This post is based on conversations I had on Tumblr and Mastodon yesterday.

Kyla Scanlon is an insightful writer about societal issues from a fresh perspective — Generation Z. She recently appeared on the Ezra Klein Show podcast, in an episode titled, “How the Attention Economy Is Devouring Gen Z — and the Rest of Us. She expands on that theme in her newsletter, in a post entitled: From Dollar Dominance to the Slop Machine

One of the themes Scanlon raises stays with me. It appeals to me a great deal as a Grand Unified Theory of a lot of what’s wrong with the U.S. economy, and perhaps the whole West.

The U.S. is focused on extracting wealth – tearing down – and China is focused on building.

The U.S.’s focus on wealth extraction rather than value creation means all activity is measured as a revenue opportunity. We can’t build affordable housing because families' wealth is tied up in their homes. Initiatives in healthcare, education and the food chain are all measured against their ability to generate revenue. Artificial intelligence extracts the works of millions of creative people and sends the revenue to a few Silicon Valley billionaires. Short-term financial thinking locks us into fossil fuels – though wind and solar are generating wealth and jobs, much of that financial value doesn’t exist yet. And that’s not the point of wind and solar anyway – the point is to avoid burning down the planet.

People are desperate to keep from falling behind economically, and therefore don’t think about long-term threats like Long Covid and climate change.

As a friend pointed out a few years ago: If James Bond went up against a supervillain in real life, the local community would rally around the supervillian. He’s a job creator! Look at how many henchman and crony positions he’s created!

We can’t even enjoy our hobbies anymore without pressure to make money off of them. Why have a hobby when you can have a side-hustle!

Meanwhile, China is building cities, electric cars, solar power and educating engineers and scientists.

This ties in with writing by two bloggers I follow closely, particularly Ian Welsh and also Chris Arnade.

China’s leadership has done terrible things. But they’re pulling ahead of the U.S. because they are investing in the future. They serve the future of China and all its people for the long term. Meanwhile, our leaders are dismantling American greatness and selling it, like the gangsters in “Goodfellas” or “The Sopranos” busting out a business.

The U.S. is becoming a nation of TikTok celebrities, grifters and crypto scammers. Our leaders serve the superrich and have no plans for the future.

But the U.S. slide is not inevitable. We have plenty of smart people here who are working and building, and plenty more eager to join them.

We need elected officials who think about the long term for their communities, the state, U.S. and world. Who think beyond the nexxt election and who work for all the people, not just the super-rich and white people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War.

We’ve probably lost a generation of time. But (paraphrasing a popular saying): When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, the thing to do is stop digging and start climbing.