Why American Exceptionalism Is Anything But Exceptional

Through moments of turmoil and moments of triumph, there is never a shortage in this country of people, mainly politicians, reminding the world that America will always be its preeminent power.  Disturbingly enough, naysayers are often called anarchists, making it all but impossible for one who expresses concerns over America’s status as a world leader to reach elected office.  But aren’t these naysayers the ones we should be looking to most in times of crisis?  The business-as-usual, laissez-faire type attitude that the majority of electees exhume during government stalemates only add to my worry, as an American citizen.  Is being honest and expressing worry during uncertain times truly frowned upon by the public?  If we don’t admit that there is a problem to fix, what’s to stop political crises and shutdowns from becoming the norm?

Now I’m not running for office, but even if I were, I’d be invalidating the integrity behind democracy if I didn’t profess that America is no longer the preeminent power in the world, and hasn’t been for the better part of three decades.  Even making the argument that America deserves the ambiguous title of “Best in the World” is impossible given the fact that the US ranks 20^th and 24^th respectively, in OECD rankings amongst 16-24 year olds for literacy and numeracy rates.  The latter statistic ranks the US dead last in the countries included in the study, while the former puts the country in front of only Italy and Cyprus, two of the most corrupt countries included in the rankings.

Why does the US fare so poorly in youth education rankings?  Could it be our overindulgence in military spending, which earmarks dollars for camouflage rather than classrooms?  Finland, South Korea, the Netherlands, and Japan, the only countries to rank in the top-5 for both literacy and numeracy rates, maintain military budgets per capita of $683, $630, $586, and $466 respectively.  The US, on the other hand, spends a whopping $2,154 for each one of its nearly 317 million, which is just $211 per person less than the combined total of the four aforementioned countries.  We have come to prioritize bombs, drones, and tanks over books, laboratories, and libraries.  And instead of contributing to sparks in the minds of our youth, we have become consumed by creating explosions by way of bombs.  This, will most certainly contribute to our demise as a world leader, as other nations outpace us in education and technology while we prepare for the non-existent Cold War II. 

Now that we’ve established that American-bred children aren’t inherently more intelligent than their foreign counterparts, we can breathe a quick sigh of relief in acknowledging that for now the American university system is still the most highly-touted in the world.  The reason for this?  I personally believe its success can be attributed to the healthy competition between private and public universities, and the system of meritocracy that awards scholarships and incentives to the nation’s and world’s highest achievers.  While there are flaws in the system, including favoritism towards legacies, and sometimes counter-productive affirmative action policies (centered around race rather than wealth), America’s collegiate and university system remains the foremost system of higher-education in the world, with six US universities ranked in the top 10 global rankings.  The problem, thus, isn’t attracting top talent to the US, but retaining that talent.  As a byproduct of the flawed ideology behind American Exceptionalism, foreign graduates of MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale find themselves working for Samsung, Airbus, Siemens, and Toyota rather than Apple, Boeing, GE, and Ford as a direct result of outdated immigration/visa policies.  Very few American companies are willing to sponsor work visas, and those who do still find their foreign-born employees struggling to get green cards allowing them to stay in the US longer.  So while the world’s best and brightest come to US shores to take advantage of the many educational opportunities, nearly all take their newfound knowledge to their home countries after getting the boot from Uncle Sam.  Rather than contributing to American GDP, innovation, and supremacy, these foreign geniuses are forced to take their talents elsewhere in the globe, with many countries welcoming them with open arms. 

Adding to the United States’ idiotic self-obsession is its promotion of the USD as the “world’s reserve currency.”  Over 62% of foreign exchange reserves held by foreign countries are US Dollars, which in short means a boatload of US currency is sitting idle in the vaults of foreign countries, artificially inflating the value of the USD, due to countries’ high, albeit declining, demand for the currency as a reserve currency.  Modern monetary policy does little to account for this phenomenom, making it appear as if the USD is actually worth what it is currently trading it.  Due to its artificially high value, US manufacturers (the few that are left at least), find it incredibly difficult to export their products abroad.  Sure this benefits US consumers who find foreign-made products cheaper than those domestically, but it’s a major dagger in the side of any American manufacturing resurgence.  If any good comes out of the latest Capitol Hill standstill, maybe it will be that countries decide the USD is no longer stable or liquid enough to keep as a reserve currency.  I‘m sure GM and Ford would appreciate that bit of news.