Another decade of American economic decline?

Social democracy has its benefits, but global competitiveness isn’t one of them. As Jim Manzi points out, in an essay on “Keeping America’s Edge” in the latest issue of National Affairs, “from 1980 through today, America’s share of global output has been constant at about 21 percent. Europe’s share, meanwhile, has been collapsing in the face of global competition — going from a little less than 40 percent of global production in the 1970s to about 25 percent today.”

If we hope to avoid a similar plunge, the Obama-era tilt toward government intervention needs to be balanced, and soon, by a new growth-oriented agenda. This will require more than the rote invocations of Reaganism that too many Republican politicians have fallen back on, however. The age of sweeping tax cuts financed by deficit spending is over. The policies of the 1980s will not keep America competitive in the 2010s. Our challenges are new, and we must think and act anew.