If you believe history is yet to come, the United States is still the place to be. Only in America can you find people trying to make cars fly, abolish human mortality and nurture robots with feelings. Yet America’s politics is remarkable for its resistance to new ideas. The gap between Washington’s dearth of creativity and the ferment beyond is widening. Every week, some audacious start-up aims to exploit the commercial potential of science. Many are too zany to succeed. A few will deserve to. Every week, it seems, a presidential campaign is launched. Some of the 2016 candidates are actively hostile to science. None, so far, have hinted at original ideas for fixing America’s problems. One will undeservedly succeed.
The root of America’s intellectual disconnect is cultural. In Silicon Valley, “fail harder” is a motto. A history of bankruptcy is proof of business credentials. In Washington, a single miscue can ruin your career. Ruth Porat’s move last week from Morgan Stanley, where she was chief financial officer, to Google for a cool $70 million was taken as another sign of Silicon Valley’s increasing edge over Wall Street. A growing share of top US graduates are bypassing a career in investment banking for Big Data. Less noticed was the fact that Porat turned down a job in Barack Obama’s administration last year as deputy Treasury secretary. She feared the Senate confirmation process would rip her to shreds. She was probably right.
The result is a system in which the bland are leading the bland. Washington is host to the largest collection of think-tanks in the world. Yet they are notable nowadays for their lack of original thinking. The ideas shortage has nothing to do with low IQ. The post codes around Washington have America’s highest concentration of PhDs other than Silicon Valley. But if you want a job in a future US administration, you risk running a gauntlet from which you may never recover. The route to success is paved with caution. One stray remark, or risqué policy idea, can kill your prospects. Science is the basis of America’s innovative edge. Yet embracing it can be a political career-stopper. Several Republican presidential candidates reject the notion of man-made global warming while some believe child vaccines cause disease.
Aversion to science is not a conservative monopoly. Among the 19,000 papers produced by Washington’s top 10 think-tanks in the past few years, science and technology ranked bottom among the subjects addressed, according to a survey by Foreign Policy magazine. During the Cold War, senior US officials were expected to be fluent in the language of nuclear technology — understanding it was the basis of America’s rivalry with the Soviet Union. Today few have much clue about the evolving threat of cyber warfare. Unlike nuclear weapons, which were too risky to use given the certainty of overwhelming retaliation, cyber attacks are low risk. Deterrence does not work on anonymous foes. Yet cyber attacks are arguably the greatest future danger to US national security.
Some hope Silicon Valley’s growing visibility in Washington might spark new ideas. If US politics runs on money, Big Data’s dollars are preferable to Wall Street’s. Tech companies used to disdain the US capital in the myopic view that their success had little to do with government. Today, the most rapid lobbying growth comes from the likes of Google and Facebook. Yet their priority is to repair the damage from the Edward Snowden leaks — strengthening privacy, rather than lifting research and development budgets, or opening up the US immigration system. They aim to curb the National Security Agency’s incursions rather than spread bold thinking to Washington.
Might 2016 produce an original debate over America’s future? It is tempting to believe so. Yet the contest is shaping into a traditional slugfest between those who want to shrink federal government and those who would conserve it. In the coming days, Hillary Clinton will launch her official candidacy. Having strung it out so long, she is expected to justify the wait with original thinking. In 2008 she won ovations by saying she was born in the middle of the last century, into the middle class in the middle of America. That will no longer bring blue collar voters to their feet. It is possible Clinton has spent the time coming up with new ideas to address America’s middle class squeeze — but unlikely. As it stands, her chief originality will be a promise to break the White House gender barrier. Nor should we expect Jeb Bush, or his rivals, to restock Washington’s intellectual cupboard. Gridlock suits the conservative base.
If the US is recovering in spite of Washington, might conservatives have a point? Alas not. Much of America’s innovative edge comes from public research. Washington tends to come up with new ideas during emergencies — necessity being the mother of invention. Silicon Valley’s prowess dates from the breakthroughs produced by Cold War Pentagon spending. Even the technology behind hydraulic fracking, which has helped power the US job market recovery, comes from public investment in the aftermath of the 1970s oil shortages. The secret sauce of US capitalism is a history of collaboration with federal government. The two are now increasingly disconnected. Do not look to White House hopefuls to restore it.
—Financial Times
