their “side” on television and radio. The system provides greater incentives to stand firm and go back and tell your team that you refused to bow to the enemy. It’s great for fund-raising, but it’s terrible for governing.
The real test for the United States is, in some ways, the opposite of that faced by Britain in 1900. Britain’s economic power waned while it managed to maintain immense political influence around the world. The American economy and American society, in contrast, are capable of responding to the economic pressures and competition they face. They can adjust, adapt, and persevere. The real test for the United States is political — and it rests not just with America at large but with Washington in particular. Can Washington adjust and adapt to a world in which others have moved up? Can it respond to shifts in economic and political power? This challenge is even more difficult in foreign policy than in domestic policy. Can Washington truly embrace a world with a diversity of voices and viewpoints? Can it thrive in a world it cannot dominate?
* I would not add fixing health care to this list. because that is not an easy problem with an easy fix. Most problems in Washington have simple policy solutions but face political paralysis. Health care is an issue that is complex in both policy and political terms. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be fixed, far from it. But solving it would have been difficult under any circumstances, as it is today.
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