This is an attempt to understand why the United States began its descent into a mediocracy from a meritocracy. This article was inspired by a series of conversations over a period of time between my husband and me based on collective intergenerational experiences across a cross-section of people. I would also like to just say that this is in no way an attempt to undermine the success of immigrants, but more of an academic exercise to understand the joint impact of corporate greed and immigration patterns on the state of innovation in the US.
On the principle of collegiality and individual contribution to society at large
The principle on which the US was founded is this: The individual citizen is the basic building block of the country, and the quality of the individual dictates the future of the country (Teddy Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic, Sorbonne, France, 1910). The average citizen must be a good citizen for the republic to succeed. Therefore, every effort was made to ensure that a citizen could fulfill oneโs full potential. This freedom to pursue oneโs dreams was naturally predicated by the foundation of a relatively stable society where the basic necessities of life were well taken care of. While this respect for the individual citizen was of paramount importance, the same was also counter-balanced by the Protestant Christian principle of collegiality, which ensured that while individual citizens worked towards a better life, they also by and large pursued activities that could ensure the larger good of their society as well.
While the first wave of immigrants all came from western societies that shared similar principles, the latest wave of immigrants have come from countries where the individual citizen is almost incidental and the quality of the rulers is paramount. Extreme examples of such countries are Singapore and China. India too belongs to such a type of a governmental system, where ultimately only the top few matter, to steer the country down the right path. These new immigrants naturally do not relate to the original social contract that formed the basis of the United States.
Capitalism and the destruction of the family unit Continue reading On immigration, innovation and the American conundrum