New Politics for the Next Economy available here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6P5MZ6Z/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6P5MZ6Z/
The first America - most clearly defined by Jefferson - focused on land, on creating a nation of farmers. From the Louisiana Purchase to the war with Mexico that resulted in the top half of Mexico becoming the bottom third of America, the US grew by nearly two Indias.
Lincoln and the New Republicans transformed America into an industrial power that focused on creating new capital rather than acquiring more land. Between 1861 and 1933, we ended slavery, gave women the right to vote, and began to transform reality through the spread of inventions like trains, telegraph, electricity, cars and planes and the creation of unprecedented levels of wealth and products.
FDR then added a focus on full employment, the creation of labor as a factor of production that was not incidental, but central to progress, to realizing the potential of this great country. Between 1900 and 2000 we went from a world in which roughly 10 percent of teenagers were in high school or university to a world in which less than 10 percent were not. The creation of a world in which the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines about 800 distinct careers and in which the returns to meritocracy have created a new kind of intellectual capitalist.
Reagan was asked if he thought he could be president after a career as an actor and quipped that he didn't know how one could do the job without having been an actor. Once we'd accomplished incredible feats like landing on the moon, splitting the atom, and editing the human genome two things became apparent: creating new knowledge of HOW to do things and then deciding WHAT we should allow or prohibit, fund or discourage would define politics and the economy in this information age. That is, culture - questions of HOW and WHAT - became central to this new information economy.
You - lucky reader - are now living through another one of the historic moments in which we're reaching the limits of one America and a new America is struggling to be born. These transitions are messy, dramatic, and can give birth to a new America that is so much better than the last.
The next America will focus on the institutions that define us and our potential, taking us beyond our current institutional recession into a entrepreneurial economy in which we get more adept at creating the institutions that do so much to define us and our potential.
New Politics for the Next Economy narrates past history and future history that is yours to make. Get yourself a copy. And perhaps buy one for that politician you think has so much potential. We've got a new America to make and it might just wow your kids and grandkids. Let me know how it changes your mind. And then let's see how we can change our country.
