Editor's Notes: We Cannot Tackle Our Problems One at a Time
The structural problems that America faces today are a tightly bound knot.
It’s easy for talk about policy or even institutional reform to get siloed. But much as I disdain the buzzword “polycrisis,” the structural problems that America faces today are a tightly bound knot. It’s not impossible to make things better with the one-at-a-time approach, but more meaningful change will require work on multiple fronts.
In his contribution to The Reconstruction Papers, Secretary of Defense Rock argues for a return to FDR’s notion of America as the “arsenal of democracy.” This is not the whole of Rock’s vision for military policy, but it’s an important part. One thing he recognizes explicitly is that military policy is not siloed from domestic policy; manufacturing capacity is manufacturing capacity.
In America, a big part of what has drastically reduced our manufacturing capacity is our trade policy. Since Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system, we’ve run large and persistent trade deficits, meaning we import more stuff than we export. And part of the reason for this is the monetary arrangement that has prevailed in that period, with all international trade denominated primarily in dollars. Everyone has an incentive to have a lot of dollars in order to facilitate international trade, and they get more dollars by selling stuff to Americans.
Fixing our manufacturing capacity requires addressing our trade imbalances, a steep challenge given the demand for dollars. Steve Randy Waldman’s essay tells us exactly how to meet that challenge. …
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