Creativity

One of the most significant trends in the US economy over the past two decades is globalization, the interdependence of economies around the globe. Because of economic development in countries like China and India, and inexpensive telecommunications, it is increasingly possible for many jobs – especially middle class jobs – to be done less expensively overseas.

Corporations move jobs overseas to reduce costs and maintain profits, as well as to be close to their new customers. This is good for corporations and their existing shareholders, but what about the rest of America? Even though a majority of American families own at least a few shares of stock, only a very tiny fraction own enough stock to make a living on the profits. The rest of us need jobs.

Without an active industrial policy to maintain the competitive advantage of our workforce, the equalizing effect of global competition will give us the same standard of living as India, and the same caste system. This is not what we mean by Freedom. Corporations increasingly don't care whether labor comes from the USA or China, but Americans do care. Someone has to look out for the competitiveness of the American worker, and that would be the Democratic Party.

The American workforce is not the low-cost producer of goods and services, and never will be. But we are the high-value producer, the maker of the truly new things that create new industries, that the world wants to buy. We are the world's creative engine.

Fundamental to our future are the thousands of new small businesses started by entrepreneurs with great ideas. Federal, state, and local policies toward business should be very friendly toward new business formation by individual entrepreneurs risking their own capital and ideas. We need to grease the skids of innovation, make it as easy as possible for a creative person to leave the safety of a steady job for the chance of entrepreneurial success.

A creative economy requires an abundance of basic research in government and university settings, that can then serve a constant flow of new products and services. We're not talking about GE finding a more efficient light bulb; what we need is research with higher economic risk than a corporation can undertake, with a higher potential payoff. As soon as China or India learn to commoditize one of our inventions, we need to be ready to move on to the next one, not wait in a recession and jobless recovery for the next great idea to come along.

Education has a fundamental role in the US creative advantage. It is of the highest strategic importance that our universities remain the best in the world, that students from every background arrive in college fully prepared, and that the affordability of college is not a barrier to advancement. Increasingly, college education is the ticket to the middle class.

In suburbs full of children, one of the best messages we can project is hope for their future. We expect our children to be well-educated, but will that keep their jobs from being shipped to India? Being the creative engine of the world is what gives them hope.

Political themes: Corporations don't care where their workers live, but Americans do. We are the world's high-value producer, its creative engine. Importance of entrepreneurship and a constant flow of new ideas. Education as the ticket to the middle class. Democrats are the best hope for our children's economic future.