November/December 2012

In light of the killing of the U.S. ambassador, it’s tempting to be pessimistic about Libya. But just a year after the fall of a long-standing tyrant, the country is moving on and has peacefully elected a new government. As it turns out, building a functioning state from scratch can be a good thing.

In recent decades, the world has been rocked by revolutions in the digitization of computation and communication. Now the physical world is being digitized, thanks to new technologies that can turn data into things and things into data. Digital fabrication will let people build custom home furniture, living organs out of cells, and drones that can fly out of a printer; science fiction is becoming industrial fact.

The Obama administration has responded to Chinese assertiveness by reinforcing U.S. military and diplomatic links to the Asia-Pacific, to much acclaim at home and in the region. But the “pivot” is based on a serious misreading of its target. China remains far weaker than the United States and is deeply insecure. To make Beijing more cooperative, Washington should work to assuage China’s anxieties, not exploit them.

Equality of opportunity has long been an American ideal, and the expansion of opportunity to women and minorities in the last half century has been a major success. But other obstacles to advancement remain, and recently, socioeconomic inequality has actually increased. The United States now has less social mobility than more other wealthy nations; it can and must catch up by following their lead.