Review - America the Principled

If I were to summarize my feelings about the future of America, it would be that we are heading for a period of sustained decline. We've been top dog for a while now, and it's clear that other countries are capable and willing to take a shot at that spot. What's most discouraging is the extent to which our large institutions are complicit in this, essentially taking the fact of our nation for granted in return for profit or ideology.

We're undertaking a number of experiments, and so far these have led to increased inequality and risk shifting to the most vulnerable members of our society. Never before has a country decided to stop making things and move to a "service-based economy," and there's no guarantee that that will work, at least not well enough to maintain us at the level to which we've become accustomed.

There are those who would say that's a good thing, that world inequality breeds resentment and, ultimately, terrorism, and we should do anything we can to reduce it. True though that may be, that belief has not come out of a national consensus, and we need to understand, clearly, what is happening.

People understand this, at least well enough to know that they have less confidence in the future. Parents no longer believe that their children will live better lives than they have, and there is a growing sense that we have lost something. The entire presidential campaign hinges on the restoration of that hope; the change people are looking for is not in specific programs, but in the relationship of this country to its major institutions.

Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter weighs in with her book, America the Principled: 6 Opportunities for Becoming a Can-Do Nation Once Again (AtP). Dr. Kanter has long been one of the nationally-recognized experts on change and innovation.

This book is one of hope, outlining six areas in which America can regain its way. However, that such a book needed to be written is somewhat sad. Dr. Kanter has studied change, knows its inevitability, yet believes that this country is in such a state as to need a book like this one. She clearly senses that something is broken, and offers recipes for change.

AtP is what I call a "should" book; every page has "should" (or "can") followed by yet another suggestion as to how we can renew our nation. I can't deny that there is an attractive quality to AtP; our nation would be better if we did as Dr. Kanter suggests. But there has to be a strategy to get there from here, rather than a series of prescriptions that are unlikely to be implemented. Let me discuss them in order.

1) Securing the Future: Innovation and the White Coat Economy
I won't try, in any of the sections, to go in depth through Dr. Kanter's examples; she does a fine job of that. Let me focus on her conclusions. In this first chapter, AtP talks about how innovation is necessary for growth, and how we are evolving toward a "white coat" economy, one based on life sciences.

The suggestions: work on Talent, Technology, and Truth. We will build talent by educating our young people in science and math, keeping this knowledge in this country instead of letting it go back to other countries. Technology can be used to improve health care and education. And we will foment truth through tolerance and inquiry.

My opinions on each of these would make for a lengthy post or posts. I don't disagree with any of them, but there has to be a realistic idea as to how we might make these happen, rather than "because Dr. Kanter says so." I don't know how we educate students in so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects, because they can see the jobs aren't there. Technology is coming to health care, but who will pay for that progress to continue? Technology in education has proven to be hit-and-miss, and we've already paid dearly for the failures. And, yes, I would love tolerance and inquiry, but nations in decline tend to shy away from such things.

2) Pursuing Happiness: Work, Family, and the "Woman Question"
This chapter talks about the increasingly soul-deadening, life-sucking workplace, and how it can be improved. (Note: the emphasis on the woman question, namely, how talented, great women can be empowered to have better lives, actually detracts from the main thrust of the chapter. Carly Fiorina and Martha Stewart are not typical examples of anyone in the workforce, and their problems have little to do with gender. Ms. Fiorina was not "put on the spot"; she put herself there by taking a job for which she was marginally qualified, pushed herself into the limelight by putting herself in HP's ads, and was perfectly content being profiled as the most powerful woman in business. That her fall was well-publicized was inevitable, and it was certainly well-cushioned with millions of shareholder dollars. The workplace holds just as many problems for men - it is not a "woman issue.")

So what should we do to improve working conditions? Universal health care. Grants for displaced workers and retirees to pursue education. Tax-advantaged savings accounts to augment Social Security. Modular work, in which employees would come and go with certain restrictions, allowing them flexible scheduling. Flex-years, where parents might take parts of the summer off, older people parts of the winter. A national sabbatical program.

