America is Falling Behind. Maybe

While China is poised to become the world’s largest economy within a decade, according to some economists, India already has a rising middle class that is larger than the entire US population, says others.
Dire prophesies about the fall of America abound, and they sell books and interviews like moo goo gai pan sells the fortune cookie.

Yes, there has been rapid growth in those two countries, but Americans have not stopped innovating. China and India are moving up, yes, they are rated 94th in GDP and 129th respectively in the CIA’s World Factbook. But China and India lack clean water and access to safe food in many cases where rural communities are filthy compared to the standard of living we enjoy here. Many citizens are subject to horrible working conditions, urban noise, and air pollution. It will take years for the culture of social justice and responsible entrepreneurship to be inculcated into those countries, if at all.

As consumption becomes less and less tolerated, as excess is shunned and the new status symbol is simplicity, those countries may for both cultural and religious reasons choose to act more moderately. What we see as progress they may feel is moral and or social decline. The pursuit of pleasure in the US has reached a borderless state and many believe it's time to reign in pleasure for pleasure's sake and return to more a demure expression of our society. All three economies may undertake a wholly more contained expression.

For many in South and East Asia, the teachings of Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" still resonates and the ideas of individualism, disruption and innovation are not as deeply embedded in those cultures.

America is unique in that it embraces change, tolerates differences, seeks novelty and creativity. We still boast some of the top universities
in the world.

According to Rob Asghar , Fellow at the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy , for these countries to "become long term giants, they must become more economically and socially integrated." And to achieve that, "they must be culturally integrated, which means a host of conflicts are on the horizon regarding varying societal views on change, tradition, materialism, social mobility, openness, patronage and so on."

Our biggest threat is our own internal polarization and political dysfunction. The American people are ready and willing to adapt, to protect our country's beauty and re assert our best values. If we could stop worrying about our neighbors and pull ourselves up by our own Birkenstocks or Manolo Blaniks, we would make more progress and lessen our anxiety about the threat of the 'other'.