Harvard Business Review: "Is America a Failing State?"

Umair Haque (Harvard Business Review):

Here's what I'm not suggesting: that America is Afghanistan; that the incredible suffering of the globe's most vulnerable is equivalent to what Twitter snarkily calls #firstworldproblems, nor that life in an advanced economy that's declining is as heart-rendingly awful as in an a nation that failed to advance at all. But I am suggesting that the rumors of our imminent decline are worth examining, and that we might start by looking at the failure of our institutions to deliver the goods.

Perhaps the most vital question is this: what can we do to reverse the decline? The remedy I've heard being whispered in the back-slapping corridors of power is what the hoary old wonks call "good governance" — accountability, transparency, and the like, neatly pushing us right back to the status quo ante. But I'd like to challenge that simplistic remedy. After all, what got us there is what got us here. Instead, decline's moonshot might just be pioneering fundamentally better ways of living, working, and playing; an economy that elevates human potential to a higher apex.

Here are five reasons I think it's time to reimagine what we want from "recovery." MORE...

Howie P.S.: HBR describes the author:

He is ranked one of the world's most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50.