My latest book find from the library started out sounding like a drag. Most books on Political Science seem to be somewhat un-entertaining. Nevertheless I read them to learn. Jonathan Tepperman wrote this book and titled it The Fix, How Nations Survive and Thrive in a World of Decline. Right there the title caught my attention because I don’t believe the world is in decline at all. It is evolving onto a new era, but it is not in decline. In fact, I believe that to be stupid. As bad as the USA is at this moment in history it is no worse than previous generations. Yes, the USA is going through growing pains, but it is not in decline. We just have to catch up with the technology and information age. The last time the country changed phases was the change from an agricultural economy to the industrial one. That wasn’t easy either. The difference is we also experienced an amazing generation of people who were inventors and dreamers who fueled the change like Edison, Ford, Firestone, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, and Rockefeller to name a few. Our current generation has a new group of these people namely, Jobs, Gates, Bezos, Adelson, Ma, Brin, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Musk, and many more. The difference is that these companies don’t employ as many people as the companies of the Industrial Revolution, and the country has a much bigger population to employ. These companies are steeped in technology to be more efficient, or if they rely on manual labor they have moved manufacturing to the third world. The efficiencies require less manual labor, and our workforce has not caught up to this level of technology. How often have we heard that the USA worker does not want the types of jobs we have to offer them. Most of us think about labor to pick tomatoes or green beans, but many of the jobs we really have to fill require knowledge beyond high school and sometimes even a Bachelor’s degree. We don’t have enough picker jobs, and factory jobs to fill the huge number of low skill migrants that arrive daily. The real emphasis on immigration lies in getting educated migrants.
In the introduction to this book, Tepperman lists ten trouble areas causing the world to wane: 1. Inequality, 2. Immigration, 3. Islamic Extremism, 4. Civil War, 5. Corruption, 6. The Resource Curse, 7. Energy, 8. The Middle Income Trap, 9. Gridlock I, 10. Gridlock II.
For the most part I agree all ten of these points are trouble. I disagree in correcting inequality because no matter how much advancement we make there will always be a separation between those that have some, and those that have a lot more, it is all relative. I do agree that people who live on less than $2 per day are too far away from the one percent, and they can be raised to a level of decent living.
Tepperman then begins his work in earnest and convincingly chronicles how a number of places have raised themselves from virtual ground zero to healthy, growing economies, like Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Indonesia, Rwanda, Singapore, Botswana, Mexico, New York City, and the USA. In each of these places the problems encountered seemed insurmountable: corruption, lack of resources, lack of leadership, etc. What Tepperman realized as he researched is that in each instance a leader emerged who had a different approach to government. These people, men and women both, fell outside the mainstream political parties and used techniques and ideas totally unorthodox to conventional governmental systems. All through the narrative I kept getting visions of President Donald Trump. He too is in a difficult situation. The USA has become stagnant and no longer is able to resolve its problems with a corrupt (swamp) leadership and bureaucracy. Both political parties work against him because they believe he is not of the system. In each of the narrative situations Tepperman cites leaders who were faced with even larger swamps, and more massive corruption. Yet these individuals were able to lead their countries out of the quagmire and into the limelight.
By the end of the read, I was totally engrossed, in the micro history of these countries during periods of problem solving. I also developed a new respect for these countries and their developments.
If you enjoy Political Science this is an excellent book to read: five stars.
Filed under: Book Review, Education, politics, Uncategorized | Tagged: corruption, economy, Gridlock |
Leave a Reply