"Our RAND Corporation study looked at both. We examined the literature on the rise and fall of nations and on the sources of economic and technological progress, conducted a dozen major historical case studies, and supplemented that historical
scholarship with more recent research on a variety of issues such as inequality, diversity, and national identity. We found that nations that demonstrate both absolute and relative forms of competitive success tend to reflect, either in specific periods
of ascendancy or longer-term positions atop the global hierarchy, seven leading characteristics: a driving national ambition, shared opportunity for citizens, a common and coherent national identity, an active state, effective social institutions, an
emphasis on learning and adaptation, and significant diversity and pluralism. ...
Each of these seven characteristics is associated with national competitiveness, but not even societies that boast all of them can be assured of long-term success. Nations that prevail in long-term competitions must achieve balance in each trait, since
all of these advantages can spiral into excess and become liabilities.
...
In the second half of the twentieth century, the United States mastered the recipe for national competitiveness better than any nation in history. And even now, aspects of American society continue to exhibit strong elements of the seven essential
characteristics: social mobility, diversity and political pluralism, in particular. ... But there are also serious reasons for concern. If the United States continues on its current trajectory, it will risk weakening or even losing many of the traits
that for the last 75 years have made it the world’s dominant power.
Four of the seven characteristics are especially at risk. One is national will and ambition. Survey evidence suggests that younger Americans do not view the United States, its values, or its ambitions in the same way as older Americans. ...
The United States’ shared national identity may be in even greater peril. Increasingly, polling data and other observable trends—such as “associative sorting,” wherein people move to live closer to others with similar views—suggest that the
country is becoming divided into mutually suspicious camps with little common ground. ...
Shared opportunity also shows signs of waning. Inequality is rising, and intergenerational mobility appears to be stalled.
Finally, the spirit of learning and adaptation in the United States is increasingly threatened by the corrosive information environment. Competitive societies are information-processing organisms whose various components take insights about the world and
turn them into behavior. Yet the U.S. information marketplace is being corrupted, in part because of the tremendous amounts of misinformation sloshing through social media, the sensationalism of the news media, the fragmentation of information sources,
and the emergence of a “trolling” ethic that encourages hostility and mean-spiritedness in public discourse.
...
The primary threat to U.S. dynamism and competitive standing comes not from without but from within: from changes in the character of American society. "
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2022-06-21/what-makes-a-power-great
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