America is 250 years old this year. It is tricky to establish a ‘nation-state’ equivalent of human years, but if I were to hazard a guess, then it would be about one nation-state year for every seven to ten human years.
Broadly similar to the dog-human ageing relationship. Of course, dogs age unevenly with respect to humans, reaching a ‘human age’ of 24 in their first two years and then slowing down over the next decade plus. By this yardstick, the US today is middle-aged at most.
There is no science behind this nation-state equivalence, only the backing of recorded history: great civilizations of the past often lasted a thousand years, a little more than 10 human lifespans by the aforesaid reckoner.
The Egyptian civilization was among the longest lasting; it endured from about 3000 BCE till its Roman annexation at the turn of the first millennium. Rome itself was strong for about 500 years and its empire lasted nearly a thousand more until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE. The Ottomans who conquered what’s now Istanbul prevailed for about half a millennium. The Han dynasty in China held sway for nearly 400 years and the British Empire for about 350 years.
So, is America on its last legs, or is it going through a middle-age crisis, or simply a reset for a long innings ahead? Like with the canine epigenetic clock, we must be careful in our analysis: this need not be a phase in which it ticks faster, as national ageing has no biological inevitability, nor would it be merely such a clock at work.
Before we evaluate America’s future, it is instructive to consider how the country got here. Alexis de Tocqueville, French philosopher and an early visitor to the US, made some incisive observations in this 1835 book, Democracy in America.
He praised the US for its township self-government (a laboratory for democracy), its spirit of volunteerism, its free press as a check on power, and for its freedom of association as a counterweight to majority tyranny. He was most impressed by its practical, restless energy and work ethic, as also its cultural mores.
If Tocqueville had revisited America 150 years later in 1990, he might have observed an ‘association’ legacy that included the great American corporation, the successful civil rights movement of the 1960s against majority tyranny and a strange “equality of conditions” brought about by a mass consumer culture.
To this, I would add two things: first, that America in its period of ascendancy established a ‘high trust’ society as described by Francis Fukuyama in his book Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity; and second, that its ability to attract the best to its universities and its pathway for that talent to develop new technology and products for the world sustained its success.
Vannevar Bush, in his 1945 policy recommendation to then president Harry S. Truman titled Science: The Endless Frontier, advocated federal investment in scientific research as the fund from which practical applications of knowledge must be drawn.
That led directly to the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950. This established the bedrock upon which is built a pillar of America’s greatness: university research plus capitalist commercialization powered by imported talent.
This force was so powerful that as America sought to gain efficiencies through a massive wave of globalization, it left some of its communities behind even as the world benefited. Its high-trust society was fractured in this process as described in Dan Rodger’s book, The Age of Fracture.
A backlash in the context of low trust brought about its current political movement against globalization and towards putting up physical walls and technology barricades.
If Tocqueville were to assess America today, it is unlikely that he would pick up any strong signal on ‘free association.’ As measured by interpersonal trust or trust in government, Fukuyama’s ‘high trust’ society no longer holds, as most recent surveys indicate. America’s incumbent president, Donald Trump, has been taking a chainsaw to research funding and has created fear even among legal migrants and students at its top universities.
The only US pillar left standing is its commercial pillar, which in several cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence (AI), chip design and quantum computing appears to be as robust as ever.
On the evidence of just these indicators, the country’s future looks cloudy.
The living history of a people who form a nation, though, is subjective. To comprehend and evaluate whether they can regain their vitality, one must draw from periods of difficulty. So far, the US has shown remarkable resilience and bounced back from each. This is evident in periods such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, oil shock of the 70s, global financial crisis of 2008 and the more recent covid pandemic.
Historically, America’s greatest strength has been its ability to adapt and re-invent itself in the face of crisis. The country still possesses reservoirs of political talent and well-built institutions and mechanisms of democracy, apart from the personality traits required for a resurgence.
In my view, US declinists are calling a fall prematurely. It does have deep challenges to overcome, such as societal polarization, an affordability crisis, lack of housing and healthcare for all, and excessive debt. Yet, American resilience should be able to combat them and emerge victorious.
P.S: “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults,” said Alexis de Tocqueville.
The author is chairman, InKlude Labs. Read Narayan’s Mint columns at www.livemint.com/avisiblehand