A solitary lament for an America in decline
At first glance, Earl Fry does not appear to be a man with a secular
mission. He is grandfatherly in manner, polite in address and careful
with language.
Although originally a Californian, Prof. Fry has lived in Utah, arguably the most conservative of states. From there, and from the Mormon university where he teaches, Brigham Young, one does not expect a cry for Americans to awaken to their serious, structural problems.
Alas, most Americans will not hear his cry, for Prof. Fry could not find a U.S. publisher for his book, Lament for America: Decline of the Superpower, Plan for Renewal. Instead, this excellent summary of his country's challenges has been published by the University of Toronto Press, hardly a household name in U.S. publishing circles.
In one sense, it is not surprising that a Canadian publisher knew Earl Fry, because he has been among the few serious U.S. scholars interested in Canada throughout his career. (Brigham Young has more than 300 Canadian students, largely Mormons.) It's a pity, however, that Lament for a Superpower might not reach a wide U.S. audience, because piling fact on fact, Prof. Fry outlines his country's immense and largely self-inflicted problems, starting with an increasingly polarized political system lubricated by money and barnacled by lobbyists.
That system, he argues, has delivered the "largest government debt in human history"; a shift from the U.S. being the largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation; a broken, expensive health-care system; "an almost incomprehensible tax code"; and "an overall record of making laws that often favour the powerful special interests over the general welfare of the country."
That system has balanced the U.S. budget five times since 1961, with yearly deficits now surpassing $1-trillion, big unfunded liabilities ahead for Social Security and Medicare (the government health plan for poor Americans) and absolutely no serious national debate, let alone consensus, on how to solve the fiscal problems.
Writes Prof. Fry presciently: "Bogged down in future years by the twin deficits (government and current account) which have required it to borrow most of the surplus savings accumulated in the rest of the world, and saddled with a weakened and more erratic currency, the United States will be hard-pressed to sustain its role as the world's superpower."
Any serious analyst of the American fiscal dilemma, including Prof. Fry of course, knows that the deficit/debt challenge can only be met by higher taxes and reduced government spending. Neither can command a political majority.
He argues, and he is profoundly right, that the U.S. is militarily stretched around the world. The invasion of Iraq was a costly mistake; the surge in Afghanistan will almost certainly lead nowhere, except to more casualties, more borrowed money and no fundamental change in the culture or politics of Afghanistan. Given its enfeebled fiscal circumstances, the U.S. will have to curtail is defence expenditures, Prof. Fry argues, which means that allies such as Canada should spend more.
But who has the will to curb defence spending in Washington, where Republicans never saw a defence budget they did not love, and Democrats are scared of scaling back the military lest they be accused of being "soft on terror"?
The world features, as everyone knows, new competitor nations, not in a military sense (the U.S. defence budget eclipses those of the 15 next-highest defence-spending countries) but increasingly in economic terms. China, India and Brazil obviously start from far, far behind the United States by every economic measure, and they will remain far behind for a long time. They also have severe internal problems, such as corruption, crime and pollution.
But, Prof. Fry argues, "most plausible scenarios would suggest that the United States will be relatively weaker and some of its major rivals relatively stronger within the next few decades." Hardly an earth-quaking conclusion, but one robustly rejected by Tea Partiers who want to "take back their country" and many others who reject the "declinist" school in U.S. society. Boosterism remains a staple of U.S. public discourse, worsened by political parties and their favoured media outlets that talk right past each other. Hard truths, after all, are not the stuff of political success.
In the conservative confines of Utah, Prof. Fry's analysis and prescriptions might be considered radically liberal. They are, in fact, a blend of idealism and pragmatism, borrowing some ideas from conservatives (curbing illegal immigration and loosening controls on business from Washington) and liberals (fettering lobbyists and public financing of elections, health-care for all).
Surmounting one of these challenges seems too much for U.S. society today, especially facing up to its fiscal mess. Lament for America, were it to be read, would be a useful starting place for Americans to confront their challenges. The book raises indirectly a question for Canadian readers: What do we do, tied as tightly as we are to a country with so many substantial challenges and so little agreement on resolving them?
