Toward a U.S. Competitiveness Strategy

founding up to the Great Depression— the ability of U.S.-based businesses to compete in global markets was central to American economic policy and political platforms. However, that has not been the case since Franklin Roosevelt was president. The reasons include the primacy of geopolitical concerns; the lack of industrial competitors in the aftermath of World War II; the development of Keynesian economics, which focuses on the economic cycle rather than on structure; consistent positive trade balances up to the early 1970s; and political conservatives’ general antipathy, from the 1980s forward, toward activist policies designed to advance national competitiveness— think Reagan’s disparagement of “industrial policy”.