Time to Start Thinking

Edward Luce’sTime to Start Thinkingis a carefully researched and closely argued book about the future of America. Luce’s book differs from those of similar theme in large part because of his status as a non-American. As a Brit, Luce is uniquely placed to see what is going wrong with America and brings a fresh perspective to the debate. As Francis Fukuyama points out in his blurb for the book, the tradition of intelligent, critically minded foreigners analyzing America stretches back to De Tocqueville. Luce fits firmly into this tradition.

In his introduction, Luce begins by describing a graduating ceremony for MBA students at Georgetown, and the speech given by Robert Solow, one of only a handful of American economists to have lived during the Great Depression. In his speech, Solow ruminated on the decline in wealth and power of the middle class and the growing economic inequality in US society. His conclusion was: "Good luck with all that. Thank you for listening.” Luce’s shares Solow’s view, and begins looking for reasons behind and causes of this profound shift in American society. He discusses subjects ranging from Washington DC’s culture to immigration to 9/11 to America’s nostalgia for its manufacturing past, and recounts an interview with Admiral Mullen. Luce also talks to former Democratic Senator Don Riegle in his hometown and former automobile production center of Flint, Michigan - now a place with 20% unemployment and just one of many towns in America’s 'rustbelt’.

Chapter One, "The Lonely Middle”, focuses on the increasing squeeze on America’s middle class - a situation described by Harvard economist David Autor as 'the missing middle’. In the last full American business cycle, between 2002 and 2007, the top 0.1% of Americans captured more than a third of the economy’s growth. Luce begins the chapter with an example of one of the weirder consequences of the economic privations of America’s middle class: storage locker sell-offs. Goods stored in storage lockers are sold sight unseen to the highest bidder - and there is even a popular television program, Storage Wars, that chronicles these sales. Families are so stretched for cash that they are unable to make the payments not only on their houses, but their storage lockers. Luce analyses the fall of America’s manufacturing industries, and the changes in middle-class income and aspirations in the face of the fluctuating property market of the last few decades. He talks to many people about these issues, including former General Motors lawyer Bill Lichtenberger (who remembers a time when America was the producer half the shoes in the world), Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, and Carl Camden, chief executive of America’s largest temping agency, Kelly Services, who is doing very well as companies try to cut costs by laying off permanent employees. Luce also talks to Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, who bemoans the lack of American innovation and argues: "This debate is too important to leave to the economists.” Half of General Electric’s employees now live overseas, and General Electric CEO Immelt sees more jobs going to China, and elsewhere, in the future. China is set to overtake the size of the US economy as soon as 2020, on the latest projections.

In Chapter Two, "Leave No Robot Behind”, Luce turns his attention to America’s education system. In many schools, the athletics director is paid more than the principal, and Luce sees the cult of self-esteem and encouragement regardless of achievement as a pernicious phenomenon. The Deans of small American colleges have recently begun using the phrase "tea cups” about incoming freshmen, so delicate are their sensibilities on starting college. Obama’s big aim in his Winning the Future agenda may have been to "out-educate and out-innovate” the world, but there is little sign of progress towards this goal. Charter schools, Luce argues, are not as successful as they make themselves out to be, and public schools are failing outright. Luce recounts an interview he conducted with Bill Gates at his private Seattle office, where Gates stresses the sheer lack of data surrounding education as a factor holding the sector back. Gates may not have all the answers, but he is beginning to ask some of the questions. Meanwhile, in many other employment sectors, staff are being laid off as machines increasingly perform tasks that were once carried out by humans.

In Chapter Three, "The Golden Goose”, Luce looks at American why America is losing its competitive edge. The US does continue to lead the world in many strategic areas (including software, biosciences, social media and computer chips), but has fallen behind Asia in the production of robotics, flat screens, batteries, nuclear power, high-speed trains, memory chips, and clean energy technology. In 2010, China built the fastest computer in the world. There are now twice as many American MBA students as the combined total of those studying engineering at both undergraduate and post-graduate level. And the foreign engineers who come to study in America are increasingly returning home to seek jobs after their studies rather than staying in the US. Since 2000, the largest annual fund-raising from investors in Silicon Valley touched $30 billion - less than a sixth of what it once was. America is not producing enough talented scientists and techies at home and is no longer the single world beacon for talent in these areas - a sea-change from the 20th century. In China, the government thinks about the long term and focuses on growth, but in America it’s difficult for anyone to see beyond the next electoral cycle. Luce recounts a conversation with Brad Avakian, Oregon’s labor commissioner, who tells Luce about a trip he made to Taiwan on official business. After many drinks with his hosts, the conversation turned to America - and the hosts’ respectful demeanor began to change. "They were literally laughing at America”, Avakian says, "Please keep sending us all the jobs - everything else will follow!”

Chapter Four, "Gulliver’s Travails”, looks at America’s innovation - or lack thereof - in science and technology. In America, R&D is these days left to public organizations and businesses without much government suppt&uppt&pport; the Pentagon played a critical role in investing in the fledgling Internet, but similar investments are not being made in the technologies of the 21st century. Indeed, it seems as if the government is stepping back from investment in technology altogether - Obama announced the end of NASA’s manned space flights (and had great trouble finding a new head for NASA - seven people refused the job before he could find a candidate who would take it). If the supercollider particle accelerator had been developed in the ¿s, there would have been no question that it would have been situated in and funded by America - instead, CERN is a European project with a base in Geneva. As recently as 2000, the US was ranked first in the world in terms of its ability to innovate, but by 2010 it had moved down to sixth, and looks set to slip further - it also came last out of forty countries in improvements to its climate for innovation. IBM now has more employees in India than the US, and Luce sees government support of industry and innovation as a key reason why countries other than America are developing their science and technology industries so rapidly. Luce also turns his attention to the problems of government bureaucracy - to be anybody in Washington nowadays, you have to have a 'Chief of Staff’ - there is even a Chief of St