Why These Pessimistic HBS Profs Are Optimistic

Study co-authors Jan Rivkin, left, and Michael Porter

CONTRASTS & COMPARISONS

The Harvard report includes some clear differences in responses by alumni, who were surveyed between May 3 and June 6, and members of the general public, who were polled between June 10 and 26. In particular, Rivkin says, there are some meaningful contrasts in the assessment of U.S. strengths and weaknesses.

“They agree on the relative strengths and weaknesses,” he says, “but the public had a lot harder time seeing the strengths than the alums do. And that makes sense — the alums are far more likely to be exposed to many of those strengths than everyday Americans would be. Our alums see the vibrancy of our capital markets, for example, and that doesn’t happen a lot for most members of the general public.”

That kind of unfamiliarity with the issues permeated feedback from the public on a host of federal policy proposals and proposed system reforms such as gerrymandering reform, campaign finance reform, and term limits, Rivkin adds — so that there are “a lot more members of the general public who just don’t know. I think our public discourse has left a lot of people confused.”

What respondents — the alums, at least — were not confused about: their low opinion of the two main political parties, including each respondent’s own chosen party. Rivkin and his co-authors asked the alums whether the actions of the Republican Party and the actions of the Democratic Party are supporting or obstructing growth and competitiveness in America, “and among Democrats, only a minority believe the actions of their own party are supporting U.S. growth and competitiveness,” he says. “Among Republicans, only a minority believe the actions of their party are supporting U.S. growth and competitiveness.”

LEGIONS OF PROBLEM-SOLVERS 

Saying he’s too humble to offer practical solutions — there’s no “silver bullet,” he says — Rivkin adds, “My thinking is, if we can just get out of our way on certain things on which we actually agree, the sky’s the limit.”

Even as the country is mired in a downward spiral of polarization tamping down growth and the weak economy fueling further political divisiveness, Rivkin offers another serving of optimism. America, he says, retains strengths that any country would love to have. He points to a chart in the Harvard report that shows “incredible strengths: entrepreneurship and innovation, strong research universities, high-quality front management, vibrant capital markets … these are strengths that take generations to develop and they are strengths that are key to the future.

“We need research universities to produce great ideas and great innovations, we need entrepreneurs to bring those ideas to market, we need capital markets and high-quality management to scale up those innovations. There’s a reason that we see the great companies of the 21st century born and bred in the U.S., the concentration of Googles and Facebooks and Apples here,” Rivkin says. “I don’t want to discount the Alibabas around the world, but I think any other country would love to have the degree of innovation and entrepreneurship we’ve got in our economy.”

Which brings Rivkin back to the legions of brilliant young minds sparking that innovation and looking to make the world better. At Harvard and elsewhere, he says, the outlook for solving the most intractable dilemmas is good because of the quality of students dedicated to solving them. “They absolutely come alive around this topic — what is the role of business in our society? And that might be the number-one reason for optimism right there.

“Every year I get a year older but the students stay the same age, and I have seen a marked increase over the years in how committed our students are to helping solve some of society’s toughest problems.”