ur emerging understanding of the 1990s requires that we admit, to ourselves and to the world, that we were engaged in a misguided attempt to achieve growth on the cheap.
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We are still so well off that we may not suffer immediately from this diminution in our wealth, but the consequences are already becoming clear: a loss of confidence not only in markets, and especially the stock market, but in government; a suspicion that the system is rigged to be an insider's game; a blow to America's moral leadership abroad. The attack on American-style globalization may be driven by Luddites and protectionists—but it is fed by a perception of American hypocrisy and the unfairness of the new global regime.