As the Washington Post reports, debt and infrastructure and regulatory shortcomings have dulled the competitive edge of American business. I believe that it is not only the Americans that subscribe to American-Exceptionalism, and the whole world over expects something superlative and undeniable, self-assured to come out of that nation. Switzerland still directs the most sophisticated game going, but America is slipping in the ranks.
The US, and other nations on the decline, are also suffering due to diminished future prospects and lack of a clear policy direction that can help them address it. While I understand that the World Economic Forum projects its ratings based on economic criteria, the resulting descriptors, like competitiveness, nimbleness and adaptability, remind me a lot of Geert Hofstede's indices and cultural framework as factors that limn business relations. I wrote a few papers on the subject for school and found it to be pretty fascinating material. National character determines whether a people are risk adverse and the attitude they take in forming partnerships, but I wonder how these influences look in reverse. Does an injury to one's national security change the scales from cultural individualism towards collectivism--or vice-versa, and for entrenched ideas for power distance? Culture is more permanent, surely, than daily shocks and sputters and definitely not monolithic, but historically, I feel, one's dealings matched and were supported by their cultural totems.
