Ben Stein on Ruining American Enterprise
Steve Mushero pointed out an article from the 85th Anniversary issue of Forbes where Benjamin J. Stein offers a tongue-in-cheek set of suggestions to America's government called How to Ruin American Enterprise. This article articulates 12 relatively recent political and cultural developments that have had chilling effects on the productive capacity of American Business.
As a casual observer of what makes this country work and what stops it cold, I hereby offer a few suggestions on how we can ruin American competitiveness and innovation in the course of this century. I think the reader will agree with me that we are already far down the road on many of them....
Stein clearly believes that these developments combine to make our country less productive. But, he apparently also feels that many of the trends he articulates can be halted or reversed if sufficient political will is brought to bare on them.