With capital-lite corporate strategies shaped by Wall Street’s demand for high returns on assets and invested capital, U.S. firms invest relatively little in robotics.| In the Arena
Claims that AI-driven job destruction is inevitable could not be further from the truth. AI will boost U.S. productivity and spread new income across the economy.| In the Arena
It should be clear that unless Western, democratic, market-based economies start working together instead of against each other, China will dominate.| In the Arena
Trade policy should focus first and foremost on defense, dual-use, and enabling sectors and largely ignore nonstrategic sectors.| In the Arena
The cool new movement among policy wonks won’t make a dent in ensuring America wins the existential techno-economic trade war we’re fighting with China.| In the Arena
For 40 years, the U.S. government sent implicit and often explicit messages to American firms: Invest in China.| In the Arena
NSF’s TIP Directorate should fund at least one university to establish a graduate program focused on industrial strategy and economic warfighting.| In the Arena
Engagement always comes at a price. The CCP is realist to the core, caring only about China. When it sees the U.S. government requesting cooperation, it sees leverage.| In the Arena
Fellow advocates of industrial policy, join me in being outspoken. You have nothing to lose but your intellectual chains and U.S. techno-economic survival to gain.| In the Arena
What’s more likely to boost growth and tech leadership: a targeted innovation strategy for robotics or one focused on cleaner oceans? Just asking.| In the Arena
The reality is that if the United States doesn’t become more like China, it will lose the battle for advanced technology leadership.| In the Arena
Only in the United States is gutting a world-leading firm seen as a policy win. No other government would be insane enough to attack its own national champions the way American antitrust enforcers do.| In the Arena
If you think the PRC will allow the UK to expand exports of anything with any real strategic importance, you’re mistaken.| In the Arena
Rostow’s model suggests that stage five is the ultimate destination. A better model sees no fixed stages and certainly no permanent peak, only a relentless push to go higher and higher.| www.policyarena.org
Notes on the battle of ideas. Click to read In the Arena, by Robert D. Atkinson, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.| www.policyarena.org
To beat China, the U.S. must revitalize many of the core principles in the 1950s business creed and foster a business community that embraces a national industrial strategy.| www.policyarena.org
Americans have forgotten that prosperity depends on valuing productivity, grounding ideals in realism, striving for progress, and maintaining the optimism and adventurous spirit to embrace change.| www.policyarena.org
If Senator Sanders wants to raise wages, he should focus on the real cause of slow growth, lagging productivity from low capital investment, instead of stymieing AI.| Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Feed
Although the seven values of the American Business Creed were widely accepted in the 1950s, two have eroded over time, driven largely by changes in business itself.| www.policyarena.org
Unless we can restore the growth imperative in the West, we can—no surprise—expect slower, or in the case of some countries like Canada and the UK, negative per-capita income growth.| www.policyarena.org
There are two core reasons for manufacturing decline denialism: fear of protectionism and blind faith in market forces.| www.policyarena.org