These suggestions, no matter how well-intended, betray no concept of what work is like today, and how resistant executives will be to change. Would these ideas make work better? Sure. Will they improve next quarter's bottom line? The answer to that will determine which ones will occur (which is why universal health care is the only one with a chance).

3) Growing Good Companies: Can Values-Based Capitalism Replace Imperial Excess?
Even Dr. Kanter pretty much acknowledges that the answer is no. Her suggestions all involve external pressures, mainly from government, to rein in the excesses inherent to capitalism.

By its very nature, capitalism isn't about values, it's about money. All you have to do is listen to the bellyaching in the corporate suites about Sarbanes-Oxley, a fairly modest regulation, and you'll understand just how unlikely it is that corporations will wake up and bring light to the process. I won't go on any more about AtP's "shoulds"; they're not going to happen spontaneously, and there's very little stomach in Washington to make them happen.

4) Restoring Respect for Government: From Contempt to Competence
I want to be sure I give enough respect to this book. Dr. Kanter outlines the problems so well that her happy "shoulds" are almost jarring in contrast. Nowhere is that more true than in this chapter. The first 90% will remind you, if you need to be, how utterly disappointing and inept our government has become. As Dr. Kanter points out, this is the result of almost 30 years of being told that government is the enemy. More than half our population has grown up believing that our elected officials take our money, skim some off the top, and return it to us, and that they should be taken out of the process.

So we should enlarge the pool of people who are willing to work in government, by more civics education, pay for performance, loan forgiveness. Once again, how do we get there from where we are? We need to bring the light of the media to bear, bring advanced technology to streamline service provision, and attract great leaders to public service. What is being provided here is not a set of solutions, but a set of wishes and hopes.

5) Engaging the World: Globalization, Leadership, and the Rule of Thirds
This chapter is probably the muddiest in the book. Near the end, Dr. Kanter even admits that, "the world is too big, and events are moving too quickly even as I write, to extract a single set of foreign policy prescriptions." What we are supposed to do here is engage in citizen diplomacy to strengthen our reputation in the world. She cites such one-off projects as the Oprah Winfrey Leadership School for Girls as examples we should emulate.

Of course, one problem we have now is citizen diplomacy, the ceding of foreign dealings to CEOs instead of our representatives. We cannot take a principled stand on, say, human rights abuses in China when they make all our stuff and hold so many of our dollars. It's hard to see how getting into the supine position makes us stronger. To Dr. Kanter, though, our best hope is "a combination of trade-spawned business networks and grass-roots citizen diplomacy." I don't see how this mix of profit-makers and latrine-builders allows this nation to engage effectively with the huge world.

6) Building Community: Service and the Spirit of Summer
One of the enduring solutions to all that ails us is to yoke up the enterprising spirit, particularly of our young people, and provide service to those who need it. Most books like AtP have hit upon this idea, that if we can just get everyone to pitch in and help, the world will get better.

I'm not opposed to the concept that we could all help one another more than we do, but that certainly isn't a magic bullet. As any social service agency near a high school knows, mandatory service requirements can create as much disruption as assistance. It's true that service can be a means of personal growth, and can create a series of little victories. But it is just as true that volunteerism won't stem the negative effects of globalization, won't change our major institutions to be more responsive, won't create an efficient, listening government.

Finally, it is obvious that I was disappointed with America the Principled. I really am all for the ideas presented here, but, as I stated above, they don't constitute solutions but hopes. And I'm all for hope.

Until, however, we change the current incentive structure, and break down the assumptions that the majority of Americans hold, these ideas will remain pie in the sky. My fear is that it will take some kind of crisis to make us wake up and see the threats, that we won't realize that being #1 is not a birthright, but something that requires effort. I wish this book had shown us a path around that quagmire.