Although originally a Californian, Prof. Fry has lived in Utah, arguably the most conservative of states. From there, and from the Mormon university where he teaches, Brigham Young, one does not expect a cry for Americans to awaken to their serious, structural problems.
Alas, most Americans will not hear his cry, for Prof. Fry could not find a U.S. publisher for his book, Lament for America: Decline of the Superpower, Plan for Renewal. Instead, this excellent summary of his country's challenges has been published by the University of Toronto Press, hardly a household name in U.S. publishing circles.
In one sense, it is not surprising that a Canadian publisher knew Earl Fry, because he has been among the few serious U.S. scholars interested in Canada throughout his career. (Brigham Young has more than 300 Canadian students, largely Mormons.) It's a pity, however, that Lament for a Superpower might not reach a wide U.S. audience, because piling fact on fact, Prof. Fry outlines his country's immense and largely self-inflicted problems, starting with an increasingly polarized political system lubricated by money and barnacled by lobbyists.
That system, he argues, has delivered the "largest government debt in human history"; a shift from the U.S. being the largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation; a broken, expensive health-care system; "an almost incomprehensible tax code"; and "an overall record of making laws that often favour the powerful special interests over the general welfare of the country."
That system has balanced the U.S. budget five times since 1961, with yearly deficits now surpassing $1-trillion, big unfunded liabilities ahead for Social Security and Medicare (the government health plan for poor Americans) and absolutely no serious national debate, let alone consensus, on how to solve the fiscal problems.
Writes Prof. Fry presciently: "Bogged down in future years by the twin deficits (government and current account) which have required it to borrow most of the surplus savings accumulated in the rest of the world, and saddled with a weakened and more erratic currency, the United States will be hard-pressed to sustain its role as the world's superpower."
Any serious analyst of the American fiscal dilemma, including Prof. Fry of course, knows that the deficit/debt challenge can only be met by higher taxes and reduced government spending. Neither can command a political majority.
He argues, and he is profoundly right, that the U.S. is militarily stretched around the world. The invasion of Iraq was a costly mistake; the surge in Afghanistan will almost certainly lead nowhere, except to more casualties, more borrowed money and no fundamental change in the culture or politics of Afghanistan. Given its enfeebled fiscal circumstances, the U.S. will have to curtail is defence expenditures, Prof. Fry argues, which means that allies such as Canada should spend more.
But who has the will to curb defence spending in Washington, where Republicans never saw a defence budget they did not love, and Democrats are scared of scaling back the military lest they be accused of being "soft on terror"?
The world features, as everyone knows, new competitor nations, not in a military sense (the U.S. defence budget eclipses those of the 15 next-highest defence-spending countries) but increasingly in economic terms. China, India and Brazil obviously start from far, far behind the United States by every economic measure, and they will remain far behind for a long time. They also have severe internal problems, such as corruption, crime and pollution.
But, Prof. Fry argues, "most plausible scenarios would suggest that the United States will be relatively weaker and some of its major rivals relatively stronger within the next few decades." Hardly an earth-quaking conclusion, but one robustly rejected by Tea Partiers who want to "take back their country" and many others who reject the "declinist" school in U.S. society. Boosterism remains a staple of U.S. public discourse, worsened by political parties and their favoured media outlets that talk right past each other. Hard truths, after all, are not the stuff of political success.
In the conservative confines of Utah, Prof. Fry's analysis and prescriptions might be considered radically liberal. They are, in fact, a blend of idealism and pragmatism, borrowing some ideas from conservatives (curbing illegal immigration and loosening controls on business from Washington) and liberals (fettering lobbyists and public financing of elections, health-care for all).
Surmounting one of these challenges seems too much for U.S. society today, especially facing up to its fiscal mess. Lament for America, were it to be read, would be a useful starting place for Americans to confront their challenges. The book raises indirectly a question for Canadian readers: What do we do, tied as tightly as we are to a country with so many substantial challenges and so little agreement on resolving them?
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