Book Review: Betrayal of American Prosperity
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Two months ago, I went shopping with my host mom in Christiana Mall and she wanted to buy some small gifts for her friends that she might meet in her upcoming Chinese trip. Unfortunately, she could not find anything made in America. We even ask the seller directly in Disney store: do you have anything that is not made in China? The answer is no. My host mom said this is a shame, whats wrong with America.
Yes, whats wrong with America, the book “The Betrayal of America Prosperity” written by Clyde Prestowitz answers this question. The writer masterfully and detailedly explained the reasons behind an ailing American economy. Prestowitz points that America started to aggregate wealth during the World War II. The economy boomed because the flourish of industrial development. At that time, America was proud of its home industries, protected its own market against unfair trade, made the world finest products; as a result, America led the way in technological and became the most powerful country in both economy and military. However, in the post-WWII ear, America shifts priorities to military and politics rather than economy and the well-being of citizens. In the book, many modern economic theories adopted by American government are against by the author: the consumption rather than production is the power that drives the economy; free-trade always brings win-win solution; all globalization is good for America; government should put its hand off free-market and let it self-adjusting and self regulating; society transformed to a services-based economy. All of these decisions made by modern America betrayal the original path that made the country rise to superpower status and of course will bring unexpected consequences.
American economy was in fact not as strong as many Americans believed it to be. American was used to have most thriving economy not only can Asian but also can Europe compete with. As the example that Prestowitz mentioned in his book, America once despised Japan, but Japan achieved 1.4 percent GDP per capita growth rate which is just slightly less than America during 1990s,( Prestowitz, C. p139) and not to mention Japans life expectancy is 4 years higher than the United States ( CIA website). Pretowitz blamed the American understanding of economics for giving a false sense of prosperity over the past couple of decades. The “looks great” America are hiding weakness behind. 2008 financial crisis broke the myth of “new efficient-market economy”. Under the efficient-market economy, many factories attracted by the cheaper labor and more profit were fleeing overseas, and then America was moving to the “higher ground” of services ( Prestowitz, C. p139). Nevertheless, there was similar lesson that prove the fault. In both cases, Britain and the US, economists argued in favor of moving away from manufacturing as the base of the economy towards a services-based economy. The